"So You Think You Can Teach?" 现在说，在中国

Round Two:

Congratulations, you have made it through Round One of, “So You Think You Can Teach?: Rwanda.”  Good job, and really what is a little rain, thunder, lightning, and flooding to a dedicated teacher?  Child’s plays at best, as you are ready for anything Mother Nature or a day of teaching can throw your way.  You’re a trained professional for goodness sake…or are you?



Did that kid just say, "Bring it!"?



In Rwanda while every effort is made to find teachers that have at least attended Teacher Training Colleges (and here we need to think two years of extended high school), or if a school gets really lucky someone with a degree in the subject they teach, or if they get really, really lucky some one with an actual degree in education it is not always possible to do so.  It is not always possible because there just aren’t enough trained teachers to meet the demand.  There are not enough trained teachers to meet the demand in part because Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa and in part because of the government’s commendable push to make school free for every child up to grade nine. Therefore, for Round Two and all other rounds please consider that you may or may not have been trained as a teacher and are very likely the ripe old age of nineteen, twenty, or somewhere in that range.

However, entering the classroom as a young, untrained teacher is not the crux of Round Two, as you will soon see we should all be so lucky that this was Round Two's hitch.  No Round Two goes right after the very core of teaching- communication, and let me warn you this one’s going to hurt.



Hard at work!



When I first began looking at some of the possible placements with CUSO-VSO  I could see that there would be certain countries in Africa that it would not be possible for me to be placed as I did not speak French: Bukino Faso, Cameroon, Mali, and the like.  Rwanda was a member of “the like” and so places like Nigeria, Uganda, and Ghana seemed much more likely.  Therefore, I was pleased, but very surprised to see a placement offer for Rwanda, a placement offer that included a questionnaire asking me to rate my proficiency in French from 0-5.  Well, that’s easy-0. When they accepted me anyway, I was, again, surprised, but also delighted giving this language discrepancy little to no more thought.



What’s this have to do with Round Two?  Well, it turns out that in 2009 all teachers in Rwanda were required to stop teaching in Kinyarwanda and French and to start teaching in English!  Kinyarwanda the mother tongue could be used as needed, and would be taught as a subject in of itself, but the bulk of the lessons were to be in English.  The change was an attempt to move away from French for very practical reasons and to move toward English as it is the language most people in the world use to communicate with for doing business and otherwise.  



So here is Round Two…after a brief month long course you will return to your classroom and begin teaching in Chinese!  Every science, math, social studies, and language lesson is now to be taught in Chinese.  Good luck!  What?  Unfair you say?  Come on you’ve had a month of training and there is that teacher’s manual around here somewhere.  My advice to you is to get cracking as tomorrow you will be evaluated by your administrator on the quality of your lesson on the digestive system now to be taught in Chinese, and at the end of first term you will be taking a test to see whether or not you will be allowed to keep your job.



What!!!!?



Are you hanging on for dear life yet?  You should be, and may I warn you that your competition here do indeed teach daily in English, and while many lessons are sprinkled with Kinyarwanda, and many say it is the hard part of their job, they do it and do it quite well considering it is not their second language, or even remotely like their first language, Kinyarwanda.  In fact, they do it so well that they fool me and I am always surprised after a lesson how hard it is then for them to have any kind of conversation with me in English.  However, it does explain why non-French speaking volunteers such as myself are now being placed here in Rwanda, and why I am desperately trying to learn as much Kinyarwanda as my aging brain can to aid in my own daily communications. 



Well, I had best give you some time to prepare for your lesson tomorrow on Chinese prepositions.  Good luck!  Or should I say, , “好运气 Hǎo yùnqì!”

P.S. If your Chinese is still a little rusty, 现在说，在中国-translates to-Xiànzài shuō, zài zhōngguó-or in English, "Now say that in Chinese."