Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Holidays at Last...and we need some DVD's!

HOLIDAYS – at last !! After working hard for 5 months at long last we have a holiday ! – It really has been long overdue, with teachers and students getting more visibly exhausted each and every day ! Initially we had hoped for a two week break, but have found out that we are expected to open on the Thursday of the second week , so need to adhere to the guidelines, meaning that in actual fact we are back at work on the Tuesday of the second week since we need to get the report cards sorted out now that the exams have finished.
Nonetheless, it has been marvellous to have a break – waking up at a leisurely 7 am ( rather than the usual 6 am ) and having two cups of tea with there being an option of a third if so desired ! – what bliss !
The exams went off very well – sometimes I am amazed of what the children actually know – especially when you look back at the exams from previous years and see how each and every set of exams gets harder and harder and yet pupils still achieve about the same results, meaning that the standard of education is gradually and steadily getting better and better !
We are now thinking about the new things that we can introduce this semester – the fantastic news is that our grant from the major airline has now come in – a whopping three thousand euro’s ! – so a main part of that will be the photocopier. In addition to the usual books, we want to photocopy a series of cards and laminate them, resulting in more individual progressive learning. Another thing we are keen on is having a comprehensive series of photocopied phonic reading books to improve children story comprehension and the latest idea is having reading books and accompanying tape ( or CD ) so that the children can hear a story being read to them. The only trouble with this latest idea however is finding the time for me to record myself reading the story – but if I try a little at a time, eventually it will build up !
 We have also had a donation for a television, so along with the donated DVD player from a previous volunteer,  tomorrow we will set up a TV and DVD in the grade school. This will be amazing for the children since most children don’t have a television , so to have not only television but exciting DVDs will be fantastic !!
The main problem with this plan is the severe lack of DVD’s ! – we have a grand collection of 5 DVD’s – which we collected free from the newspapers in the UK – they are great – the David Attenborough’s walking with dinosaurs series – however, it would be great to have a few more and a little more variety !
 Here the land situation is going slowly since the ( read unusual words backwards ) tnem  nrev og have suddenly introduced a new wa   l to say that all land is den    wo by them and thus when you buy you are only buying the building – this is causing a huge mel   borp since they have even backdated it for 2 years ! and they just passed it through without asking any anyone or gni   tab   edg etc – as a result, most dn al sales are on hold so we are busy waiting to see what the outcome will be !  - the good thing is that the money is there so once things are sorted out then we can go ahead with things !!! – As they say “ patience is a virtue “ and in Ethiopia you certainly need more than enough of that !
Ethiopian Schools for the Poor - English Alive Academy
Registered Charity Number 1140681

www.englishaliveacademy.org

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