We are winding up our two-weeks of English training for elementary teachers in Rwanda. What a whirlwind, these past two weeks. Amazing people, amazing experiences. 

Months ago, more than half a year ago, Eric contacted me. He owns a language school in Madrid. He thought I might be interested in putting together a program with him to teach English in Rwanda. I was interested. It sounded like a challenge, it smelled of adventure. He wanted to adapt a curriculum I had created in 2002, for a summer camp teaching secondary students at an IBM training center outside of Milan, Italy. 

We talked possibilities and went back and forth a bit with the other organizations involved. Over the last months Eric would occasionally SMS me: “50%?!” he’d write, meaning he thought there was perhaps a one-to-one chance that we’d actually be able to put this all together. Eventually he did everything needed to make it work, getting a team of a dozen people to Rwanda for two weeks of programming and some additional days of staff orientation and training beforehand. I don’t even want to think about the amount of work that was for him.

Eric left me the fun stuff, the thing I really enjoy about creating new programs: innovation, creativity, getting the puzzle pieces to fit together. We reworked and re-reworked the simulation started in 2002, which had been through a number of iterations since then in summer camps in Brazil and Switzerland. We made a program for adults out of a program formerly for kids, a program for Rwandan teachers instead of Italian, Swiss, and French students. 

We built in flexible 30 minute classes in the morning, a traditional schedule filled with interactive activities. We did not use a textbook or worksheets, nothing of the sort. Nor any scope and sequence. Just activities planned in two day increments, as we got to know our participating teachers.

And in the afternoon we created a simulated city. There were organizations for sports and games, the arts, businesses, science and leadership, and the media. They worked independently at the beginning of the program, but by the second week they were moving from group to group to collaborate on projects, nudged a bit by us trainers in order to create some manageable collaboration – opportunities to talk with each other, within the simulation, in English. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First I want to highlight some of the extraordinary moments in the morning classes.  

Jack and Erik

Teachers filter in as one of the trainers, Jack, begins by reviewing a song, slowly, while he strums the guitar. He’s jumping right into the lesson, using the time that’s available with the teachers who have arrived first. No one is missing anything that will trip them up later. And the atmosphere! There’s nothing like singing “What a Wonderful World,” slowly, with a group of adults.

The classroom looks like the other classrooms I’ve seen here in Rwanda. Cement floor, open windows, a door that leads out onto the second floor balcony, and wooden and metal desks and benches. On the blackboard are some song lyrics, some vocabulary from previous lessons. Thank goodness for the breeze, blowing the dry air across the room. It’s really quite pleasant before it heats up. The trainers, Jack and his teaching partner, Erik, are here for two weeks. The teachers coming to the training are all elementary teachers who teach in their non-native English. They are practicing English together.

The last student comes in as the trainer sets up the first activity. Good timing. No one has missed a thing, the song lingers in the air. The trainer asks the teachers to turn to each other in pairs. A quick role play: one teacher is conducting an interview with the other teacher, who is playing the role of a famous soccer player. They smile, perhaps a little unsure at first. One pair sits quietly watching the others. They haven’t been active in this particular role play, but they were at least observing their colleagues interact. Perhaps next time they’ll join in. Besides, the activity was just a warm up, a couple of minutes.

Jack is at the other end of the room now, at the other blackboard. On the board he has some of the hardest sounds to pronounce in Kinyarwanda. L’s and R’s are not easy when Kinyarwandan is your native language, English second. It’s amazing that just one misplaced sound, an L substituted for an R, for example, trip up the native English speaking trainers. 

This, too, is a quick lesson. Everyone practices L and R, looking at the pictures the trainer has drawn. They are human mouths, from the side, with lots of teeth, showing the position of the tongue for an English L and an English R. They look like the side view of a pair of Tyrannosaurus Rex with speech bubbles. In one speech bubble is L. In the other, R. The teachers practice the sounds before the trainer hands off the lesson to his partner, Erik, on the other side of the room. The teachers shift on their wooden benches to look in the opposite direction. They are moving quickly, the trainers; the teachers hardly have little opportunity not to be involved.

As a class, two lists of words grow on the board. One list is full of words with the L sound: black, blood, slow, fly, flower … The other list has words like drive, drummer, try, break, and brain. All words the teachers themselves suggested. And then things take off. Jack starts a vamp on the guitar, using two bar chords and lots of rhythm. Erik calls out a word, the teachers respond loudly. It’s a song that makes no sense, words set to music, though no particular meaning emerges. My head is bobbing along, I see feet tapping the beat. Jack feels it, too, and switches, for a time, to beating out a rhythm on the face of the guitar. Erik keeps calling out the words.

Amazing. Invented on the fly, using just a guitar, blackboard, and some chalk. Uplifting, stomping good, rhythmic, happy. 

Time is running out. Erik asks the teachers to make a tight circle around him. Jack goes around once giving high fives. Erik explains the rules of a game – they are easy. The person in the middle says one thing that is true for them. If it is true for any of the other teachers as well, they switch places in the circle. Erik gives an example: “I like my students.” Everyone changes places. (Whew!)

The first volunteer to lead doesn’t get the rules quite right, but leads everyone in a clapping exercise instead. That’s OK, Erik doesn’t miss a beat, he thanks the teacher and no one changes places, no big deal. The next teacher gets it right and now they are all in the groove. “I like to sit down,” says one. Most of them move. “I have three arms,” says another teacher. Not surprisingly, no one moves.

And then the sentence that Jack and Erik absolutely deserve for their planning, ease of instruction, musicality, and kindness: “I like this training!”

Everyone switched positions.