So far, this has been a week of preparations. The university officially announced the start dates of the school year on television and the local radio (it's strange to think that these things aren't set in stone months or even years in advance like they are in the US). The first students will arrive this Sunday, October 6th. Class registration will be on Monday and Tuesday and classes will begin on Wednesday, October 9th. This schedule is for returning students though; first-year students will arrive and start classes a week or two after that.
I will be teaching two courses this semester: Intermediate Writing and Spoken English I. The writing class should start on Wednesday since it is for second-year students. I am not sure yet when the speaking class will start because it is for first-year students. As for my teaching schedule, I was told that it is very flexible. There are "official" class times on the registration materials, but you can talk to your students and arrange to re-schedule as you so desire. If you want to finish your class early in the semester, for example, you can teach twice as many hours per week. Of course, your students need to be okay with this; otherwise, they will complain and you may be reprimanded. I was also told that my writing class will be "parallel" but my speaking class will be "block". Apparently, these terms refer to how many hours per week and many weeks a course is offered. A "parallel" class is run throughout the whole semester for a few hours a week, depending on the number of credit hours. On the other hand, a "block" class is more intense - more hours per week, but fewer weeks in a semester.
I will be teaching two courses this semester: Intermediate Writing and Spoken English I. The writing class should start on Wednesday since it is for second-year students. I am not sure yet when the speaking class will start because it is for first-year students. As for my teaching schedule, I was told that it is very flexible. There are "official" class times on the registration materials, but you can talk to your students and arrange to re-schedule as you so desire. If you want to finish your class early in the semester, for example, you can teach twice as many hours per week. Of course, your students need to be okay with this; otherwise, they will complain and you may be reprimanded. I was also told that my writing class will be "parallel" but my speaking class will be "block". Apparently, these terms refer to how many hours per week and many weeks a course is offered. A "parallel" class is run throughout the whole semester for a few hours a week, depending on the number of credit hours. On the other hand, a "block" class is more intense - more hours per week, but fewer weeks in a semester.
I finally got the key to my office, so I have been spending a lot of time here. I share my office with another English professor; there is supposed to be a third person with us, but she is currently on maternity leave. There is broadband Internet access which tends to be more reliable than the wireless I can get elsewhere on campus. Plus, I have more privacy in my office which is nice for making Skype calls or other personal business.
In addition to getting my key, Muluken took me around to some other important parts of campus. We visited the main library where teachers are able to check out up to 7 books at a time using a "pocket system". Basically, it's like the old style paper check-out cards that libraries in the US used before everything was digitized with bar codes. I had to use Muluken's "pockets" though because I do not have many own staff ID number. The boxes of materials and text books I shipped arrived at the embassy in Addis Ababa, but I still have to wait for them to be delivered to me here at Haramaya. I do not think they'll come before classes start and I need to start planning my curriculum now, so books from the library were crucial. Muluken also showed me the copy center where I can have materials duplicated for free! I was really excited about this because at orientation a lot of past ELFs said that they had to use their own funds for photocopying. One of my classes does not have a "module" or textbook, so I will probably be giving them a lot of handouts!
I was also given a document explaining the revised English language curriculum for all universities in Ethiopia called the "Nationally Harmonized Modular Curriculum for Undergraduate Program" specifically for students majoring in English Language and Literature. The curriculum was just created in March of this year and is to be implemented nationwide. I will be a part of this by teaching the two courses that I have been assigned to. I am supposed to follow some basic outlines so that students from various universities enrolled in the same course will hopefully reach similar outcomes. The course descriptions and the desired student outcomes really helped me to understand what my students and I need to accomplish in each course this semester.
Here's the course description for Spoken English I:
In addition to getting my key, Muluken took me around to some other important parts of campus. We visited the main library where teachers are able to check out up to 7 books at a time using a "pocket system". Basically, it's like the old style paper check-out cards that libraries in the US used before everything was digitized with bar codes. I had to use Muluken's "pockets" though because I do not have many own staff ID number. The boxes of materials and text books I shipped arrived at the embassy in Addis Ababa, but I still have to wait for them to be delivered to me here at Haramaya. I do not think they'll come before classes start and I need to start planning my curriculum now, so books from the library were crucial. Muluken also showed me the copy center where I can have materials duplicated for free! I was really excited about this because at orientation a lot of past ELFs said that they had to use their own funds for photocopying. One of my classes does not have a "module" or textbook, so I will probably be giving them a lot of handouts!
