A JOURNEY THROUGH LANGUAGE

English classes at the Umoja Training Centre

By Standing Voice

August 9^th, 2018

For people with albinism in Tanzania—so often locked out of education and barred from public life—one new skill can have a transformative effect. On Ukerewe Island—the birthplace of Standing Voice and home of our Umoja Training Centre—English is a peripheral language at best, usually only the fourth or fifth spoken by those who know it. Even in these cases, a shortlist of phrases or buzzwords is far more common than fluency.

And yet, to progress into secondary education in Tanzania, one must be able to read, write and converse in English: nationwide, it is the official language of instruction. The preponderance of English in higher education, and its dominance of so many professional fields in Tanzania—its unique capability to unlock opportunities and open doors—has led many of our beneficiaries on Ukerewe Island to identify English language classes as an urgent, unmet training need. Learning to speak English is an especially powerful opportunity for a person with albinism: evidence of that individual’s ability to contribute to society, and proof, also, that albinism is not limiting.

It was against this backdrop that Standing Voice recently introduced its first programme of English language study for people with albinism in Tanzania. As part of our Summer Skills Workshop on Ukerewe Island, international volunteers Sarah Bancroft and Molly Hardy travelled to Tanzania and joined forces with Standing Voice staff Chrispine Mabwenga and Ramadhan Hajj to deliver a week-long series of interactive lessons.

Skilfully harmonising with the wider Summer Skills timetable, the team conducted daily ‘takeovers’ of the six core workshops, delivering 24 lessons to 85 participants over a period of six days.

"For the lessons, we used simple songs with actions, visual cues, such as flashcards and miming, games, and a lot of questions and answers to engage students, introducing and reinforcing new language. The songs, which the students enjoyed a lot, were vital for structuring lessons and making things memorable. We also broke into teams, which worked well for encouraging collaboration and inspiring competitive energy." Sarah Bancroft

“I was immediately struck by the power of songs in language instruction. We were teaching new vocabulary through rhymes, and I realised myself how hard it was to forget the lines once we began singing them! It was a simple but memorable way for participants to quickly absorb new language.” Chrispine Mabwenga

“Despite a vast range of abilities, there was a prevailing sense of determination, solidarity and community.” Molly Hardy

“As each day passed, we moved from topic to topic: first of all, ‘who I am’—greetings, introductions, saying where we come from, describing our families—then on to objects, activities and feelings; building in the grammar as we went. In places, we adapted to the workshop that was hosting us. With the radio group—perhaps the youngest, but also with some of best English speakers—we explored words and phrases that would be useful to them as reporters, including question words such as ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘how’. In what I’m sure was a whirlwind induction for many, we tried to build vocabulary from the ground up, focusing on experiences and objects familiar in Ukerewe. By the end, we were creating sentences with language drawn from all four lessons. There was a palpable sense of engagement and appreciation from participants across the workshops, regardless of initial ability.” Sarah Bancroft

For many participants, the lessons learned on Ukerewe this summer are the first steps in what is set to become a much longer relationship with the English language. Sparking an interest and catalysing a thirst for improvement, the pilot programme has established a launch pad for learning that Standing Voice will look to develop and solidify in the months and years to come.