Overwhelming
expectation
Expectations
can be overwhelming. The unrealistic optimism of ministry officials, teachers
and students in the Khawaja’s capacity to cultivate English fluency in Sudanese
schools bordered on delusional. It is fair to say that if these miraculous
expectations constitute the benchmark of success, my results certainly fall
well below par
At an
abstract level the quality of spoken English has not suddenly improved over the
course of the last six month. Moreover, there has been no tangible progress in
establishing the intended ‘English Clubs’ and ‘Teacher Workshops’ (I put most
of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the inactive ministry personnel). The
weight of overwhelming expectation has the tendency to bring my inadequacies
and inexperience as a teacher into ever sharper focus.
Yet, observing the teaching of my colleagues
such concerns soon fade into irrelevance. Complacently, I find confidence in
their shortcomings. Not only does the question ‘how much worse can I be?’ seem
reassuring, rather than an ominous tempt of fate, but my presence seems to have
purpose as well as the considerable support of both students and teachers.
English fluency, and critical thinking have
fallen victim to decades of neglect and inattention. Teachers, whether bound or
simply blinded by the existing English curriculum, curb student engagement in
learning. SPINE led learning (Sudan
Practical Integrated National English textbook- a title as mindless/
gobbledegook as the classroom instruction itself) has disenfranchised students.
Improving
spoken English
We are part of a pilot program designed to improve the level of spoken English
in Sudanese secondary schools. Under the leadership of the federal Ministry of
Education, the program looks to reverse the damaging effects that aggressive
policies of Arabization (since late 1980s) have had on the standard of English-
particularly spoken English- in Sudan.
The decision to change the language of
instruction in Sudanese schools from English to Arabic made certain the deterioration
of English. As an independent, post-colonial country, English was an invaluable
resource that had the potential to set Sudan apart from many of its non-English
speaking, developing country rivals. Instead, decades of neglect have left
Sudan with its two youngest generations unable to communicate, and consequently
compete, in an irreversibly global marketplace.
Some of our students |
While English still constitutes one of the
core school subjects its teaching is plagued by incompetence and strategic
failings. Teacher led-instruction, prioritization of accuracy over fluency and
the neglect of speaking and listening skills, combines to leave most students
(at least boys) in their last year of secondary school still unable to introduce
themselves in English. The SPINE textbook is no doubt a considerable cause of
this.
Teachers use SPINE as a kind of binding script, veering away from its text only for the purpose of translation to Arabic. The content is abstract, with chapters designated to such trivial garbage as ‘bird migration’. Reminders of Grammar are ever-present. Always, SPINE strives to be informative about Sudanese culture, ignoring the important association between a language and its cultural context.
Teachers use SPINE as a kind of binding script, veering away from its text only for the purpose of translation to Arabic. The content is abstract, with chapters designated to such trivial garbage as ‘bird migration’. Reminders of Grammar are ever-present. Always, SPINE strives to be informative about Sudanese culture, ignoring the important association between a language and its cultural context.
It follows that my main aim has been to
improve speaking and listening skills among students. Interaction is at the
core of these efforts. Where possible I have attempted to take a backseat role,
giving the students the opportunity to speak and, importantly, think. Lessons
have a functional focus that, devoid of the abstract drivel concentrated in
SPINE, aims to utilize English through situational learning (eg. directions and
invitations).
Abdul Karim end of year party |
My school
routine
My time is
divided between three boys secondary schools: Ismahel al-Welli, Abdul Karim Hussein
Jaffa and El Obeid ‘thanwiya beneen’. Over the course of the week I will
teach about 15 periods to 15 different classes.
Given that one period is only 40 minutes it is unsurprising that
progress can be slow. While the lazy side of me, euphemistically referred to
as ‘resourceful’, recognizes that 15 different classes requires
only one, maybe two, lesson plans; the earnest, hardworking side acknowledges
that English advancement is limited with only 40 minutes a week to teach
upwards of 60 students.
