Pen Pal Program with Ritenour School District and Masanafu Village

I started thinking about the possibility of coordinating a penpal program between the kids here and the kids at home a few weeks ago. I thought maybe a few people would be interested, but I didn't really think that there would be SO MUCH interest. I have had 15 teachers from home indicate interest and two schools here who will be involved. So, today I headed to the primary school. My focus for today was to take pictures of all of the students and record their names. There were so, so many students everywhere. I would love to post them, but I took over 200 photos of kids today. It was mass chaos. I realized today that I can't really observe classrooms without students noticing me. Usually this involves pulling my hair, touching my skin, squeezing my arms, and yelling "mzungu" repeatedly until you wave. I struggled to take pictures of all of the students today because the kids were constantly bothering me. They are sweet, kind, and loving, but at some point, you get tired of people touching you. I can hardly wait to get the program up and running.

After refueling, we headed to the high school. Simon Peter roped me into teaching an English lesson about writing letters, so he took pictures while I taught. I've been to several primary and secondary schools with the intent to observe and I always end up teaching.

I hate writing on a chalk board and I always seem to have on dark clothes when I do. I have not seen one classroom with a white board or interactive board.

This was a senior 2 class, which is equivalent to freshman/sophomore level.

The students are so attentive and really want to improve.

 The students made clay pots in art class and so we had them pose with them.












This is the common lunch food here for students, posho and beans.

Overall, another good day. I can't wait to get started with the penpal program!!

Article for The Standard (11/1-11/10)

Full Stop or Comma?

After being here for two months, I can safely say that I have seen student writing at several levels. I have the privilege of teaching four courses this semester including: Writing and Study Skills, Methods of Teaching (Y2 and Y3), and English Curriculum and Course Design. I have seen my fair share of writing. One grammatical problem I have noticed here is that students do not understand the difference between a full stop and a comma. Although I could write about the many uses of both punctuation marks, I would like to focus on the grammatical issue of run-on sentences. Run-on sentences are two or more independent clauses that are joined together without appropriate punctuation or conjunction. An independent clause is a group of words that can stand alone (subject/verb). In many cases, commas are put in place of a full stop to incorrectly punctuate these sentences. In fact, some of my students write an entire paragraph and use only one full stop! The best way to demonstrate these errors is to use examples from student writing. These examples were taken from my methods classes, years two and three. The bolded areas in each example are where suggested full stops, commas, or conjunctions could be placed and in some cases words need to be added. Keep in mind there are many options to create a correctly written sentence.

“I feel good about my skills of developing this lesson plan and hoping to improve on the weak areas very soon when I begin to teach in class, writing a lesson plan will be easy.”

“For this case I chose to teach comprehension and this forced me to look for passages in the textbook and after how to break it down to the learners level, the method of how I am going to teach it to the learners to understand.”

“As a teacher, I randomly choose learners to take on the teacher’s role in class to explain to fellow learners what they are studying since the learner’s express themselves in the simplest way of their understanding so that other learners could easily understand easily when it’s their fellow teacher teaching them than the teacher.”

“While developing my lesson plan I got a difficulty with my time scope because I felt it was a bit less for the topic I was going to handle and I need like eighty (80) minutes to teach that topic very well.”

“The problems in delivering this lesson is shortage of materials for example books like plays, poetry and poems there is also a problem of many students in a class thus making it hard to cater for each student individually.”

In each of these examples, there are at least two or three separate independent clauses. Again, independent clauses are made to stand alone. They may also be joined with conjunctions, but as you can plainly see, students are not using these either. So, students, I implore you to check your sentences and make sure they only contain one independent clause or are punctuated correctly. If you need help, there are great resources online as well as many lecturers around to help you understand the difference between full stops and commas.

Over the next few issues, I will write a series of articles on correct comma usage.

St. Mary's Primary School and Principal High School

Today was one of those days where you come home so exhausted, but too excited to sleep. I had an amazing, amazing day. Let me start by introducing you to my friend, Simon Peter Mukisa. Peter is 30 years old with a B.A. in education and an M.A. in economic policy and planning. Simon Peter started a primary school (St. Mary's PS) as soon as he graduated and a high school in 2012 (Principal HS).

Both schools are on borrowed land and the directors are looking to build. There are about 500 students at the primary school (nursery through P7) and 60 students at the high school (senior 1-4).

