In Oulad Teima I had an amazing experience. It's a city with 100.000 habitants between Agadir and Taroudant, Morocco. The city is untouristy but that's why - staying was amazing. People are still traditional. I made friends there and had a great/ intense sometimes to intense 🤣morrocon cultural experience. It wasn't always easy, staying in a guestfamily, adapting to their lifestyle which is so different to ours. But finally that was what I was looking for? Didn't I? Diving into a arabic/ islamic culture which is so different: is sometimes fun 😅 but also it sometimes couses stress and left myself irritated. Not understanding why things are how they are.
..why teaching abroad?
I never taught English or German before. Somehow I always thought that it could be an interesting experience. I love to communicate in different languages and to find out about different cultures, so I thought teaching abroad could be an interesting experience for me.
Before coming to Oulad Teima I only knew that there will be children which want to learn German or English.
As the start day came closer I thought well I could give Bahija, my contact person from the association a call to get more insights about my stay.
In this call, I asked her many questions such as: " When will the lesson take place? How old are the kids? Why do they want to learn german? What's the goal? When are the meals served to the guest family? Will I have my room? Are there other workawayers?"
Bahija could answer all of my questions. So I found out that the lessons will be mostly taught in the afternoon and evening ( 15:30- 17:00/ 19:30-21:00 o'clock) as the kids do it in their free time after their normal school. Dinner for example will be served at 21:30 therefore at the guest family. Besides me, there will be a couple from Germany/France teaching and living in the same guest family.
The kids vary in their age. For the german lesson, she told me that they are between the age of 15- 17 years or there will be as well some adults.
The goal depends from person to person but she told me some kids may want to learn german as they want to study abroad or they want to work in Germany one day.
Cool! I felt happy to receive more insights about my stay and how the work will be in the association.
In general, the association where I will be teaching is a non-governmental association that started in 2006 in morocco. There are several cities where the association offers children and adults educational options. My guest father "Mohammed" started this association. Currently, he is running it with many other people. The lessons vary among the teachers. Now in Oulad Teima, there are german, English, French, and Arabic lessons.
Some lessons are taught by volunteers like me. For example, there is Lina and Clement from Regensburg, Germany, and Bretagne, France. But also there are some local teachers such as Bahija for the Arabic and french lessons.
The kids who take part in the lessons only need to pay a really small amount to take part in the lessons. Therefore lessons are affordable for almost all children - which is nice.
Now after my first week of teaching, I had 7 lessons so far.
Before my first class, I was nervous but the cool thing is that Shinju a Japanese volunteer had his last day - so I had the chance to join his class. He volunteered at the association for a month.
As I watched him I saw that the kids love to take part in the course. It was amazing to see how much positivity and energy they had during the lesson.
Images ( Guestfamily Dinner, My room often the kids came inside, German Class)
In my german lessons: Mohamed-Said (15 years), Noha( 15), Yasmine (17), and sometimes Ahmed, and Abdul took part.
In each class, I had the chance to find out a little bit more about them and their lives.
About the students:
Yasmine told me that she wants to study medicine abroad ( maybe in Germany) therefore she wants to learn German.
Noha a really smart young woman told me that she speaks Arabic, French, English, and Turkish which is super impressive. She wants to learn german, as she loves to learn in general.
Mohammed-Said is a young boy from the area - he has the best English as he studied English in a college in Oulad Teima. One day he came and said, " Miriam have you been in the gym on Tuesday?" I was like yes, you too? He was like " No but my brother owns this place" "Ah, awesome (..) it's a cool gym" "No it's not" he laughs - yeah well it's super basic and some things are broken but I tried to be nice. The spinning bicycle lost a Fuß Stütze while driving 😂 (..) But too funny in this town people always talk about us 🤣
Back to teaching (..)
I think it's a brilliant experience. I somehow have the feeling that it's already worth it. Every lesson I can see the spark in the eyes of the kids.
In oulad teima is not so much to do for them. I can assume that growing up here can be a bit difficult. I think it's already worth it if I make a little change in the lives of those kids. At least they get some new ideas - because with the lessons I show them a little bit about my culture and how we live and what are cultural differences.
In one of the first lessons also some girls just from the other classes came to me screaming "Teacher, teacher where are you from? What is your name?" They were super interested.
I thought before coming ok it could be difficult if the kids are not interested but we'll it's the total difference. Kids and people in general are super kind.
to teach children between the age of 15-18 years. You can see, that they are interested in so many things and that they want to learn.
In the first lesson, I gave them homework to think about topics they would love to learn.
I don't want to teach them things they don't need. Therefore I thought it's important to check beforehand what they want to learn.
As the class is super small, the cool thing is that I can focus on them.
Within these first weeks I teach them: " general greetings, telling their names, asking others about their names, telling their age and asking others about their age, asking: how are you and responding, what have you done (yesterday..), numbers, colors, adjectives, the verbs to be and have, ordering food in a restaurant, ordering in a bakery, singing german songs, playing "ich she was was du nicht siehst", showing them traditional food, explaining the way of transportations in Germany, German cities, explaining living costs in Germany.
In general, I only teach approx. 10-15h per week. You see - we are in Morocco 😂 and clocks are ticking (slowlier) differently.
But it's fine because in my free time I have a lot of time to experience the culture.
Even if there is not so much to do in Oulad Teima, as I already have some friends in the town - there is always something happening.
For example, I went with Selma a local girl from Oulad Teima to a hair cutter. We enjoyed many teas at her home, watched the WM game, and once we went to Taroudant to visit another friend of hers.
At the weekend I went to Mirleft ( Beach Ville), Agadir ( doing Calisthenics with friends, enjoying the souk and the beach), and Villa Lemoune in Oulad Teima.
Résumé :
I'm happy that I chose to stay for one month in Oulad Teima. It's a great cultural experience. I think teaching your language (A1) is quite a fun thing. I'm already thinking to do it in Latin America as well. But probably I will check for some paid opportunities, so I can afford to stay in my apartment. Somehow it's nice now to be in a guest family but also it's quite stressful if there are always kids around.
# Found out that I like teaching, and new experiences and kids are interested in learning
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