This month ETA Kyra Ghosh has been working hard with all of her students to prepare for the local WORDS competition. Every week she has been meeting with a group of five to ten students discussing story structure, conflict and resolution, and practicing reading the stories over and over again.

On Monday February 26th, Kyra and her site mate ETA Arshelle Carter decided to host a workshop with both of their schools before the big competition. They started out with ice breakers, moved into peer review sessions, took a break with fresh fruit and tongue twisters to practice pronunciation, and ended with presenting the stories in small groups.

Kyra was very happy with how the workshop turned out for a number of reasons. She was really glad that students from different schools were able to meet, interact, and work together. Establishing relationships between community members is one of the most important aspects of sustainability within the ETA program. She hopes that the relationships will continue and subsequently the future WORDS competition will already have a group of students from different schools willing to work together. Kyra was also quite proud that the students were engaging in peer editing for she believes it can help to increase motivation. If they are able to critique and correct each other’s work in English, they become more confident in their own English abilities.

Lastly, Kyra was incredibly impressed by the books the students produced. A few months ago, many students were extremely shy and claimed they had no idea how to write a story. Now, ten students from the 10th and 11th grades have not only written a full story in English, but also created and drawn pictures to make beautiful hard copy story books. Kyra is a proud teacher!

Kyra Ghosh is currently teaching at SMAK St. Ignatius Loyola, Labuan Bajo, East Nusa Tenggara