Renee Lynch's Reports

Sunday evening in Lesotho. It has been a full day. I have done laundry by hand, baked bread, graded papers, sat patiently while schoolgirls braided my hair and asked me questions, shot glamour photos for eager customers, and hiked to the next village and back for grocery shopping, socializing all along the way. Now, at last, I can retreat to my home to spend the last hour of coveted daylight with a book. I glance out the window and notice a man in the road - the priest of the church of St. Rodrigue. Funny - I've never seen him outside of church. He seems like an awkward man, only speaking in English when he sees Bryan and me in the crowd. Then, he laboriously inserts non-sequitors in English into the service like "to be without God is like a fish out of water" causing everyone to perk up and turn around to peer at us, the two makhua-skinned, sekhua-speaking faces. He has a very strange, forced laugh that he does in church too... wait, is he coming here? To our house?! What does he want? My Catholic upbringing did not include much interaction with priests beyond receiving communion or being berated for sins, and I did not go to church this morning. Gulp. He's at the door. I open it with a gracious "Dumela, Ntate!" and an awkward conversation with an awkward priest in the kitchen ensues. After lots of small talk ("So, when do you think we'll have an African pope?"), I come to understand that he wants me to tutor him in French in return for apples and tomatoes - a pretty sweet deal, but wait - how did this happen? Why did I just agree to teach French to a priest for produce?

What language am I supposed to be teaching here?

This is not the first time that this question has crossed my mind. It is one (of many) that is a daily chorus in my head as I waltz around St. Rodrigue High School. Thus far, the education system of Lesotho and I have been novice dance partners. We are still trying to fall in step together, but the other pairs - Bureaucracy and Politics, Ignorance and Curiosity, and Reality and Expectation - are crowding the dance floor.

Being an English teacher is not as straight-forward as it seems. It's pretty bold of me to assume that being a native speaker of English qualifies and entitles me to teach English to others. It reeks of colonialism and self-righteousness, but I made my peace with those issues when I signed up for this job. This job, however, was to teach English (primarily) at this rural school in Southern Africa. Now, I find myself learning English here as much, if not more, than I teach.

You know, language is a funny thing. It has the consistency of jello. It has relatively the same shape as the mold it came from, but it is subject to wiggling and jiggling in reaction to contact. It is also subject to melting a little with a drastic change in environment. In a place like Lesotho, the English language has done a fair amount of wiggling and jiggling. This has led to many "Basotho-isms," or ways that English is used locally, that I have had to learn in order to understand English here and to be understood when teaching. For example, students have "exercises" (notebooks). Teachers "scheme" (plan) classes and sometimes use "animators" (calculators) to calculate "marks" (grades). You need to "revise" (review) before you "write/sit" (take) an exam, and don't forget to end your sentences with "full-stops" (periods - this word is giggle-inducing in class). This is the vocabulary of my trade, and it's weird to ask a class to take out their notebooks and be met with confused stares. Did I speak too quickly or use a complicated sentence structure, or just use the wrong word? Or was my accent off? I try to speak in the local accent of English as much as possible, which feels silly and condescending, but dramatically increases my understandability when speaking to students and teachers.

"Basotho-isms" also extend to grammar, and many sentence constructions that would be unacceptable in American English are in frequent use here. Repeated subjects (as in "my chickens, they are many"), confusing articles (as in "those eggs have the owner"), and funky verb conjugations (as in "these students they are so lazy to work") abound in the speech of teachers and students alike. As an upstanding native speaker, I could get on my moral high horse (or sure-footed Basotho pony) "correcting" all the mistakes I hear, but I don't. For one, that would discourage people from speaking English, and that is not something to be taken for granted. Further, I prefer to think of language as something active; language is in use and naturally fluid. Just because this English is different than what I'm used to doesn't make it any less valid to use, because it is still how people communicate ideas and understand each other.

This view has complicated implications in an English classroom, however. The education system of Lesotho is far more black and white (racial puns aside.) Last week, I was team teaching a beginning English class with a Basotho teacher, Me' Tsolo, and we were talking about countable and uncountable nouns. I can't remember ever learning this in American schools, but it's pretty self-explanatory: countable nouns can be counted, uncountable nouns cannot, and hence, uncountable nouns do not have a plural form; so "peach" is countable, but "sugar" is uncountable. This concept is flawed, though, because it totally depends on how you use the word where you are. A student raises her hand and suggests "chalk" as a countable noun. Me' Tsolo says yes, because you can have one chalk, two chalks, three chalks, etc. I think to myself, "No, it's uncountable, because you don't have 'chalks' you have 'pieces of chalk,'" but I keep my mouth shut. Me' Tsolo goes on to write the word "skies" on the board and lecture that "skies is uncountable, because we only have one sky." Isn't "skies" plural, though - proving that it's countable? Again, I stay quiet to preserve the contemplative peace in the classroom. After class, when Me' Tsolo asks me how it went, I voice my disagreement, adding that I think English is used differently in America, so to me, "chalk" is countable. "No, it's chalks," Me' Tsolo says definitively. I explain again, but her dismissive "ok" ends the debate. So much for "chalking" it all up to cultural differences… I have yet to crack a smile with a pun in Lesotho.

Her attitude makes sense, though, given that the education system is largely based on standardized tests with one correct answer. I have been brought up in the American system that nurtures creativity and critical thinking skills, but here in Lesotho, if you don't score high enough on the state exam at the end of your 3rd year of high school, you're out. No debate or free-response questions about it.

