On Saturday, I finally taught for the first time. I joined the high school students who are part of the Access Microscholarship Program in Harar for a lesson on cell phone culture in America, Ethiopia, and around the world. Around 8am, I took the free shuttle bus from Haramaya Main Campus to Harar. It was nice to see some familiar faces on the bus; the students who ride the bus remembered me from two weeks ago. We chatted the whole way there which made the 40-minute commute go by quickly!
We arrived at the Harar Technical & Vocational College shortly before 9am (when the class starts), so I had a few minutes to prepare. Let me first say that resources here are scarce. Although this is a college campus, the rooms are equipped with nothing besides old desks, chairs, and either a blackboard or a whiteboard. Teaching at St. Cloud State University the past two years spoiled me with having a "smart classroom" setup. Every room that I taught in at SCSU had at least one computer, a digital projector, a screen, a VCR, a DVD player, multiple whiteboards, markers, erasers, and one main touch-screen system that controlled everything. Luckily, I remembered to bring my own whiteboard marker or I wouldn't have even been able to write anything for the class to see!
For my lesson, I started by showing the students my cell phone and asking them what it was. I was hoping to garner responses of the various words for "cell phone" in the local languages (Afaan Oromoo, Amharic, Harari). The students shared about 3 or 4 words for cell phone. I briefly introduced the topic and passed out an article (that I had made photocopies of in advance) to each student. They were given about 10 minutes to read the article individually and were asked to circle or underline any words that they were unfamiliar with. Here is the article which I modified from CNN.com:
We arrived at the Harar Technical & Vocational College shortly before 9am (when the class starts), so I had a few minutes to prepare. Let me first say that resources here are scarce. Although this is a college campus, the rooms are equipped with nothing besides old desks, chairs, and either a blackboard or a whiteboard. Teaching at St. Cloud State University the past two years spoiled me with having a "smart classroom" setup. Every room that I taught in at SCSU had at least one computer, a digital projector, a screen, a VCR, a DVD player, multiple whiteboards, markers, erasers, and one main touch-screen system that controlled everything. Luckily, I remembered to bring my own whiteboard marker or I wouldn't have even been able to write anything for the class to see!
For my lesson, I started by showing the students my cell phone and asking them what it was. I was hoping to garner responses of the various words for "cell phone" in the local languages (Afaan Oromoo, Amharic, Harari). The students shared about 3 or 4 words for cell phone. I briefly introduced the topic and passed out an article (that I had made photocopies of in advance) to each student. They were given about 10 minutes to read the article individually and were asked to circle or underline any words that they were unfamiliar with. Here is the article which I modified from CNN.com:
After the students were finished reading, I read the article to them so that they could hear the correct pronunciation. We discussed the meaning of about 10-15 words that were unfamiliar or unclear (three quarters, inhabitants, starkly, etiquette, nuisance, commuters, barrage, flustered, impose, depicting, split-second, discreetly, dysfunctional). Then I asked the students to work in small groups with people sitting near them (about 3-5 people per group) to answer the following discussion questions:
1. How do Japanese people use cell phones differently from other cultural groups?
2. What about Spanish people? Describe their cell phone culture.
3. What is American cell phone culture like?
4. What is “flashing”? Why do people do this?
5. How would you describe Ethiopian cell phone culture?
6. How important is a cell phone in your life? Why?
We discussed some of their answers as a whole group (there are supposed to be 75 students, but I think we had around 50 or so). I learned that Ethiopians use cell phones almost everywhere except in schools, churches, or mosques - more similar to the Spanish and Italians we read about in the article. I also learned that most Ethiopians send text messages in English or a Romanized version of Amharic rather than dealing with the complicated Ge'ez/Abugida script.
The next activity we did was meant to teach the "text message language" that many Americans use. Each student got a copy of the worksheet below and was asked to fill out as many acronyms or abbreviations that he or she was familiar with. As a class, we talked about "How R U?" as an example. Surprisingly, the students knew quite a few of the answers! Sometimes they knew the meaning, but not the actual words. For example, many students knew that "LOL" meant to laugh, but they guessed that it stood for "Laugh on Long" instead of "Laugh out Loud".
1. How do Japanese people use cell phones differently from other cultural groups?
2. What about Spanish people? Describe their cell phone culture.
3. What is American cell phone culture like?
4. What is “flashing”? Why do people do this?
5. How would you describe Ethiopian cell phone culture?
6. How important is a cell phone in your life? Why?
We discussed some of their answers as a whole group (there are supposed to be 75 students, but I think we had around 50 or so). I learned that Ethiopians use cell phones almost everywhere except in schools, churches, or mosques - more similar to the Spanish and Italians we read about in the article. I also learned that most Ethiopians send text messages in English or a Romanized version of Amharic rather than dealing with the complicated Ge'ez/Abugida script.
The next activity we did was meant to teach the "text message language" that many Americans use. Each student got a copy of the worksheet below and was asked to fill out as many acronyms or abbreviations that he or she was familiar with. As a class, we talked about "How R U?" as an example. Surprisingly, the students knew quite a few of the answers! Sometimes they knew the meaning, but not the actual words. For example, many students knew that "LOL" meant to laugh, but they guessed that it stood for "Laugh on Long" instead of "Laugh out Loud".
Overall, I think the lesson went well. After I taught for about 90 minutes, the students had a 20-minute break. During the break, several students told me that they really liked the lesson and wanted to continue the same topic next time!