I was also given a document explaining the revised English language curriculum for all universities in Ethiopia called the "Nationally Harmonized Modular Curriculum for Undergraduate Program" specifically for students majoring in English Language and Literature. The curriculum was just created in March of this year and is to be implemented nationwide. I will be a part of this by teaching the two courses that I have been assigned to. I am supposed to follow some basic outlines so that students from various universities enrolled in the same course will hopefully reach similar outcomes. The course descriptions and the desired student outcomes really helped me to understand what my students and I need to accomplish in each course this semester.
Here's the course description for Spoken English I:
This course enables students to develop their ability to express themselves fluently and with a reasonable level of accuracy. It dwells on the aspects of spoken English that are most likely to cause communication problems in interactions with native speakers and non native speakers of the language. It also focuses on the following functions: Introducing oneself and others; Greetings and Partings; Describing (people, places& objects), Expressing Likes and Dislikes (Expressing Preferences), Making Invitations (Formal and Informal), Making Conversations and Expressing Opinions (agreeing and disagreeing). Students listen to a variety of model dialogues and Spoken discourse. They are also exposed to various features of the spoken language (English sound system: consonants and vowels, pronunciation).This entails accuracy focused dialogue completion exercises and pronunciation works. It also includes directed listening to taped conversations and role-plays in controlled, semi-controlled and free situations.
Here's the course description for Intermediate Writing:
This is a course designed to help students develop their writing skills. In the course, students will be exposed to the skills of organizing ideas, drafting and revising texts. The texts include paragraphs and essays which deal with various issues and discourse categories (description, argumentation, exposition and narration) and development of these with strategies like definition, exemplification, process, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, etc. The students will also develop a better understanding of the writing process and master the basic components of multi-paragraph compositions. At this level, the students will learn to gather, select, and organize information so as to produce effective, coherent, and complex texts in the form of essays, stories, and reports of medium length. The compositions they produce will focus on concrete, abstract, and theoretical topics that include structures ranging from simple to complex.
I am really excited about teaching both of these courses. I think the Listening & Speaking and Reading & Writing courses that I taught at SCSU will serve as a great foundation for these courses at Haramaya. I plan to adapt some of the materials and activities I used while I was teaching at SCSU. It will be interesting to assess my students here and find out what kind of level they are at and how they compare to the level of the students I was teaching in St. Cloud.
Since this curriculum is new and being implemented for the first semester, there was/is a need to create new materials. One of the documents that teachers here created is a module for the Basic Writing course. I will not be teaching this course this semester, but I was asked to review the module before it is printed for the students. It took me about 3 days to go over the 90-page document and make minor adjustments. By doing this though, I have a much better idea of what my students in Intermediate Writing should already know and the skills that we can build upon in my course.
Since this curriculum is new and being implemented for the first semester, there was/is a need to create new materials. One of the documents that teachers here created is a module for the Basic Writing course. I will not be teaching this course this semester, but I was asked to review the module before it is printed for the students. It took me about 3 days to go over the 90-page document and make minor adjustments. By doing this though, I have a much better idea of what my students in Intermediate Writing should already know and the skills that we can build upon in my course.
On a lighter note, I visited the market right outside the campus gates in the village of Bati. The vegetables I bought when I first got here were just about all eaten up, so it was time to re-stock! I bought every item from a different vendor to try and "spread the wealth" so to say. For one kilogram (2.2 lbs) of onions, one kilo of oranges, and everything else pictures on the right, I only spent about $2.50 USD! I was so excited to find sweet potatoes, too! They were one of my favorite things to eat when I was living in South Korea. The sweet potatoes here are of a different variety; they are colored like a regular potato on both the inside and outside, but of course, are much sweeter! I hope that I will be able to find these year-round!