The Marrakech State Orphanage

I’ve just volunteered to work in the Marrakesh state orphanage.  I’ll be going with a group called original volunteers, who seem helpful and well organized over the phone.  I’ve exchanged e-mails with some folk who’ve just got back and they had good things to  say so fingers crossed.  I’m going on the 21st of July and have the flight booked (about £160 each way with Easy Jet).
I hope to get immersed in teaching English and learning Arabic (along with Moroccan and Islamic culture).  Learning is something that I’m good at.  I don’t know about teaching, but I do know how to learn and if I can use that and pass it on in some way to some of the children then that will be great.  John Grinder – the co-inventor of NLP claims to be able to learn a new language to the point that a native speaker is comfortable conversing with him in 72 hours.  He talks about the importance of learning in a context where the words mean what they mean.  Often learning in a classroom all words mean the same thing – that is scratchy sound of blackboard, sitting still, trying to concentrate, fear of being called on, etc. etc.  I guess that working in a rich context is much easier with a small group.  I’m not sure I have any strategy for working with a large group of kids.

This is something of an inspiration in the way Gever Tulley talks about the need for kids to problem solve.

I don’t for one minute imagine the same resources are going to be available in the orphanage but the principles are probably still good.

On learning arabic I love this…

I’ve been singing it a lot.