Once I am teaching both of my courses, I should have about 10-12 hours of contact with the students per week. As all you teachers out there know, that means there will be a lot of other work associated with preparing for those classroom hours: lesson planning, material development, grading, office hours, additional tutoring, etc. In addition, I will be teaching the high school students in the Access Microscholarship Program a couple Saturday mornings per month. The rest of my responsibilities are to be determined as I see fit. While I could stick to just the aforementioned duties, I think it will be more fulfilling to stay busy and help out in other ways.
Last week Thursday, we had our first departmental meeting; I am part of the foreign language department here at Haramaya University which consists of an English, French, and Arabic division. The French department is small, and the Arabic department is even smaller and is in its infancy (the English department here was established 13 years ago whereas the French department was created in 2009 and the Arabic department in January of this year). There were probably about 25 people at the meeting. We had three main items on the agenda to discuss: the 2013-14 action plan, community service objectives, and the campus-wide thematic research initiative. I was very impressed with the formality of the meeting, but to be honest, I was a bit lost following some of the topics. Being new here has its downfalls; I am unfamiliar with the routine of things as well as certain programs and efforts that were initiated in years past. I am sure that I will catch on soon enough, but I felt a little overwhelmed and uninformed about some of these topics.
The first, the 2013-14 action plan, was the clearest to me. The department chair created a list of 40 different objectives that ideally will be accomplished this academic year. Each item had at least one person's name next to it; some had "all staff" to indicate that everyone is equally responsible for carrying out that particular item. My name was listed next to two items, and the third was suggested as another one I could help out with:
- Offering short-term language trainings in English, French, and Arabic.
- Establishing a language, reading, and discussion center.
- Strengthening relationships with the American Embassy, VSO/British Council through ELIC, and the Access Microscholarship Program.
I think these are great goals and align with what I expected to do. I will definitely be offering some short-term language trainings (of course just in English - not French or Arabic!). The second goal has to do with an organization that is already established: the English Language Improvement Center - ELIC. My job is to work with the ELIC staff - it is a huge effort with only two main people involved at the moment - to keep things running smoothly and offer various activities and programming while I am here. Helen, a VSO volunteer, does a lot with ELIC and I look forward to collaborating with her. She mentioned to me that they worked with over 1,000 students last year who were identified as needing extra English language training. I'm sure I could put in 40 hours a week just helping out with ELIC!
The second item we talked about at the meeting was the department's community service objectives. These objectives all had to do with opportunities outside of campus and were assigned to groups of people rather than individuals. Here are some examples of some of the community service objectives:
- Carry out a needs assessment for community service.
- English language improvement trainings for about 60 teachers at rural outreaches.
- Partnership with Dire Dawa and Harari youth and women affairs.
These objectives were a bit more broad and will be need to be focused as funding and other details become available. Before most of these things can happen, someone will need to do a needs-based assessment and write some sort of proposal to get the necessary funding and programmatic support. This is a rather new branch of education for me - I am excited to learn more about the ways universities can support the local community.
The third item was the foggiest to me. Apparently, the university had each department carry out needs-based assessments last year. Based on the results, various themes were created under which research is to be carried out. The research that is done is supposed to benefit the university and address those needs that were identified. An initial document was created which outlines 16 themes and our department was asked to read the document and share our thoughts on it. Without the necessary background knowledge, I had nothing to contribute, but listened to other people's ideas. It became clear that our department was not satisfied with the 16 themes that were created. Even though a thorough needs-assessment was carried out by Muluken, there was no mention of language education anywhere in the document! It was as though our department was completely overlooked.
We briefly touched on two other items - one was in regards to a staff member's promotion and the other was about a university-wide initiative to incorporate cooperative learning in the classroom. There was some disagreement and misunderstanding about the latter, so it was decided that we should create a 3-person committee to establish some guidelines about how our department wants to integrate cooperative learning. I am curious to see what is decided...
The meeting lasted about two hours. Overall, I was glad to have attended because I was able to meet everyone in the department and learn more about what the department does and what my role will be. Hopefully, each subsequent meeting will be easier to follow and I can feel more involved!
As for other opportunities here in Ethiopia, and Haramaya University in particular, there are many! Let me briefly tell you about a few other activities that I will probably be involved in during my next 9 months here:
- help with the re-establishment of the school's English newspaper - The Hippocampus
- review/edit student theses
- do a weekly English Club at the campus Model School (KG-12)
- teacher training for Model School staff
- establish a sports/exercise group for females (This is a personal goal of mine - I am thinking about calling the group "Walk n' Talk" - I want to have a place for girls to gather where they can feel comfortable, can socialize, feel more connected to campus, and stay healthy at the same time. I've met some people involved in the sport sciences department who may me able to help me get things going. There is also a gender issue department that should be able to support my efforts).
So, as you can see, there is plenty to do! Not to mention that I will be traveling about one weekend per month to do various teacher trainings around Ethiopia. I will strive to find a balance between "doing as much as I can" and "staying sane, happy, and healthy"!
Here are some photos of the building and classroom where I will be teaching my intermediate writing course: