How I Finally Learned English Grammar

In Elementary school I am sure I was taught the basics. What is the subject? What is the verb? Define a noun. I know in my first English course in college we learned about passive voice, articles, dangling modifiers. I was an English major. I have sat with editors telling me to use the present tense, avoid the past tense and present perfect. Don’t use passive voice. Take out all the extra articles. As a substitute it was mandatory I review parts of speech, enough said. Even with all this, it is only now that I am truly learning English Grammar.

Today I swore I heard brains exploding in my 4eme class, which is a class I picked up during the second semester here, because we were desperately short of English professors. I am not saying these students aren’t smart, but it is clear there have been many gaps in their learning of the English language. I once heard during a graduation ceremony speech that knowledge is what you remember after you have learned everything. I know these students have learned all the words written in the books here, but they haven’t remembered it; whether it is because they are lazy, illiterate, or their teachers didn’t explain it well, well there’s no way to know. Not that I can blame these poor kids, I mean I am just now learning the true meaning of English grammar and that is this: it would be very good friends with Jacques Derrida, more or less father of deconstruction, the theory which boils down to everything means nothing, more or less. So here I am faced with Derrida’s BFF, a native English speaker (myself), and 70 some Beninese students who speak French and Biali, with a smattering of other languages, teaching passive voice.

I didn’t even want to teach this lesson, because as far as I am concerned every English professor I had in college if they were in graves would be rolling over. “Don’t use passive voice,” they said. “Be direct, use active voice,” editors mumbled. Of course as you might imagine from my first paragraph I nodded politely at these comments, made a mental note, and I would read my work searching for passive voice, not knowing exactly what I was even looking for. Anyone who knows me knows I can’t hide confusion, so basically for those who know me, imagine me with that face staring at sentences trying to discern active voice from passive voice. This is probably why when I looked around from the board at my students faces, we both just looked at each other like this was the most ridiculous thing they have ever seen.

Learning passive voice requires one to know how to find a subject, a verb, and objects, but also knowing the difference between subject pronouns and object pronouns. Also you need to be able to identify tenses—present, present continuous, past, present perfect, future—and know the past participle for verbs, which for most is its verb base with ‘ed’, but of course there are all those irregular verbs, whose past tense is different than their past participle. After all this don’t forget all the conjugations for the verb “to be.” Did your brain just explode? Welcome to 4eme and to how I finally am learning English Grammar.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Forming the Past Participle of English Verbs: Spelling Changes and Pronunciation (brighthub.com)
• The English Verb System for ESL Students (brighthub.com)
• The Formation and Use of the Passive Voice in English (brighthub.com)

Tie-Dying in West-Africa

Sports have always played a major role in my life. I even have documented evidence; my first photo, at age 6, for my t-ball team. Down on one knee I proudly wore my purple Vikings uniform. Back then we didn't have the standard white pants--which makes sense, we were bunch of kids--so my mother made me a matching tie-dye shirt and pants combo. I remember wearing that ensemble down quickly--there was no dirt on the field that went untouched. Now, many years later I have returned to tie-dye.

It is common among volleyball teams to make tie-dye t-shirts together as a team building activity. When I was coaching my first volleyball team, a club one of my best friends and I had started, we had a tie-dying party. So the idea to do the same thing in Africa came naturally, and like in t-ball my mother came to the rescue. She set about buying t-shirts for the girls and while she could have just bought some regular tie-dying kit at Wal-Mart, she went through the process of ordering a kit from a company called Dharma Trading Company. She even called them to ask if they shipped to Benin. They did, but at the fear it might get lost she had it shipped to her first.

Following the volleyball tournament I had all the girls over to my house to tie-dye. I couldn't explain what it was to them, but they went along with the activity with vigor. Of course we had to work around the directions a little. For example, I can't control water temperature from the pump, and instead boiled water to mix in with the cool water.

We let the shirts sit in their dye for almost 24 hours, at the girls’ insistence. The next day on a Monday, four of the girls came over to help rinse off the dye so we could hang the shirts to dry. They were all wowed by the colors and how the shirts turned out. The four girls immediately started calling dibs on the shirts they wanted. Even the shirt we were sure was going to turn out "villain" was pretty. Another sign that the shirts were a success is the girls wanting to sell them. Apparently south of our village a group of woman do tie-dying, and the girls eagerly pointed out these shirts were way better.

