English Lessons with ‘Miss Kathryn’ and ‘Miss Emma’
In September 2007, two students from Liverpool University, Kathryn and Emma, spent two weeks at Al Ashrafieh, a junior school in Misdar. They took as many educational aids as they could squeeze in their luggage. The children responded enthusiastically to the lively, creative activities in the dual language books.
Kathryn, from Bedford, applied to the Catenian Bursary
Fund, which generously gave £300
towards travel costs. Bursary Fund Chairman, Peter Martin said: “We are delighted the
Bursary Fund can assist Catholic students to help with education in the
Holy Land. We are willing to fund projects with the Christian Schools in
Jordan and Palestine”. Kathryn subsequently
ran a half marathon to raise more money
for Al Ashrafieh. Here are some extracts from Kathryn’s diary:
The school day begins at 7.20 am with a short assembly outside on the tarmac playground with the children lined up in their respective classes. A short drill follows and the national anthem is sung. Then a few prayers but all-in-all the assembly is kept quite short.
The school itself is very bare like a hospital,
with long corridors and classrooms with white washed walls. There is
room for the children to play football, but the playground is also the
car park for teachers and the four school buses, leaving the area for
playing greatly reduced.
The
lower school teaches children from 1st grade up to 9th grade and the
children are aged from 5 - 15 years old. With 5th grade we took students
out for individual conversation practice. Whilst the teachers wanted us
to take the brightest students, we specifically focused on the quieter
children who have little or no interaction during lessons. 5th grade are
11 years old but they had forgotten the simplest of English. The teacher
was giving a grammar lesson but one of my students Joel could not tell
me when his birthday was or what day of the week it was. By the end of
our session he knew days of the week, months of the year and his
birthday. Many students were similar to Joel, but at the slower pace,
individual learning helped tremendously. We conducted paired reading
with 5th grade.
One boy, Yazan, really enjoyed ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’. I asked him to read the English first and then the Arabic. Towards the end of the book he longer needed to read the Arabic. At the end of the book where the caterpillar gets "stomach ache", Yazan didn't understand this word. After reading it in Arabic and using it in a sentence he went back to class. The next day I saw Yazan sat in a chair near the staff room looking upset. I asked him what was wrong and told me in perfect English, "I have a stomach ache Miss Kathryn".
