This Week: APCD Visit

Not much happened this week, except my boss from Peace Corps (the APCD) visited. My boss Taibatou is kind of fantastically glamorous, a Beninese woman in charge, and I love it. My other boss, Cyprien, who oversaw my training, was also there… he’s been an English teacher for years, knows everything about education ever, and is incredibly nice when I call him freaking out about my house/school/living-with-the-director situation.

Anyway. So she visited today and observed my 6eme M1 class, which I had seen exactly two times before. We had a couple of rough patches chatting-wise, and it took (not exaggerating) about 20 minutes to explain the sentence “Create a dialogue with a partner” using my entire Franglais and FreMiming vocabulary. But we got there, that’s the important part.


I also decided that I did not want to be bored during this lesson, so I taught my kids a song. A classic, one that fit the topic (Introductions/Greetings) perfectly. I taught them the following:


A: Yo! My name is--
B: --What?!
A: My name is--
B: --Who?!
A: My name’s--
B: Chicka chicka!
A: (enter student’s name)


Please picture me plus my class of 47 students chanting this in front of my bosses. Then add the Beninese English accent (“May name ees watt! my name ees ho!) and my students’ fantastic names (Sunday, Abiodoun, Pelagie, Aude, etc.). I don’t love teaching just yet, but if I get to teach a hilarious rap every day, I can definitely get there.