ABCs of Teaching in English (Pre-task)

ABC’s of Teaching in English (Pre-task)

Teaching in English: a chore or a bonus? My experience using English in teaching.

Using English language during my studies have always been the most comfortable language as in Mauritius, we learn English language from the age of 3 during the pre-primary school. Communicating in English is a must in all subjects apart from studying different languages such as French and Hindi. The national anthem of Mauritius is also in English language.

While I have got the opportunity to choose the place where I can perform my teaching practice, I opted for a university where all teachings are done in English. The African Leadership University (ALU) is the institution where I am practicing my teaching and it has the head office in Rwanda. In ALU, students communicate in English with other students and with teachers. Having studied in England for around 3 years, it is comfortable for me to communicate in English and stay in such kind of environment. When contacting ALU organizer, Miss Merveille for my teaching practice, she invited me for an interview at ALU.

Miss Merveille welcomed and guided me to the interview room on the interview day. Almost all staffs at ALU are from Africa and they are English speakers. In the interview, there was the dean of faculty, the leadership core leader and the business management faculty representatives. The interview was done in English and they asked me several questions based on OAMK and my expectations from them and for the teaching practice. They also elaborated on their teaching methods and the activities of ALU as ALU organised Bold Summit a week before my teaching. During the Bold Summit occasion, it is pleased to know that a Finn came to ALU all the way from Finland to conduct a speech. The interview lasted around half an hour and they asked me to wait for their emails to inform me the dates I can come for teaching. After 2 weeks, I was informed about the possible dates for practicing my teaching and agreed for a 3 days teaching according to my initial teaching plan which I prepared before my interview with ALU.

My first day of teaching at ALU was a memorable experience as our reserved class was taken by other people and we had to wait for an hour with the students to get a classroom to teach. It was very inconvenient for me as I realized that the lecturer who was going to assess me, was not a responsible person. Afterwards, I learned that there was an issue in their system with the classroom booking and it was not the fault of the assessed lecturer. The students at ALU are very friendly and helpful. They were very responsive in my first teaching session and eager to learn more about my topic which was about business culture and negotiation. Although my teaching topic was not classified in ALU among the compulsory courses, I received 5 students on Day 1. A group task was handed to the students where one party is a buyer and another party is a seller of certain items and they will negotiate and present their points in front of the class in Day 3. I even provided some interesting videos about culture and negotiation. The aim was to allow the students to understand one’s culture and negotiate in an effective way. After they watched the videos, there was some discussions with the students to see how much they have understood culture and its concepts. The students were very honest about some points that were not cleared for them in the video.

I prepared some quiz, Prezi and Padlet for the students but unfortunately on the second day, no students came. The lecturers then agreed to put my teaching practice on those days when they normally have compulsory classes. The lecturers also mentioned that they have staffs with pedagogical studies who can assess me because initially, they misunderstood that I need a teacher to assess me who has graduated from his/her pedagogical studies only at OAMK. At ALU, they have Mirror Op app which automatically connect the lecturer’s laptop with the projector without any cable. It was a very impressive app which ease teaching. However, this app is only applicable for the lecturers at ALU to log-in. Luckily, they provided me with this app on the very first day which helps to use 2 different screens; one that is shown in the projector for the audience and one for my laptop screen only.

On the next teaching, I will be explaining more about culture, the foundation and values. Then I will explain about the negotiation factors, the theories behind culture with negotiation, the steps for successful negotiation and skills needed. Then on Day 3, there will be discussion in padlet, a summary of the topic in Prezi and the group task where each group will present their work and the audience will get a feedback form to grade each group. At last, the winner group will be announced. After each class also, each student will anonymously provide feedback on my teaching. This will help me to analyze the progression of my teaching and how clear I am in teaching and proving my points to the students. My aim will be to provide an interesting teaching atmosphere and simple clear English language as all communication is done in English at ALU.

For the first day, the teaching went smoothly and everything was clear to the students on the group task. I tried to use the problem-solving approach in the group task so as to make them realize the importance of brainstorming and challenges when working in groups. All discussions done in English will make the students become more familiar in negotiating in any situation in English language as I could notice that English is not their native language.

Teaching in English was obviously a bonus for me as I am not comfortable using the French language. Although English is not my native language, having international exposure since I started persuading my tertiary education make me speak fluent English. For me, teaching in French language would have been a chore as I have mostly studied in English language. The importance of English language was realized when studying the school certificate (SC) and higher school certificate (HSC) in secondary school as it helps to get a better job afterwards. In Mauritius, companies still ask for SC and HSC certificate for job application.