Is "Jesus" a concrete or abstract noun? Depends on how you think about it, I tell my class. They are not satisfied. Though I entertain debate on these matters, the COSC exam does not (but I will admit, having "Jesus" as an example in class was all me - there's a young nun in that class and I couldn't resist the opportunity for deconstructive analysis).

So, what language am I supposed to be teaching here? English, yes, but whose English? The English of the Brits who write the COSC exam that determines their fate, or of the South Africans who surround their country, or of the Americans who float in and out of their educations? I want to teach them language they will use. I'm supposed to be the Native Speaker, authority on all things English, but do I teach my students to say "how are you," "how's it," or "what's up?" If I try to include everything I can, it may be confusing to my students, or even a disservice to them. I often let "mistakes" go uncorrected while grading compositions - not major ones, but if I can see what they wanted to say, I let incorrect (yet somehow poetic) phrasing slide. I don't want them to be too discouraged with returned homework bathed in red pen, because at least they're writing. I was once told to be harsh with grading, because the students that can't handle it will fail and be pulled out of school soon enough. A moral urge in me says no, education is everyone's right, and I am someone who can afford to be patient to help my students understand, but it is overwhelming. I grade compositions for three classes with a combined total of approximately 100 students, and it's a lot of work in addition to other classes - especially when half of the assignments are just jumbles of words written on a page sans punctuation and I have to make sense of what they were trying to say. Maybe it's a disservice to let students like that pass with a misapprehension that they will be able to pass in the future.

The same goes for using Sesotho to teach English. To me, it makes sense to use what students know to bridge gaps or create context for what they don't know. Using Sesotho in class is also an opportunity for me to learn more of the national language, having 40+ eager teachers who will simultaneously learn the difficulties of teaching a language. Speaking Sesotho at school is forbidden for students, however, and they are beaten if they do. On days when "Sesotho-speakers" are rounded-up (turned-in by their fellow classmates) and slapped on the hands and behinds by teachers-wielded batons, it's heart-breaking to be in the staff room. As the teachers taunt and scold them, then turn around and comment to fellow teachers in Sesotho themselves, I understand why the girls seek clear, fair answers in class. They want to avoid being wrong. Maybe it is a disservice to teach them to be flexible with their language when their world does not.

That doesn't stop me, though. The other day, I discovered when talking to a Sesotho teacher that the verb etsa means to do, to make, and to prepare, all in one. It helped me understand why my students were writing "I apologize when I make a bad thing," because "to make" and "to do" are interchangeable in Sesotho. I brought this to class, and watched their eyes light up as I explained the Sesotho word in English. Their next composition may show results, but we'll see. I tried to use the Akon song "Don't Matter" to teach pronouns, because they love the song and the lyrics are full of pronouns. They didn't do so well on the pronouns test, but we had a lot of fun singing in class.

In addition to Basotho English, I'm really trying to learn Sesotho. Lesotho is an English-speaking country on paper, but Sesotho is what people prefer. It's interesting to talk to other English-speaking Africans here; I was told by a man from Ghana, "Basotho don't like English" and a man from Zimbabwe commented, "You see how uncomfortable with English they are." Sesotho is a difficult language in itself, complete with tongue clicks and a "th" that makes me sound like Donald Duck. I want to learn, but most of my knowledge has to be pieced together from what I hear and read and ask people. So far, my best teachers have been the kids that live across they way. Children are wonderful teachers - they're curious, honest, and don't judge nearly as much as adults. Much like my arrangement with the priest, we both benefit from learning together. They frequently come to our door as a troop of six or seven and ask to borrow books. We have a good selection of children's books from previous fellows, and if I throw in the extra bargain of reading it to them, I get to point to the pictures and ask, "what is this?" in Sesotho. They don't understand a vast majority of English, but I'm on the same learning curve with Sesotho. One of my best friends here is a 4-year-old named Buthali (which I recently learned means "clever.") She is always wandering into our house and asking "Keng nthoe?" (what is this?), so I tell her words in English and then return the question for the Sesotho translation. She's also picked up "how are you" and "I am fine" - is this small-scale colonialism? Or giving her a leg up in primary school? Soon enough, she'll have to deal with the English-Sesotho divide and everything in between.

With learning language comes learning culture as well, and I have learned the hard way a few times already. I wanted to address some issues I was having with a fellow teacher, but teachers here have varying levels of English ability. This creates a challenge, because there's no hiding behind euphemism or professional terminology whose purpose is to mask what you're really saying for the sake of politeness. To avoid being misunderstood, I decided to be frank and direct when explaining what I didn't like about our team-teaching relationship, and it made her cry. It was an uncomfortable learning moment. As I have learned from this and from 7-hour staff meetings in which everyone mumbles quietly and beats around the bush, frank honesty is not a Basotho value.

Language also marks the passage of time here, given the steady expansion of phrases habitually shouted at us by the primary school students. In the beginning of the year, they yelled only, "What is the time?!" but now they have added "How are you?!" and "I am fine!" to the repertoire. It continues to be annoying, but I hope their desire to one day have a full conversation with us spurs them forward in their study of the English language, because it may be a rough road ahead.

As for me, I am now "teaching" French to a priest and three teachers. They insist that they are interested, despite the fact that French really has little place in this isolated mountain kingdom. So I write phrases for them and listen as their tongues that are used to clicking in Sesotho try to roll over the nasal vowels of French and think, "Don't you want to get a better grip on English first?" but that's not my place here. As soon as I can more clearly define my place here, I'll let you know.