Teaching Madagascar

The Madagascar trip was brilliant. At the school the children were really engaged learners. I found the most important thing on this trip was taking many more picture books. I hadn't done that enough on the other trips, so I made a bigger effort to this time, and it worked out well.

So after English spelling and sight words etc, we read a picture book each day. I read the page in English, then Gabriel, one of the workers, would explain the page in Malagasy/French. It was excellent being able to expose the students to the artwork (the pictures) in the books. They mostly do chalk board exercises for their lessons. In all the schools I have taught at now I have noticed the difficulty with imaginative tasks (creativity), and drawing. There is a really high number of students unsure/shocked when I say 'good sentence, now draw a picture to go with it'. So my idea with the picture books was to expose them to the art.