I’m on a bit of a high from the two-week training we just completed in Rwanda. Here is the second of six classroom observations.

Barack and Steve introduce their lesson by writing on the blackboard, in all capital letters: 

PRONUNCIATION

Their goal is to help the participants in this program, Rwandan elementary teachers, move a bit closer to native English pronunciation. We would like them to notice the difference between their current pronunciation and a more native-like version. We want to understand them and, of course, they want to be understood. Plus, they will be modeling a more understandable English variety for their own students when school restarts in a couple of weeks. Don’t mumble, these two trainers advise. Make. Sure. You. Enunciate. Speak loudly!

I can’t help but to think of a decision I made in elementary school, all those years ago. For a while, when I wasn’t sure how to spell a word, I would just make my handwriting a little ambiguous, a little messy. This was perhaps in second or third grade. I remember Jay and Tim and Mark suggesting this as a good strategy to fool the teacher. I wonder if we ever really believed we were fooling the teacher, we probably did believe it. So I made smudgy letters for a year or two. Was it “definately” or “definitely?” Make the “a” really skinny, maybe still mostly like an “a,” but with a smudgy dot over it, so it might be an “i.” Fool the teacher.

I was only fooling myself, of course, and I’m glad I quit doing that. It makes it hard to learn what is right when you do not commit to your mistakes. You’ve got to be brave enough to make the mistake, and to make it convincingly, in order to know that it is a mistake. In this way making mistakes is learning, nothing less. 

“So enunciate,” Barack advises, with exaggerated enunciation. E NUN CI ATE. And then he flashes his disarming smile, and we can only agree that enunciating is a really good idea.

Steve leaves the classroom with the teachers so that they can all find some difficult words on posters and signs that have been created during the course of the program. They are each supposed to find three words that they can add to the blackboard. What a great teaching trick: the teachers are busy, as they should be, and the trainers have a little space to collect their thoughts in order to get ready for the next step of the lesson. It also gives Barack a moment to have a conversation with one teacher who was worried about something. Whatever it was, he is able to give her an answer which helps her get back on track, ready to learn again.

With the teachers back in the room and all their words on the blackboard, they are ready to practice pronunciation now. Since they are asked to teach in English, it is important that their accents are understandable. The teachers’ native language, Kinyarwanda, has a very clear correspondence between the way it is written and the way it sounds. English, unfortunately, does not. It trips you up far too often. Rhyme is not a terribly sensible spelling of “rime,” nor does “clothes” look much like it sounds. “Stomach” is problematic when it is pronounced with a long “o” and a ch like we use in “chest.” All these exceptions must be learned by hearing these words again and again. Reading by itself won’t address these pronunciation problems.

Time is running out as the class practices “height.” “Hite!” cry the two trainers. “Hite!” cry the teachers. They are no doubt looking at the “gh” on the board. What are they there for?

Two more: “ankle” and “uncle.” The trainers know that “L” is really difficult. Mukasonga, though, has mastered getting her tongue against the back of her upper teeth. “Ankle,” she says, correctly. Steve asks the class to listen to her, to watch her, as she pronounces it again. “Ankle,” yes! “Uncle.” Yes! She is going to finish class flushed with success. So, too, are her colleagues, I hope. 

Just take it one word at a time.