TEACHING ENGLISH AT RUBONA PRIMARY SCHOOL

By DUSENGE Venuste (Class of 2012) & INGABIRE Marie Chantal (Counselor and Tikkun Olam Committee member)

This year (2010) the kids of the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village started doing Tikkun Olam in social affairs, school, and clinic outside the village.

Some of the kids of ASYV went to the primary school in Rubona. Ours goal was to give English lesson and to create friendships with the school (both with the kids and their educators).

Before we started volunteering at the school, we went there to explain about Tikkun Olam and ask them what they wanted us to do to help them. The principal of the school told us that it would be good if we could teach English to the kids in Primary 4. So we agreed to start teaching their kids the English lessons.

There are 245 kids in P4. ASYV kids split up into ten groups. Each group had two students from Agahozo-Shalom and about 25 students from P4.

The methods used for teaching English were: showing the kids pictures and then giving them explanations of those pictures, reading stories to them, playing games, showing movies, and practicing conversation.

The kids in Rubona primary school were so happy to be with us. Since one of our goals was to create friendship with our neighbors, including those kids of primary school, we invited them to the village for a tour and explanation of our village.

At the end of each term we gave them an assessment test to see if they understood what we were teaching them.

We ended the year by asking the teachers of those kids if they have seen the improvement. The teachers said that there was a big improvement in speaking, reading, and even in writing English. The teachers also said that the Primary 4 students have developed self-confidence, which was a big achievement because before we started working with them the kids used to have a fear of speaking English.

This project was not only good for the kids of the primary school, but it was also good for kids from Agahozo-Shalom. They said that they too were able to learn many things from the kids of Rubona primary school.