Life with Lynn...: A Literacy Teacher training workshop

Hello!

Last week, I held a literacy teacher training workshop. I had 31 teachers come to be trained in teaching people how to read and write the Turkana language. The training was held in Turkana so I had a little help from two friends in the teaching. I did teach in Turkana, but sometimes slipped into English and then one of these two would translate for me. They also helped in the teaching. Simon and Sammy are their names.

We taught them about how teaching adults is different from teaching children. We taught them the importance of using the same words to teach each new lesson. They had to practice this "patter" all week and then take a test on Friday. They had to tell me the 7 steps of teaching a literacy lesson and then teach a lesson. It took all morning to get all 31 tested, but in the end we had 29 who passed the final test. Two didn't quite have the patter correct so I encouraged them to keep working at it and hope that they will do so.

For each lesson they have to go through the 7 steps. Step 1 is to teach the picture words. Step 2 is to have students find the picture words all over the board or in the book. Step 3 is to teach the words and word parts on the boxes. Step 4 is to teach flashcards - so the students aren't memorizing the location of words on a page and not really reading :). Step 5 is to teach the sentences of the lesson. Step 6 is to teach the Bible passage for each lesson and Step 7 is to teach writing. We had one day that had a lot of practice time. That is the only day that I had time to take some pictures.

So, here are a few pictures showing these teachers practicing teaching a literacy lesson. I hope you enjoy them! Next week I have another English class. So, I am switching gears this weekend and getting ready for that. Have a great July 4th week!