Media Centre for Volunteer in Ghana

Neil McMillan

The Teaching English Project in Itzapa and Santa Maria has now started in earnest, with over 50 kids across both schools now getting regular, structured English lessons from myself and two volunteers, Lisa and Liz. The project involves delivering specialised EFL training to the participants, enabling them to plan and deliver their own lessons, as well as preparing the children for the (now mandatory) English component of their national exam.

Broken down into bare statistics, Liz and Lisa have so far completed over 12 hours of training, reflection and planning, 19 hours of classroom observation and assistance, and 10 hours of direct classroom experience – a figure that will grow rapidly in the next couple of weeks as I hand over full teaching responsibility to them. More importantly, the kids seem to be enjoying what to them is a new approach to learning English, with an emphasis on developing all the skills of the language in a fun and sometimes physical format.

Sponsorship from back home in Scotland, as well as funding from the volunteers’ contributions, have enabled us to purchase new chairs and desks, folders and paper for the kids, and a variety of books and resources to set the project up for the future. Whether it’s the Santa Maria beginners getting their mouths round ‘Hello’ for the first time, or the older Itzapa teenagers developing their grammar, vocabulary and communication skills, it’s been a challenging but highly enjoyable ride so far. Now, one more time kids: ‘How are you?’ ‘I am very well!’