The more I teach at GGYN, the more I struggle with the fact that my primary school experience was so much better than that of these kids. Of course this is unsurprising given where I live and the resources available to me, but actually interacting with these students has made real to me how much the Berenstain Bears, Madeline, and LeVar Burton really affected my life. I feel that with each day I learn more about the problems in Ghana’s education system and I notice more clearly how far behind some kids are in my class. This is especially true when it comes to reading.
All of the students at the school spend a lot of time copying words off the board, and a while ago I noticed that two boys in particular had an extremely difficult time copying letters correctly. They would often skip parts of words, join words together, or repeat phrases where they shouldn’t go. I realized that they must not know what the words or even the letters really were, but that they were just copying the shapes of what are basically meaningless symbols to them. I tried to give them individual help and encouragement, but since the rest of the class seemed to write the words much more easily, it’s hard to slow down to the pace that those two need. One of the boys is actually twelve years old, so sending them back to first grade wouldn’t be an ideal option either.
When I put words on the board now, I usually have the class spell out what’s written up there in the hopes that this would help the students that are behind to practice recognizing individual letters. Although the majority of the class can verbally spell and copy words pretty well, over the past few lessons I’ve also become increasingly aware that even these more confident kids can’t really read what they’re writing, either; they just know how to copy the letters.
These students are great at memorizing, which makes sense as it definitely seems to be the main form of learning in Ghanaian schools. Many of the kids can recognize words when they have encountered them several times before, but they don’t understand the concept of “sounding out” letters. When a new word is on the board, a student will often guess something that might share a letter or two but isn’t anything like how the letters of the words sound. For example, we were learning about animals and I wrote “chicken” on the board. I asked for someone to tell me what it said and a student shouted out “hen,” which was then everyone else’s guess. After many experiences like that I would encourage the students to “sound out” the word along with me, but I only recently realized that they don’t understand what I mean by “sound out.” I’m planning on having a couple hours tomorrow just devoted to talking about different vowel sounds, but I’ve realized how difficult it is to teach someone to read since I can barely remember not being able to myself.
One of the biggest problems that I struggle with when teaching is that these kids don’t ask for help when they don’t understand, and from what I have seen and heard, it seems like admitting confusion isn’t encouraged in Ghanaian schools. The teachers at GGYN are absolutely phenomenal: they are being paid very, VERY little to work at the school and it’s evident that they’re teaching here for the sake of these kids. The usual methods of teaching here that I’ve seen (lots of memorization, copying from the board and few or no hands-on activities) are probably both the result of a lack of resources and an established form of teaching that’s practiced around the country. Even the university where I’m taking classes supports my assumption that this is how most schools here operates: my standard university classes are huge lectures where students just write what the professor says and where tests are just reciting that information back. Even my fourth-year level English class makes me feel like I’m re-learning to write a book report. Don’t get me wrong – I have definitely learned much more in Ghana than I would have at one semester at Georgetown and I do have classes run through my program that have been challenging and meaningful. However, it’s discouraging to see that upper level classes at the best university in West Africa are definitely less thought provoking than some classes that I took in high school.
I think that my students’ struggle with reading is also partly the result of them learning to read in English. Although these students speak Ewe or Twi at home, I doubt that a single one could write in those languages, as they certainly haven’t learned it at school. Schools in Ghana are taught in English, which has been the country’s national language since it declared independence from Britain in 1957. My friend Karen is a high school student here who’s going to school thanks to money from donors that Mollishmael organized, and when I asked her about learning to read and write in Twi, she said that she was taught it as a second language just like I’m being taught now, even though she already spoke it fluently.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to learn in a language other than that which I think and conceptualize in. I guess it does make sense, then, that students rely so much on memorization when they’re learning in English. In my Development Studies class we’ve discussed how only learning to read in English must stifle reading for fun, which is something that apparently is a rarity in Ghana (of course this is also a result of not having the money to buy fun books). On a more positive note, it’s amazing how these kids and all people in Ghana can speak so many different languages. I’m sure that most of my students are proficient or fluent in at least three languages, and I know a lot of people here who speak more. That’s a form of intelligence that I don’t think I’ll ever reach.
Now that I’ve thrown out one positive note, I want to apologize for having a post that’s such a downer. As hard as it is, I’m gaining so much from this experience and I absolutely love the time that I spend at the school. I’ve also seen those two boys and other students improving, and that is so encouraging. I’ve been asking people who have had experience or have studied teaching for advice, but if anyone reading this could offer any help (maybe on how to teach reading?) it would be greatly appreciated!
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