THRASS GOES LIVE!
DAY 5, WEDNESDAY, 17 MAY 2006

Welcome to the fifth day of THRASS GOES LIVE!

Follow our exciting journey from MPUMALANGA to MILTON KEYNES by tuning in to our regular videostreams from locations in South Africa and the UK. Watch children learn as they use THRASS for the first time and see how impressed the Third Year Foundation Phase student teachers are.

On Day 5 we visited Farm School 3 Phakama where the language is SePedi rather than Zulu. One of the student teachers tells us about the impact that coming to Kwena has had on her: seeing the children who have so little has made her much more compassionate and made her appreciate the little things in life rather than taking everything for granted. Two of the Farm schools have no running water, one has no toilet facilities at all, one only has toilets for the teachers and girls and two have no electricity, so we see one of the student teachers improvising by using a drum when she is unable to play the THRASS CD.

The Principal of the school explains the importance of the children learning English now that it is taking over from Afrikaans as the language of the local landowners. And the children are very enthusiastic about doing so, even the ones who found the first lesson hard soon caught up and are now making really good progress. At Phakama we see the children using their overwrite charts and picture cards and once again we see how enthusiastic they are about the THRASS resources.

We would like to thank Dr Jean Place, an inspiration to us all, the student teachers of the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa and all the host families, past and present, for their kindness and generosity.

And tomorrow we shall have some really exciting footage of a THRASS demonstration lesson for you: Alan Davies taking a class of 50 children, from Grades 4 to 7, for their first ever lesson using THRASS.

If you would like to view the videostream from the day, click on the link below the main picture on the left.

MORE IMAGES FROM DAY 5

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