On Saturday the whole team returned and I set about demonstrating how they could use the fabric markers--also courtesy of my mother--to sign one another shirts and decorate the t-shirts. The girls acted cautiously at first, but after an hour they were all into it, so much that I couldn't get them to stop. They wrote messages to each other and spread "I love volleyball" across the shirts with hearts. Next year these shirts will serve as their practice t-shirts, and while I thought they might wear them outside of that, they have taken this notion seriously. These shirts are for volleyball only. It gives them something to look forward to next year and like my photo from t-ball, it gives them documented evidence for the future.

(See slideshow for pictures)

Benin Volleyballin: Part III "I didn't do the lift, but it was good."

I love volleyball and when I played in high school and college I loved it, but I don't think I was ever as motivated as the girls on my team here in Benin. Every time I looked they were practicing this past week at a tournament that hosted teams from the Atakora-Donga Regions in Benin. They would wake-up and practice. They'd eat breakfast and practice. In the middle of the day, in the hot African sun, they would practice. It would be raining and they would practice. It is a shame they don't have the opportunity to do it more often back in village, where they are going to school, and when they aren't at school they are doing housework.

While practice is supposed to make perfect, my girls prior to coming to the tournament had significantly less practice than the other teams. We started in February and practiced twice a week, but due to trainings I had, were unable to practice during breaks and at other times. The other teams had been together for a year or so. I have to say though considering all this, my girls were able to hold their own.

The first match it was clear the girls were nervous. They didn't have their usual swagger they seem to carry naturally. Also the voice of our team at the start of the match was missing. She was out looking for the key to the classroom, where all the girls' things were, and no one could find her. Around the court were tons of people, heckling and cheering with each point. Like when I played volleyball, I couldn't stop talking to the girls, cheering them on and trying to remain calm. During the second game the voice of the team showed up. I didn't put her in right away. By the third game the girls settled down and won the game. Unfortunately we couldn't sustain for the fourth game and lost the match.

I was pleased with the girls' performance, but of course there were things that had gone wrong and after the usual post-game chat I made the girls get on the court and do lines. It has been my goal to discipline these girls and to take pride in themselves, if it is the last thing I do.

The next day we had our second match. If we won we stayed on for the semi-finals (there were only four teams total), but if we lost it was back up to Materi. The girls practiced as much as they could within the next 24 hours and we all were confident we could win this match. I was so certain, but as the game started slowly things fell out of place, and after three games we were done. I was happy to see the girls were upset with themselves--to me it meant the competitive streak had seeped into them and good--but I finally said to them that they should be proud of what they had done. I also pointed out to them that I am not sure I could have taken a group of girls from the States and done what I had done with them. They in two months, with maybe a little over a dozen practices, had made themselves into volleyball players. They played without shoes, some of them, in the heat, on courts with rocks and dirt, with one volleyball, a basketball, and a soccer ball. So to steal some words from my favorite movie, while we didn't win the game, it was still good.

Benin Volleyballin’ Part II: Getting There

At 10:30 a.m. I am dropped off at the school for our 11 a.m. departure. After five minutes the other coach calls me into his office and tells me to go ahead back home; he will call me when they are ready. Two hours pass, I am not worried, I expected we wouldn’t leave on time, and finally a little after 1 p.m. I am told to come back. Of course, another hour passes before we actually leave the school—me, the other coach, and 20 students, including the 11 girls that form our volleyball team.

You can sense the excitement of the girls. This isn’t something that happens everyday for them; there are many students, who have never left the village, let alone get in a car. They squeal loudly as the driver turns roughly around to head out of the school gates, which prompts our director to warn the driver to be careful. We bump along the long dirt road, when not even ten minutes in we decide we will stop in the first town, Tanguieta. The driver needs to change his clothes and the students are hungry; they don’t have any problem vocalizing discontent.

We eat quickly, paying for extra food we did not get, just because the Maman at the cafeteria, refused to go and count the plates. It is what it is. Leaving the cafeteria, the driver is no where to be found. Ten minutes pass, fifteen minutes pass, a half hour passes and we finally see him riding around town on a moto. He returns, and the other coach makes a joke about the driver having to go see his wife; it’s his way of telling the guy he shouldn’t have been gone so long.

