Korowai teacher training workshop 2
Novita Bainggatun stands in front of the group telling the story of Jacob and Laban in Korowai. I am pleasantly surprised with how she has improved. She is doing so much better than the day before.
I am in Danowage, along with Alice and Telma from Suluh (SIL Papua), for the second Korowai teacher's training course. The parts I am responsible for are: Korowai spelling and Bible storytelling.
The teachers who participate in the course cannot read very fluently (yet) and certainly not in Korowai. This is because they mostly read Indonesian. Korowai spelling differs somewhat from Indonesian spelling and it is important for them to understand how and why that is. Then they can apply it properly themselves and also pass it on to their students.
Since they will be teaching the children on a day to day basis, this course is also a great opportunity to pass on the gospel through Bible stories. Preparing those Bible stories is the most important part and we spend a lot of time practicing that. I have written materials and audio recordings for the teachers, but because they are not fluent readers, I teach them to prepare using the audio recordings. They quickly understand how this works which gives us a lot of time for practice. During the practice sessions it becomes clear where their weaknesses lie and we take the time to work on those. It's fun to see how quickly they progress and how they are starting to enjoy it. I'm happy to be involved in this training and I'm grateful to be able to add an evangelism component to it.
