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Friday, 28 May 2010
Girls at Bolton School are helping a Maasai tribe to speak
English! The Year 9 girls have been video recording one
another speaking in basic and clear English and the tapes will be
used to supplement other teaching materials and sent out to rural
Tanzania.
The project has come about after pupils linked up with the
African tribe via a Skype video connection during a Geography
lesson earlier in the year. The girls had quizzed the Maasai
on how they were being affected by tourism and they, in turn, had
been keen to learn about life in Bolton.
The Maasai are currently learning English through Twiga English
books and the girls' video footage will accompany the books and
help bring the learning of English to life. The girls will
also prepare material about living in Bolton, including some
typical English recipes, in response to some of the questions that
were raised during their earlier discussion.
Elizabeth Moore, aged 14, had enjoyed the morning and said:
"We've had great fun creating the English videos today for the
Maasai tribe. It was harder than I first thought, in
that you have to create the right tone, not too serious and not too
giggly. It is nice to think of a little piece of Tanzania
developing where the locals speak English with a Bolton
accent. At least we should be able to understand one another
when we go out to visit them next summer!"
Two alumni of the school, Max Griffiths and Sam Yates,
facilitated the link-up through an educational centre that they
have set up in Meserani in North Tanzania. During their
postgraduate studies, they learnt how the Maasai had been
self-sufficient for centuries but in recent years their
semi-nomadic way of life has changed as the Tanzanian government
encloses much of their land, turning it into National Parks and
Conservation Areas, whilst private farmers and tourism companies
have bought up a lot of the land as well. As a consequence,
their existence from herding cattle is under threat and they are
keen to develop new skills to allow them to earn extra
income. The Maasai told Max and Sam that in order to get jobs
in tourism and towns they needed help to develop their English
language and maths skills as well as tuition in the local Tanzanian
language and computing skills. This provided Max and Sam with
the impetus to set up their own charity, LivLife, and to build an
educational centre.
Mr Andrew Green-Howard, Senior Deputy Head of the Girls'
Division, said: "The girls are really enjoying working with the
Maasai. The link-up has created a strong bond between our
pupils and the tribespeople. Although today is about
preparing English course materials for them, we are keen that the
project is a two-way process and that we learn from them too.
With this in mind, girls and boys will be going out to visit the
tribe in the summer of 2011. They will help out in the
educational centre whilst they are there and get to know the Maasai
better. We are also putting together a teacher training
programme, which will see our own staff help the educational centre
staff improve their teaching skills."
The school sees this as a long-term project and is hopeful of
raising funds to help build a second educational centre which may
even carry the Bolton School name! Things should start to get
very interesting in 2012 when the aim is to bring the Maasai to
Bolton!
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