What the heck am I doing?

So, I have been here for a week and a day. I don't start teaching for another 3 days. What have I been doing for the past week? Well, other than sleeping until 7am, spending my nights getting caught up on every episode of Seinfeld and Survivor, cooking fun things, and walking around town aimlessly, I have been planning my English classes. You see, I am teaching a total of 8 hours of 1st and 2nd year English for University Tourism students. I know it seems like very little but I am a planner. What can I say?

By the way, I was a bit confused as to whether I was teaching at a University or a trade school. It IS a University--one of the top ones--Eduardo Mondlane University. It is the one of two tourism schools in the country. The other is way north, near tanzania, in Cabo Delgado province, I believe. Its like at Cornell where there is the College of Architecture, the college of Agriculture and Life Sciences, etc. My University here is the Facultade de Turismo (Tourism college).

Anyways, so I am planning for my classes but still have not met my students, have only a guess of what their levels are, have a curriculum which is skeletal at most, and all the freedom to do whatever I want. I make the exams, I give the grades. It is all me.

Now, this might be liberating for some but I have been conflicted this whole week. I keep thinking back to Karine and my joint presentation at grad school in which we led the participants through various activities to show them what is "hidden" in what teachers teach and how they teach it. For example: What do desks in rows infer about the relationship between student and teacher? What does a circle format? What does it mean when certain photos are used to illustrate history or when they are omitted? Who does it benefit? Who is empowered? Anna also did a great presentation that I have been thinking about where she talked about how culturally inappropriate lessons show students that their own existence doesn't matter or doesn't pertain to English. If you NEVER go on vacation then WHY are you learning about plane tickets, taxi fares, and resort hotels???!!!!

As I wade through a puddle of old tourism textbooks, I see how Mozambique is not reflected in the texts. I can't possibly present them to my students as I believe the psychological effects might be damaging. (yeah, yeah, melodramatic) Also, textbooks here are a great luxury and automatically mean development, progress, and success---no matter the content. If a teacher were to use a textbook it might be looked upon better than if he or she used nothing. I want my students to feel appreciated and have a sense of pride because they have made it this far. Uni students are few and far between here. But how do I do that with NO textbook?!!

I am really excited to meet them and find out what they need. Right now I am on a high---Wanting to inspire. Wanting to push them to the limit of their abilities. Wanting to empower. Wanting to show how malleable language is. Wanting to give them opportunities to use this language, English, to get things done. Despite this high, I am grounded in my memories of how slow it takes to get things done here, how education is not thought of the same here, how power and prestige of rank and status are often more important than skills to back them up. This is going to be a long and bumpy ride. Anybody wanna come see?