How about some work

I have come to this remote part of Rwanda as a volunteer to work with teachers at Rugerero Primary school. The new school year has been postponed for one month, so teachers can be linguistically trained to teach in English... Imagine that, in Australia, the government has decreed: ‘OK, guys, from now on, the language of education will be... Croatian. You start next month! This is more or less how it must have felt for many rural teachers having never been exposed to English because they never went to university, have no radio to listen to, no newspaper written in English to read. Some say that this is going to widen the gap even more between city schools and remote, rural school. This being said, I can vouch for the willingness of all the teachers to learn the new language. They are giving it their best shots! I have attended a couple of training sessions and I have been very impressed by the positive learning atmosphere in the classroom. This has also given me a unique opportunity to observe how languages are taught in Rwanda. To be diplomatic, I would say that I have seen worse and I have seen better... I have also written a lot of notes about how I can help during my stay here. Here are a few of my action plans so far.
Teacher training
I will volunteer some teacher training sessions at two schools: Rugerero and Rusuzumiro. I will also invite teachers from other schools to attend, if they wish. Some of my lessons will be focused on intensive language learning, others on the methodology of teaching English to primary school children.
Material and teaching aids
From Australia: I have brought a few sets of flashcards to help children learn English, 2 CD’s of songs for children learning English, a battery charger and some rechargeable batteries.
From Kigali: I have picked up a few hundreds of textbooks to help children learn English. They will be used daily in the classroom. I purchased a CD and cassette player and more rechargeable batteries.
When going back to Kigali: I will buy material for teachers so they can make their own teaching aids for the classroom: large sheets of paper, colour pencils, felt pens, glue, scissors etc – the basic material that any primary school teacher in Australia uses daily and takes for granted but which completely lacking at Rugerero. I will also buy a few more books to help teachers teach more senior classes (the three extra years that have recently been added to the six years of primary education). I had a meeting with some teachers from Rugerero and they drew a list of basic requirements to help them do their job more efficiently
Networking, establishing contacts with local stakeholders
I have had meetings with two local carpenters who will build cupboards for each classroom, so teachers can store pupils’ books and their own material.