Madagascar Diaries Number Two - TEACHING!

I somewhat naively thought that my time as a teacher in Paris was stressful, that the kids were badly behaved and that there needed to be more support. All of this went straight out of the window after my first week teaching in Madagascar. I was surprised to learn on day one that there wasn’t a paid adult member of staff running the teaching program (as there was with marine conservation and forest conservation). This led to various issues as you can imagine. 

There were two lovely interns (volunteers who’d stayed on longer and become staff) Julia and Mackenzie who did all they could to keep things running as smoothly as possible. However, they both left during my time there, leaving one newer intern in charge of the whole program. I feel like this is a massive oversight by MRCI (the organisation I was working for out there). The absence of a co-ordinator led to a lack of leadership and a general problem with continuity, as each intern brought their own ideas and approach. I’m hoping in the next few months they realise the need to have a TEFL trained, experienced teacher in charge of the program, otherwise I worry about its future.

In my first week or so we were taught basic Malagasy, classroom commands and the verbs we would need to communicate. I’d like to think that I picked up quite a lot, but it was not enough! There were many frustrating times where I was trying to discipline unruly children, either by myself or with a friend (there was never a Malagasy teacher in the room with you), and quite frankly ‘be quiet’, ‘listen’ and ‘sit down’ are not enough. 

In order to explain part way what the situation was like, imagine a substitute teacher coming in to teach French but that was they only language they spoke plus 20 words of English. You would just take the p**s, and this is what happened quite a lot in the children’s classes. It made me want to cry with frustration sometimes. How can you be expected to teach with such a profound language barrier?

Of course it improved slightly over the 8 weeks I was there, and there were some children’s classes that went really, really well and I left feeling a great sense of achievement. But on the whole, I have to admit I didn’t enjoy teaching the kids classes of which there were five: one in the bigger town of Nosy Be, Hellville, one in the village of Andrekareka Hely, two in the village of Ampangorina and one in a school called Banana. Each one was just as crazy and hard to control as the other, and it made me realise I would be rubbish as a Primary School teacher.

The adults’ classes however, were amazing! There were five adult classes too, in the pretty much the same locations as the children’s. Adults came to classes voluntarily which made a world of difference: they were interested, they asked questions about grammar and colloquialisms, and their progress in two months was an absolute pleasure to see. 

My favourite class was at a museum called CNRO, there was a mixture of beginners and more advanced students, never more than eight people, and they were all lovely! We read articles in magazines, learned song lyrics, focused on idiomatic phrases and of course lots of grammar. These classes made me realise how little I actually know about grammar and tenses in particular, I still struggle with the difference between ‘I watched tv’, ‘I have watched tv’ and ‘I was watching tv’! All I know is that they’re in the past! Think I need a TEFL course.

 

I think that’s everything on teaching! If anyone has any questions let me know!

Thank you so much for reading

Han xxx

Madagascar Diaries - Number One

The first picture I took! Stunning.

Hi everyone, I’m back!

I’m gutted I wasn’t able to update every week while I was in Nosy Komba, but to be honest, the Wi-Fi on such a tiny African island wasn’t quite strong enough. So, I’ve decided to write three posts about my time there, which are as much about preserving the amazing memories I made as they are about telling you guys about my time in the beautiful Madagascar. 

Madagascar is such an amazing country, but it isn’t very well known, most people have seen the film starring Chris Rock and Ben Stiller but there is a lot more to it than spotting King Julian (though I did see my fair share of lemurs). It was a French colony up until 1960, and in fact the country’s Independence Day was celebrated the day I landed back in England (26^th June) so I just missed it! The French influence is still very much apparent; mainly through the language, which is spoken by a large proportion of the population but also it’s easy to find lots of baguettes, croissants and good coffee. 

Malagasy still remains the principle language of Madagascar however, there are many dialects which vary based on the region. I was in the northern tip of the island and everyone spoke Sakalava Malagasy. It is such an interesting language and I thoroughly enjoyed learning it. I keep randomly blurting words out in an effort to preserve the vocabulary, as sadly there’s not much demand for Malagasy here in Bristol. If you’re interested here is some of the basics:

Hello: Mbola tsara
Goodbye: Veloma
Please: Azafady
Thank you: Misoatra
What’s up?: Ino vovo
Not much: tsis vovo

The sunsets in Madagascar are breath-taking

The people of Nosy Komba are incredibly friendly and you are expected to say hello to everyone you see on your walk through the local villages, this is followed by a short exchange of ‘ino vovo? Tsis vovo. Ino mareska? Tsis mareska?’ (which is basically asking 'what's up?' twice). It was so lovely being able to wander around Ampangorina or the other villages and interact with the locals. I miss the friendliness as it’s certainly not the same back home.

The motto of the country is ‘mora, mora’ which literally translates to slowly, slowly, and this is abundantly apparent in the day to day life. Everything is very laid back: boats from Nosy Be to Nosy Komba often run an hour late, without anyone so much as batting an eyelid. This style of life was a big change from the bustle of Paris but after a few weeks I got used to it, even if sometimes on the boat I shouted ‘malaky laky’ which means quickly, quickly!

This is Nosy Komba and you can just see camp hidden in the trees!!

For anyone who didn’t see the photos I uploaded during my time there, the country is absolutely stunning. Nosy Komba is a tiny volcanic island with no roads, so I hiked through the forest and climbed over rocks to get to my classes. We had to check the tides before we started our commute to work, and let me tell you, walking in high tide is not an easy task! I was incredibly lucky with the weather while I was there, it was boiling hot everyday with some rain at night. My tan is already fading though!!

Next post will be about teaching and the trips I went on!
Thanks for reading
Han xxx