We work with primary schools in our village of Sanawari. The primary school offers education to children between 6 and 16 years old (Standard 1 to Standard 7). The size of classes vary between 60 and 120 students. We aim to support the schools by sending volunteers, donating learning materials, such as books and pens, and helping maintain the facilities. I would to invite you to volunteer in my Community.
Volunteers are given the choice of working in primary schools or secondary schools:
Volunteers in primary schools will focus primarily on improving the English of young children so that they can progress on to secondary school.
In secondary schools, in addition to improving the standard of spoken and written English, volunteers are also given more scope to teach a broad range of subjects, including maths, computer skills, and science.
This teaching programme allows volunteers to experience another culture whilst making a real difference to children’s lives in rural community schools.
Whether you choose to teach in primary or secondary schools in Tanzania, the overall aspiration of both is to improve the quality of education given to young Tanzanian children.
Primary school teaching:
Volunteers working in primary schools will focus predominately on improving each child's standard of English.
Children in primary schools usually speak very little English, so volunteers need to be able to connect with them with simple teaching methods. The overall goal being to improve the children's English abilities so that they can progress on to secondary school.
As well teaching English, volunteers in primary schools can implement other activities into the daily timetable. These activities are used to engage with the young minds in creative ways - whether it be by role-playing, arts and crafts, or taking part in stimulating learning games.
Secondary school teaching:
As is the case in primary schools, teaching English to children is a central part of the role of volunteers working in secondary schools.
Unlike primary schools, classes here tend to be smaller and lessons are taught in English.
The beauty of teaching in secondary schools is that volunteers also have more scope to find inventive ways of structuring their classes. As the children are older, volunteers are encouraged to teach more specialist subjects (i.e. geography, science, history, and maths etc) - subjects that the regular teachers may be unaccustomed to.
These specialist subjects that you choose to teach can be easily implemented into the children’s timetable.
There are also opportunities for volunteers in both primary and secondary schools to run after-school sporting activities, as well as get involved in wider community development programmes in Tanzania.
We are always looking for people who are willing to help out teaching any and all subjects for a period of at least thirty days. We always try to place volunteers into the classes you are most interested in teaching depending on availability. As a volunteer you can simply assist a teacher with his or her classroom, or if you are more motivated, you can run programs like sports, art and crafts, or anything else that the kids would enjoy! Our students truly love working with the volunteers, so be creative and they will definitely take part. At the school there are always teachers around to help you translate English to Swahili and inform you about what the students are currently studying. You are always welcome to bring reading books and materials for teaching with you.
Volunteers typically teach or assist a teacher with classes from 8am until noon, take lunch at the school (some volunteers do half days at the school). The younger children are taught basic English knowledge like colors, animals, nouns, and numbers. It is best to prepare fun games, songs and activities to help them improve these skills. With the older children, you can slowly start teaching grammar and get practicing through speaking,
Hakuna maoni:
Chapisha Maoni