1 Year with my English Club

As most of you know, I teach Monday through Friday at a local school here in my community. I teach 23 classes a week, teaching my 6th graders and 9th graders. But I also have an English Club I teach twice a week. This is considered a "secondary project" to Peace Corps and volunteers are highly encouraged to have one. This looks different to every volunteer, but English Clubs are probably the most common.

March of last year (2023), my regional manager at Peace Corps contacted me asking if I wanted a secondary project. She told me about this school that is also in my community. Their student population is a majority orphan/single parent household and most families can not afford courses or tutoring for their students. My regional manager thought it would be a great opportunity to start an English Club at the school to help these students. So with another volunteer here in my community we started. We were also fortunate enough to have an amazing counterpart at the school who, funny enough, is married to a Peace Corps staff member.

We worked with the social worker at the school, our counterpart, and we organized the club. Tuesdays we teach 6th-9th graders for an hour and a half. For this group, we are averaging about 12-15 students a week. Then Wednesdays we teach 1st-5th for an hour. This group we are averaging about 25-28 students a week. We really wanted this club to be different than what is happening in the classroom. A common teaching practice here is just teaching straight from the textbook so at English Club we incorporate a lot of games and fun activities. For example, we teach a mini lesson for the first 20-30 minutes and then the rest of the time we play a game that is about the lesson we teach. They love hangman to help with spelling, telephone to practice pronunciation, or even just creative writing to express themselves freely. I can honestly say English Club is usually the highlight of my week. They are the cutest and sweetest students.

Fast forward a year and we are celebrating our 1 year anniversary of the club! My fellow volunteer and I, with the help of our counterpart at the school, organized a certificate ceremony and reception to celebrate our students growth and hard work throughout the year. We invited Peace Corps staff members to come celebrate with us. It was great to show the staff that not only our hard work is paying off but theirs as well. We are so grateful to have their constant support for this project and we cant wait to see what the next few months hold for us at English Club! :)