For our first week of formal teaching Gareth, Emily Ruff and I were sent to Vikumgama to
teach the pre-school children and run the after-school club. We were very excited to be
going to the school which we had built but were not sure what to expect. After a slightly
testing hour long bus ride, we arrived at our destination and were greeted by a very
enthusiastic class and their teacher. After introducing ourselves, we did an arts activity in
which the children drew round their hand and decorated it. We also played games with the
children which gave them chance to get to know us. We were taken for lunch at a villager’s
house, which gave us an insight into their culture. We then did the after school club. About
forty children came which was very encouraging and we were delighted that there was so
much interest. We decided to split the children into groups for the first half of the sessions
as there was quite a large age range. Emily taught the under tens, I took the 10-13 year olds
and Gareth took the older students. We all joined up for the second half of the session and
played games. It was a tiring but very rewarding day.

We followed a similar structure for the rest of the week. Over the course of the week we
taught the pre-school children the alphabet which we modelled with sponge letters and led a
related arts activity where they decorated letters for a wall display. We also covered family,
which involved the children drawing their families, and animals.

The after-school club was very successful, and we had around fifty children by the end of
the week. As well as helping the students with their English, we also taught them the hokey
cokey which was very popular, the Macarena, duck duck goose (in which the rules of the
game were slightly lost) and various ball games.

Unfortunately the week did not run entirely smoothly, as Gareth was admitted into hospital
on Thursday and I was also absent due to illness on the Friday. However as a team we
muddled through it well so the children’s learning was not affected.

I think the children responded very well to us. They were very lively and enthusiastic,
although they lose concentration quickly so we found we needed to plan lots of short, varied
activities. The children that were quieter at the beginning became more confident as the
week progressed, and we were especially pleased to see that one boy who struggled to mix
with the rest of the class improved a lot.