Help Please!

Next week I am going to Keetmans to work with 2 other volunteers for the whole week, planning a remedial English curriculum for next year.

Basically we are making up our own job descriptions. My plan is to spend most of my time working with the kids who are really behind (which is a lot of them), mostly doing English reading and comp but maybe also some basic math? Then I’d also like to have at least one “gifted” class per week to take the kids who are actually ON grade level and do some more advanced work with them. A lot of our smart kids get bored and give up in school. I’ll also be moving over to the science lab to try (again!) to get it up and running.

Here are my questions.

Do you focus on quantity or quality?

If I try to reach the most learners, I can have bigger classes. I can meet with more classes per week, and give each group only one 40-minute period per week. But obviously this will impact the effectiveness of the program.

But if I focus on ‘quality’ (say, classes of only 5 learners which meet 2-3 times per week), then I would work with fewer learners. If that is the case, do I choose the very severe cases who are in grade 9 but on a grade 6 reading level? Or do I take the learners who are only a little bit behind but need an extra push to get them where they need to be?

Is it more sensible to spend more time with the remedial kids who really need help, or try to push the ones who can be successful and need some extra attention?

Help! Anyone who knows anything about these things… advice???

Here are some totally unrelated photos for you! Some of my pen pal kids came in on Sunday to do a project... they mde maps of the US and Indiana and a venn diagram comparing the US and Namibia. (top priorities... president, date of independence, unemployment rate, birth/death rates.)

work in progress