In addition to language training, those of us who will be teaching English as a second language (or more appropriately, those of us who will be resource persons for Macedonian teachers of English) we were also given the opportunity to practice our teaching skills in a Macedonian school. We worked with a Macedonian counterpart who currently teaches English in the school to which were are assigned. My counterpart was Petar Lasov who has been teaching at the Straso Pindzur Primary School for the last fourteen years. Under Petar’s guidance, I assisted, team taught, and taught fifth and eighth grade English classes.
Schools throughout Macedonia vary from town to town, city to city, and village to village. Recently, the Ministry of Education decentralized the operation of the country’s schools, giving more responsibilities to the Municipalities and the Country is in the beginning stages of implementing new educational strategies . The Straso Pindzur Primary School has undergone some recent renovations funded by USAID and the infrastructure is in good condition. The rooms are large and the ceilings are high. The rooms are heated by radiators under the windows. The hot water for the radiators is generated in a central boiler fueled by wood. I watched one day as the school custodian stacked an enormous quantity of recently delivered logs and wondered how long it wood take (get it?) to cut and stack it all.
The school is wired for the internet and has a computer lab for student classes and a computer room that is used by the faculty. There is no wireless router, so my laptop couldn’t connect. Petar said that there is a national project underway whose intent is to have a computer on every student’s desk within the next few years.
In Negotino primary school classes are conducted in double sessions. The fifth through eighth grades are scheduled from 7:30 to 12:30 and the first through fourth grades go from 12:30 to 5:30. There are two different teaching staffs that conduct classes of 20-25 students. The students remain in the same classroom throughout the day, with the exception of science and physical education. The students, as I understand it, take classes in math, geography, art, Macedonian and English, science, computer literacy, and religion (Orthodox and comparative).
Following are some observations that I have made in my very brief exposure to one Macedonian Primary School.
The teaching staff that I met was dedicated to their profession. They were friendly and experienced and all trained at the university. At Straso Pindzur, the teachers lacked most of the materials that teachers in my community in the USA use on a daily basis. Since Petar had to move from class to class, he had no place to keep any materials that he could use to supplement the lessons. He did have access to one of several cassette players, but otherwise his only other resource was a piece of chalk and a worn out blackboard. On the days I was with him, because he changed classes every period, he had to write the same 15 vocabulary words on the board in each 8th grade classroom. There was a new donated copy machine in the computer room and a donated printer connected to a computer. However there was no toner or ink and the equipment sat idle. Copy paper was not available. Funding for such items is not currently budgeted at the school but the teachers are hopeful that this issue will be addressed in the future.
Most of the students had English Language workbooks that they purchased from the school. However there were students whose families could not afford these books and they were forced to sit in class unable to follow along and participate. Many of the students had pre-owned workbooks with the answers previously filled in so that, as most students anywhere would do, they didn’t really need to read the passages to complete the exercise.
The biggest cultural shock I had, as did my other Peace Corps colleagues, was what happened during the 15 minute and 5 minute breaks between classes. Once the bell rang at the end of a class, utter chaos (from the perspective of teacher from Massachusetts) breaks out ( students chase each other through the halls; they wrestle; they yell to their friends; they hustle to visit friends in other parts of the school building; and they leave the school grounds to get something to eat)). However, at the end of the break they were all back in their seats, waiting for the teacher to begin the lesson.
At the end of each class, a student was assigned to erase the blackboard. They use wet sponges to remove the chalk. The next teacher would have to write on a wet blackboard. Did you ever try writing with chalk on a wet board? The chalk doesn’t work. The Macedonian teachers had a difficult time trying to understand why we use dry erasers and would just wait until the board dried. No problem.
There was only one electric outlet in each room in which I taught but plans are underway to rewire all the classrooms. There are no practice fire drills but that’s probably because everything is constructed out of concrete and stucco which lessons the fire hazard.
There is a Teacher’s Union, but I didn’t get into any details about how they function in comparison to the Teacher’s Unions in the USA. I'll find out mmore about it at a later time.
My first exposure to a Macedonian school was very positive. I am lookinfg forward to being in my next school full time. Most of the students were eager to learn and practice their English and were very interested in learning about America. It's definitly a two way street, as I am very eager to learn and practice Macedonian and to learn about Macedonia.
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