I conducted a workshop for some of the teachers in this room. We discussed learning goals versus objectives and student feedback. There were several questions at the end of the session, but the main ones were about caning (corporal punishment) and how to make children behavior without caning.

 These are some of the facilities.

These are some of the students and a few of the teachers I worked with yesterday. The director of the board is in the pink shirt in the back. His name is Paul and he has over 20 years of teaching experience.

After the workshop, we headed to the new site of the primary school. It still makes me laugh that animals are everywhere with no rhyme or reason. The goats sound like kids.

 These bricks are homemade. It is quite a process.

 This is a pit where the water will drain once construction is finished.

Peter carried my backpack most of the day. People always ask to carry my backpack and I asked Peter why they do that. He told me that people can show kindness and respect by carrying your backpack so you don't have to struggle. So sweet!

This is the path we took back to the primary school. This road is a new bypass and some of the nicest roadway in the country.

The brown stack in the distance with the straw on the top is homemade bricks. They make the bricks by mixing a few ingredients and then burning them with firewood. They are white and then turn red when they are cured. It is a very cool process. You see these stacks of bricks everywhere.

I attended a farewell service for the P7 candidates. They take a test in P7, which determines where they will go for secondary school. They prepare for this test for 7 years, some more with nursery school. The exam lasts for two days and is scheduled for November 4 and 5.

These are the students in primary school.

This was the program.

This was the praise and workshop team that started the service.












These are the P7 candidates. They are listening to a message by the preacher.

This was one of the ushers. They have ushers to help everyone get seated. This is a common practice in most services. He is holding the guest book, which I signed. Most schools have this type of guest book to keep a record of visitors.

These were the MCs for the day. They were great. They conducted the service in both Luganda and English. It was awesome.

 This is a picture of the rainstorm. It was awful!

These kids were so adorable. They danced their hearts out! Notice the flat dirt and clean socks. We had a horrible rain storm (with hail) and we waited under tents. At some point, I was ushered into a room to wait out the storm. We waited for about an hour to resume the service. You will notice the mud in the next few pictures.

The P7 candidates presented gifts to their teachers.

These are the directors of the schools. The lady in the green dress (Mary Suubi) is the director of the primary school.

Notice the awful mud!

I was the guest of honor for the service, so of course, I had to give a speech. It is hard to accept the respect that people give me just because I am American. My friend Simon didn't mention that I was the guest of honor until a few days before the service. I think he knew that I would give him a hard time about it. I have such mixed feelings about being the guest of honor. I didn't do anything to earn this privilege. I didn't teach or parent the students. The real heroes of this service were the parents, teachers, and directors. They have poured their lives into these kids and have prepared them for success.

I presented the class with a card wishing them success on the exam. These students are the class representatives. Every class has class representatives that are responsible for receiving communication and passing it along to the members. We have the same thing here at the university.

This was the director's daughter, Sheena. She stayed with me all through the rainstorm. She is in P2, but she is absolutely brilliant. I didn't know that she even spoke English until she starting writing in my notebook.We were bored while waiting out the rainstorm, so I pulled my notebook and pen out of my backpack and Sheena wrote, "Name any two people who keep peace and security." Then, she wrote, "police man and arrmy men." Simply adorable!

Yummy lunch! The women cooked for an army, literally! They served me first, which again, was hard for me to accept. This happens a lot when I go to functions. It is also interesting to note that when children give you a plate of food (or fork or anything), they bow to you.

 Sheena and I in deep conversation!

 See...plates for an army!













This lady was the professional photographer and many, many people asked to take pictures with me. It was humbling.

 teachers

I love this teacher. His name is Wilberforce Mujabi and he teaches mathematics in the primary school and geography and commerce at the high school. He attended my workshop and he has such a great spirit and demeanor. He is also the director of studies at the high school.

 parents

 P7 candidates

 The director and I.

The P7 candidates receiving their blessing. I took a video of this, but having trouble uploading it because of the internet speed. It will be up soon.

 Love this girl!

 No matter how much I see this, I still can't get used to seeing people eating with their hands. I was the only one who ate with a fork. Well, Simon Peter did too, but I think he was just trying to make me feel better.


The teachers and I.

These are students from Principal High School. Most of them went through St. Mary's Primary School. I am going to teach some English classes there next semester.

Overall, I had an amazing day. This day was the reason that I came here! Awesome!