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Literacy Teaching
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The Work:
This placement requires dedication and stamina. This is an all encompassing placement where you will be fully involved and most probably leading a kindergarten teaching team. There is a lot of responsibility and effort required to work on these projects. Every single day your Ghanaian colleagues will look to you to lead and direct them; you need to train them to give them the skills they need to ‘survive’ without you, by the time you leave the project. It’s a challenge, and can be difficult at times, but always volunteers find the rewards and achievements outweigh the occasional cultural misunderstanding.
If you are thinking of taking a sabbatical this is a worthwhile project in which to invest your time and energy. The project is research driven and is very much needed to help the education and economic development of the village people. Your time will be valued and appreciated, and will last with your training and sustainability protocols that you leave behind.
It is vital to keep clear records; test results for children, attainments levels reached with ability indicators that the next volunteer can follow. An end of school term literacy report needs to be filed for Sabre Charitable Trust and for the KEEA District Education Director.
You will work in school from Monday to Friday. Days start with an early breakfast at the community guesthouse before school starts at about 8am. All volunteers will assist in the kindergarten school for morning lessons that start at around 8.30am. The morning is interspersed with breaks and school closes at 1pm whereupon you will have a short break for lunch back at the guesthouse.
There are a great many resources (donated by a variety of English schools) that are under-utilised by the community teachers – they are there to be used and part of your role will be to encourage the teachers to incorporate them into lessons. Full education programmes, class subjects and help from the local teachers are provided.
With class sizes so large, there are many children who find it difficult to keep up, so you will take smaller groups of children, helping them with the work in hand, whilst the teachers can continue with normal class. You will do most of the teaching, obviously aided by the formal teacher, existing volunteers and a project manager. The teachers in the Kindergarten are unqualified community funded teachers while the staff in the Primary and Secondary school are qualified and paid by the government.
A TEFL course is recommended before coming out, though is not a requirement.
As far as your expectations are concerned, don’t expect to work miracles in weeks. Numerous volunteers set their expectations far too high and then become disenchanted when their results fall drastically short. Be realistic. Having said that, you will find that the enthusiasm for learning, sharp curiosity and inherent willingness of the students to be an inspiration.
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