My First Day Teaching at Emfundweni

Today was my first day teaching at Emfundweni.  The students are just like kids across the world.  They like to socialize as they arrive to school.  However, the majority of the students settle in to learn once class begins.  I taught a literature lesson on making predictions.  There are very few resources for teachers to use so I chose a short story from the students' English workbooks  I managed to keep the students engaged through an echo read of "The Goats Who Ate Gogo's Garden".  I must admit that I was impressed on how well the students read with fluency.  I also used the "turn and talk" with the students for the purpose of them brainstorming their prediction in regard to the ending of the story.  The students enjoyed talking to their peers.  This is a technique that was fairly new to them.  Unfortunately, I determined that the majority of the students copied the story verbatim from the passage.  The students are not accustomed to putting writing in their own words.  Once I concluded that the majority of the students "weren't getting it", I stopped my lesson and reviewed the meaning of a prediction in relation to literature.  Still, some of the students continued to copy the passage word for word.  I have concluded that the students have been conditioned to write only what they see in their workbooks instead of thinking independently.  My goal is to teach each and every student in my classes to think independently.