Next on our trip is Natitingou, where I want to stop at the post office to see if I have packages, including possibly one with much needed volleyballs. Then we also need to get photos developed of each of the players to make identification cards for the tournament. Also there are three girls, who refused to eat in Tanguieta, but of course are still hungry. It is what it is. We arrive in Natitingou, a hour and half later. The photo place can’t make photos with my American camera, so we find out we must make another stop in Djougou. At the post office I am met with success, the volleyballs have arrived, thankfully as we forgot our lone volleyball at school. We are delayed once more though, as the three girls move slowly to find what they deem suitable food.

Djougou is another hour and half plus, which doesn’t include various stops at police checkpoints, where we must give money to keep going on our way. We arrive in Djougou, our destination Ouake, is less than an hour away.

Our stop in Djougou lasts at least three hours--or at least it felt like it. We must make copies of photos as I mentioned for the tournament. We find a place, but once again they can't take the card from my camera, but this other guy says he can. So we hop on some motos and go to his house. As I am doing this, I am thinking, never in America, never in America. After about five to ten minutes we get to his house. His wife is outside preparing dinner, and doesn't even make any face at the fact that her husband has brought two strangers over. We go inside the guys house and it is like a regular old CVS set-up to make copies of photos. Yet, the copies take a while to make, and then we find out how expensive they are and we need like 30 some photos. After much debate we decide to make one copy and then go to another place to make copies. The night is coming and so I go back to the bus with the girls. We wait for another hour and half, and when I call the other teacher, he just tells me he is coming. The girls are growing impatient and so is our driver. I just tell them, it is what it is, and he is coming. He finally arrives after 9 p.m. and we all pile back in the bus for the last leg of our trip. And so after a seven hour plus trip, which should have been no more than four hours, we arrived in Ouake, a town near the border of Togo, Benin’s western neighbor.

Benin Volleyballin’ Part I

In February, with the enthusiasm of my school’s director and consistent assistance from another member of the administration, I started C.E.G. Matéri’s first volleyball team. It was opened up to only girls, much to the chagrin of the male students, who insisted they too were jeunes filles (young girls).

Initially, I set out to practice once a week. Free time is not a commodity for most girls in Benin, as they are responsible for cooking and cleaning at home, along with keeping up with their studies. We decided on Saturday mornings at 7 a.m. going for an hour and half. The second week in, after receiving a lecture on making sure they arrived on time, as we only practiced once a week, the girls approached me, “Madame Jamie, ‘What about practicing on Sunday?’.” I asked if this was instead of Saturday morning, but no, they wanted to practice twice a week. So it was set, we’d start practicing twice a week, two hours each day. Of course I can’t think of a single time our practices didn’t run shorter than two and half hours, with the girls continuing to get some last passes in while we were taking things back to be locked up at the school.

I don’t think these girls give any second thoughts to the conditions they play in, meanwhile I have had to slowly accept them, which has sub sequentially left me with total admiration of these girls. We play outside, on a terrain that is basically hard ground, with tiny rocks everywhere. The girls fall on the ground without question or complaint, at the same time they are forced to move quickly to avoid falling all together.

In addition to the one volleyball the school had, I bought a volleyball, which quickly was deflated as the girls sky rocketed the ball everywhere and anywhere but the volleyball court. Then we resorted to using a basketball and two soccer balls, just so the girls could get repetition.

I couldn’t figure out how to run a practice at first, because I was used to having many volleyballs at my disposal. I also struggled to explain things in French. I knew this would be a challenge, but never realized how ingrained in my head volleyball lingo had become. As a result though, the girls have learned a little more English, evident by them saying “Mine,” sometimes, as opposed to “J’ai” to call for the ball. Thankfully with the help of another school administrator I survived and developed some new strategies on my own.

I had to leave behind the complex volleyball I had learned and go back to basics. This means just simply passing and setting, and despite protests underhand serving—next year they are all learning to overhand serve. I had to deal with the time eaten up by chasing balls. I finally resorted one day to taking the girls to the side of the school building and passing with the wall, making them get in ready position, throw the ball up, and passing, in a methodical, controlled process, that kept them focused. I also had to deal with how the other coach wanted to discipline the girls, by yelling and hitting. It was only a matter of time, until the other coach saw giving them running, having them hold the passing position, or doing push-ups worked more effectively. Then there has been the slower process of reprogramming these girls to pick one another up, instead of blasting each other for mistakes.

This all leads me up to today, which was the first day at a regional competition in Benin, where the first girls’ sports team ever from Matéri is participating.