Sudanese working life assumes a typically
unhurried, leisurely pace. The
considerable time between lessons drifts unconsciously from one hour to the
next. Amid the intermittent, two-way language lessons with my Arabic-speaking
colleagues, discussions ebb and flow. Trivial conversations on football and WWE
soon become consumed by engaging, sometimes impassioned, arguments on politics
and the declining state of Sudanese society.
My colleagues at Ishmael al-Welli |
Unlike in the West, time in Sudan is infinite.
It can be leisurely whiled away, unconstrained by the finite, Western bounds that
see ‘time as money’. In Sudan time is never wasted. Rather, like the rich man
who frivolously gives away money, the Sudanese teacher whiles away a few more
hours. In this vein, my day takes shape…
*
One evening
last week I received a phone-call from Ustaz Hussein, a colleague from one of
the Boys Secondary Schools I teach at. Hussein’s phone-call, not unusually,
regarded semantics; more specifically his planned designation of an English
Summer School for students as a ‘Summer Concentration Camp’.
Besides
being considerably amused by this most unfortunate of gaffes (which is itself
noteworthy), I was left astonished that Hussein, not only one of El Obeid’s
most respected English teachers but also an English literature Phd student
(albeit a Sudanese Phd…) , could be so oblivious to the connotations and
context of this term. Over the past week I have come to view this bungled experiment
with the English language as indicative of the wider failings of English
language instruction in Sudan.
Unengaged
and uninformed
An Inflexible obedience to the curriculum,
manifested by unyielding adherence to the SPINE textbook leaves the students
and teachers completely detached from the cultural base that carries the
English language. Whether by intention or not, the SPINE curriculum supposes
that English can be taught without the ‘cultural baggage’ that accompanies it.
Not only does this leave English lessons’ devoid of creative and engaging
content but, more worryingly, consigns students, and teachers alike, to the
perils of systemic ignorance. The consequences of this are that terms such as
‘Concentration Camp’ are lifted from their appropriate context, translated
literally and ultimately, used erroneously.
I am under
no illusions about the unfailingly low levels of English I have had to contend
with in my boys’ secondary schools. Yet, it is not so much the low level of
English as the interactive and communicative method of instruction that has presented
my biggest classroom obstacle. Classroom utterances of ‘ma inglesi…Arrabi! Arrabi’ leave me
frustrated and perturbed rather than sympathetic or reflective. Exasperated I
urge the students to ‘switch on their brains’. I let the long silences persist,
determined not to spoon-feed the students appropriate words or dialogue. It is such that the role-play on ‘directions’
becomes a battle of wills.
On the one hand I obstinately persist,
insistent that my class will instil at least an inkling of the creativity,
critical analysis and assertiveness which is so thoroughly lacking in other
classes. Thus, I wait; urging my students to at least attempt to utilize the
newly gathered vocabulary to guide their partners around the fictional town
outlined on the blackboard. Encouraged to ‘think’, the students are out of
their comfort zone.
Thinking has become an alien concept in Sudan.
In Sudan the teacher is the transmitter of knowledge; the students their
passive recipients. The existing classroom environment prioritizes rote learning
and memorization over student engagement and understanding. As one teacher
trainer in El Obeid said ‘the students know nothing’. Despairingly she anticipated the coming of
age of a generation of leaders deprived of the ‘real knowledge’ necessary to
navigate a more promising course for Sudan.
Class time is overwhelmingly dominated by the
teacher. With the duration of the lesson spent religiously regurgitating the
content of the SPINE textbooks and simplified English novels (eg. Treasure
Island), the teacher leaves little time for student involvement. Exams, simply
in a reading/ writing format, are based entirely on memorizing this content. Teachers
lack both the will and capacity to bestow their students with skills that go
beyond the meagre ‘one word’ ‘fill in the blank’ demands of the exam curriculum.
Learning literature by rote and grammatical accuracy are prioritized. Fluency
is overlooked; creative impulse stunted.
An exception: dressed for their self-made English language play |
Almost a fifth of my lesson has been consumed
as I determinedly wait for my student to come to an answer of his own making.
