Working with Primary Schools

SELI Young Writers clubs have begun in the schools that participated in our March 5th workshop. As I go around to visit them this week, I have seen a lot of careful listening and thinking, as you see these class four and five students from R.E.C. Primary School, Bassa Town and R.E.C. Primary School, Kent doing here, as we work on the rehearsal stage of writing.

Learning to facilitate a Young Writers club is a transformative experience for teachers, because it means conducting a child-centered classroom.  I find these teachers, just as I have found so many

others, most willing to learn the role so long as someone is at their elbow for a while reminding them: let the topics come from the child's own experience, let the child choose which topic to write on, let the children decide when they need to stamp a new piece of paper, or staple their papers together. . . and in the end they are always astonished that it's actually in the children to do all these things. Soon we're all experiencing an elevated respect for the children's ability to listen and think.

Leading Young Writers, Part I

Despite the heat this time of year, SELI spent a breezy day on the 5th talking about Young Writers clubs with teachers from six primary schools in the Waterloo area, Samuel Town, Joe Town and Kent. Our gracious hosts were Heaven Homes in Joe Town and we were very glad for their hospitality and accommodation.

Because of the tight schedule schools are on as they make up time during this post-Ebola period, we have had to break up our Leading Young Writers training into single-day sessions, and Saturday was the introduction. This is the first time we are working with primary schools under the Seli River Writing Project, although personally I have had the delightful experience of conducting many writing workshops with primary-level ESL classes.

Here you see teachers asking questions in a content conferencing group, and one of the teachers doing author sharing. It is a gradual thing: developing an appreciation for taking part in a supportive writing workshop, and then taking the leap to understanding that that same room for learning growth is what children feel in the club—in a child-centered setting.

Our thoughts will be with our teachers as they begin their clubs in the coming weeks, and we look forward to visiting them to lend our support.

Advertising Young Writers Clubs

We have a new flyer for SELI Young Writers Clubs! Check it out here!

Young Voices Issue no. 5.1

A new issue of the Young Voices newsletter is out! You can read yours here: be sure not to miss out!

Students publish their club writing by reading their typed final drafts to friends and relatives, or by displaying them in the school, but some students' final drafts are published in this newsletter. Individual print copies are given to all the members of all the clubs, and the students eagerly look forward to each new issue! We hope you do, too.

A Brief Visit in Kabala

I was so glad to again visit Kabala over the past few days. I have missed the hospitality I always enjoy there, and the open, fresh air. This time of year, there are also very chilly nights! Here you see my view of the Yogomaia field.

It was luck for me to be able to meet as many of the Koinadugu area Young Writers club facilitators as I did, knowing that many of them were undergoing training for various positions in the 2015 census project. I also appreciated that many of them made special effort to come and hand over their club work. We all agreed to what we know: that it is difficult to keep clubs functioning normally while the school schedule is so focused on getting through public examinations at a faster pace. We also agree that it's important to try.

A New School

This term we began working with a new school, Abundant Grace, in Sussex. The club of junior secondary school students meets in the early childhood classroom because it has round tables where writers can easily spread out their multiple drafts, and meet in groups.

During our visit today, one of the facilitators, Balla Kamara, was conferencing with a student while another student was working on revision.

Back to School

This year schools in Sierra Leone are on the post-Ebola fast track timetable, so when we visited the Lady Patricia Kabba Memorial junior secondary school Young Writers club today they were beginning the second term of the 2014-2015 school year, instead of starting a new school year.

It isn't easy for either the students or the teachers to adjust to the pace. We see the effect of this in the clubs, too. Still, before long everyone was settled down working at their own stage on their own topics. 

Developing Student Voices

We had a great time today. Ten teachers from five rural schools on the Freetown Peninsula and in the Koinadugu District participated in a full-day workshop on Developing Student Voices, offered through the Seli River Writing Project of the Sentinel English Language Institute in Sierra Leone. The workshop was partly needed because circumstances have changed staffing in the schools where SELI operates, and we all needed a reconnoitering after the extended "ebola break" this year.

All the teachers are facilitators of SELI Young Writers clubs in their schools, and basically, we spent the day with our students. Nothing could have been more exciting. At every step along the way, our ELL junior secondary students' writing formed a central focus.

We spent the morning analyzing and gaining an appreciation for their voices using SELI's analytic writing rubric; practicing getting good instructional conversation going during conferencing to enhance English language acquisition; examining how to model revision and what happens when we don't model it; and discussing which changes make teacher editing effective.

Our afternoon was spent learning about and practicing teaching research writing, contemporary poetry writing, and short story writing. We took a preference poll at the end, and found about an even balance in the number of teachers who were interested in introducing one of these three in their clubs. We can't wait to see the results! 

What the ESL teaching field stands for

The TESOL International Association has notified its members of the death of Dr. James E. Alatis, one of its founding members. I have been a member of this organization since the 1970s, and his writings meant a lot to me over the years.

As the notice says, "Jim Alatis, as he was known to many, will be remembered for his energy and his commitment to TESOL International Association and to the field of English language teaching. 'Our kind of teaching,' he once said, 'which accepts other peoples’ languages and cultures as equally valid to ours, is essential to cross-cultural communication, mutual educational exchange, social justice, and, ultimately, it is devoutly to be wished, world peace.' As the association works to support and encourage the work of English language teaching, he would urge us, as he told one interviewer, 'to continue to insist upon quality above all.'”

Happy Mother Tongue Day!

It's International Mother Language Day again! Why not spend Saturday enjoying your mother tongue—reading, singing, writing, and talking only in your mother tongue?

For several years SELI held a celebration of this important UNESCO celebration on February 1st, commemorating the diversity of mother languages that exist in Sierra Leone and helping to do what it takes to keep them and the culture and identities they carry with them, alive.

We praise the efforts of The Institute for Sierra Leone Languages in encouraging pride and literacy in our mother tongues, and the goals of PEN Sierra Leone's Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee.

Here's how an area much bigger than ours (and with substantial financial support) celebrates this important day. We all need to put our heads together to come up with a meaningful celebration of our own.