The Past Week

It’s hard to believe that we are already halfway done tutoring the children. It has been a great experience thus far, with each day being more successful than the one before. All of us work with between 2 and 3 students in either grade 6 or grade 7, but we have had to tailor the curriculum to the abilities of our individual learners. This past week, we taught our learners English (Afrikaans is their first language) and quickly discovered that our learners were all at very different points in their level of understanding. Some were able to differentiate the difference between reported and directed speech, while others did not know the alphabet.

This demonstrates one of the primary problems with the South African education system. Students are passed on to the next grade without mastering the basic material appropriate for their age group because of overcrowding. For example, we learned in lecture that many classrooms in the poorer townships have just one teacher for up to 60 students. Struggling students do not receive the individual attention to successfully learn the material. We all have individual goals for our students. For example, I hope that my students will have their multiplication tables memorized and be able to correctly punctuate a paragraph. We only have two weeks total, so the best goals are small, but specific, as these offer the greatest chance of success. Although the program has offered both frustrations and tribulations, we are all excited for the opportunities to teach in the week ahead.