Neglected, the 79 other students in my class have become rowdy. My obstinate
will to persist gives way to the spoon-feeding strategy. It seems that the
classroom is a battle of wills that I will always lose.
A
question of resources
Perhaps it
is not so much the method of learning as the dearth of learning resources that
blights English language instruction in Sudan. Hussein’s Concentration Camp
gaffe seems insignificant when teachers are regularly misapplying fundamentals.
During my time in El Obeid, I am yet to find a teacher who can correctly tell
the time in English. Half past four, for instance, is ‘ four and a half’.
Likewise, I have found no teacher who has mastered the word ‘ago’. Instead of
‘two years ago’, teachers will always say ‘before two years’. The language
proficiency of English teachers in El Obeid falls far below any presumed
minimal level of competence.
Thus, far from being an asset to students’
comprehension of English the majority of teachers are, regrettably, a liability.
Saturating students’ minds ‘with incorrect English- to the extent that teachers
regularly interrupt students in order to ‘falsely correct’- the teachers are
instilling flawed English in a whole generation.
Communicating with the majority of English
teachers entails a struggle that betrays their job title. The simplest question
must be rephrased multiple times in order for its premise to be grasped.
Quicker than anticipated, conversations reach a point of exhaustion. “Zuzu”
represents the most worrying example of this dearth of competence within the
English teaching profession. It is no exaggeration to say that even a question
as basic as ‘Where are you from’ was beyond her understanding.
Teaching a
class of first year girls, Zuzu was, predictably, out of her depth. Metaphorically,
she drowned. I felt sympathy for Zuzu; bemused that someone so obviously
incompetent and under-qualified had been permitted to teach a class of 70
girls. She spent the entire class incorrectly reciting the text book, only
modifying her instruction to briefly, and inevitably incorrectly, write some
misspelt ‘key words’ on the blackboard which the class would then recite. The
rolling eyes of her students as well as their superior English ensured that the lesson was an exercise in her humiliation.
The teacher-dominated classroom is in some
ways inevitable given the enormous class sizes teachers must contend with. In a
class of 80 teenage boys it is infeasible to expect to give each student the attention
and supervision necessary for real progress to be made. Unfortunately I am left
with a ‘greater good decision’: teach some students something or all students
nothing. As such, I decide to leave the raucous back-rows (often those students
whose parents lost out in the competition to render their children front-row
seats) to their own devices; only intervening when their disorderliness
threatens the remainder of the class.
The six schools we teach in are
all ‘Model Schools’. Enjoying
model status entitles a school to a greater concentration of financial (higher
school fees) and material resources than non-model secondary schools (although
these resources are not apparent in the model schools). Supposedly, the model schools are composed of
the more academically gifted students, empowering them to acquire a reputation
of excellence that other schools lack. However, the link between academic
proficiency and model status is not straightforward.
The make-up of the model school directly
parallels that of El Obeid’s more affluent communities. Naturally, the more
academically gifted emanate from educated households, more likely to be found
in richer neighbourhoods. Conversely the less academically gifted originate
from less educated households, more likely to be found in El Obeid’s poorer
neighbourhoods. The model school is a clone of the most prosperous families
Perversely, public resources are concentrated
in communities most financially and socially able to acquire them. Communities
which lack these means are left perpetually under-resourced. In order to retain
their model status schools, not so secretly, manipulate academic statistics.
Those students who achieve sub-standard
results in their second year (of three) of secondary school are grouped in the
same class. Although still receiving their education at the model school- and
required to pay the higher school fees- these students are not permitted to
undertake their Sudan Certificate Exams (the Sudanese equivalent of British
GCSE’s) under the name of the school. Instead they sit the Sudanese Certificate
registered as attendees of ‘evening classes’. It is therefore misleading and
overly simplistic to say that model school students are academically gifted
students. It would be more accurate to conclude that the model school is the
domain of the (relatively) wealthy.
Manipulating exam results ensures that the
façade of the model school, with its heightened reputation and resources, is
maintained. Yet, in reality the level of excellence implied by the title ‘model
school’ masks the wholesale deterioration of secondary school education in
Sudan.
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