Teaching in Tabubil – 13th – 17th September 2010.
Monday morning, we were off to an eartly start, a quick breakfast, twenty minute walk to work and we were at the training centre and ready to go at 7.40am. The training centre is a large two storey building with training rooms of various sizes and shapes and a couple of IT rooms. I have the dubious pleasure of having to use the IT room in the Electrical Trades Centre which is a short walk from the training centre, just a couple of buildings away, but far enough that if you forget your umbrella and it starts to rain, you can get very wet. (experience).
I was introduced to lots of people and I am still trying to learn all their names, there are about 30-35 people working here full time and everyone of them is friendly and welcoming. I spent most of Monday doing pre-assessments on my students and getting to know them a little by interviewing them one on one while Brad got them going on the computers. Most of them don’t have access to computers, internet or email in their normal work role, so they just want to use it all the time. My students are mainly tradesmen from the Mill who have a bit of training in their role through supporting apprentices in the workplace, a couple of them are operator trainers and driver trainers.
Their English language skills are OK with written work but they can be hard to understand verbally, which makes my day seem very long and I get very tired from the concentration required. They have a great sense of humour, though and we have a lot of fun. They are teaching me a bit about their language and I am learning a bit of pigin.
Tuesday saw us get into the serious side of training delivery and it has been very much that every day. We are a day ahead of schedule so far, and I have been giving them extra time to complete their work. The course is a lot more computer focussed than I would like with all their assignments being submitted via email and no hard copies kept. I guess I am just a bit old fashioned. On Friday morning I got them to do two minute talks, and they were great! I learned about medicinal plants, village and cultural things as well as how to make tongs out of a 24 gallon drum sealing ring.
So the training delivery is going well and we have got into the swing of being here from 7am to 5pm every day.
