Uganda: Teaching English

Laura Leach ‘95 is working as a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda. She is sending regular updates to KWConnect about her experiences in Africa. Click here to read her story from the beginning.
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Work was another challenge for me out in the village.  I was supposed to be spending time learning about the work at the advice centers, but one counselor at the center was hardly ever around. She was from Tororo town, and apparently village life wasn’t for her either. The other counselor would leave me behind at the center while she went out on case handling. I read quite a few books those first few weeks out in the village.

Soon a solution presented itself. The school Greg was volunteering at didn’t have an English teacher and wanted to know if I would be interested. I went to James Ochola Memorial Secondary School  (JOMSS) the very next day, introduced myself, and informed them that I had never taught in my life, had absolutely no training, and would be delighted to try to teach the kids if they still wanted me. That first term, I taught all four grades, S1-S4.

It was a huge challenge to say the least. I’m not sure what the children learn regarding English in the primary schools, but it isn’t punctuation, parts of speech, grammar, writing or reading. I bought a local grammar book during a visit in Kampala to help me come up with lessons. There weren’t books for the students to use, so the only information they received was what I put on the board.

Another challenge I had besides not knowing what to teach was discipline. Caning children is supposed to be illegal here, but it definitely goes on. I think the children were excited to have two white teachers visiting them. JOMSS is a government school with very few resources, but it was definitely a status booster to have two teachers (and I use that term loosely regarding myself) from the U.S.

I think this excitement coupled with the fact that they knew neither of us would cane them, and also my own inexperience in the classroom, led to challenges with discipline. Classes were also huge, with over 60 kids each in the S1 and S2 classes. I survived the first term somehow and agreed to teach for a second term but only to S2 and S3.

At the end of the school year, S4 students have to take a national exam, and those scores determine whether they would go on to S5 or not. I felt like the S4 students needed a Ugandan who was familiar with the exam to prepare them. As far as S1 goes, there were just far too many students and they were far too undisciplined for me to continue teaching that class.

Something else was happening too…I finally found work with my host organization.