Teaching english in Tanznaia

Project At A Glance

Location: Arusha, Moshi, Zanzibar Start point: Arusha End Point: Arusha Duration: 2-12 weeks Hours: 30-40 hours per week Food: Local food (3 times a day) Room: Host family or hostel Date: First and Third Monday of each month

Project Summary

Despite English being a daily language, a good quality English education is a dream for many students. Many rural Tanzania public schools and several private schools are seeking qualified English teachers, especially native English speakers. Tanzania is a popular tourist destination and a strong knowledge of English can open many doors for youth. In the Tanzania teaching English project, volunteers teach English to nursery, primary and secondary school students between the ages of 6 and 16-years old.

Skill/Qualification Needed

There is no specific qualification needed to join the teaching English project in Tanzania besides a fluency in English. Native speakers are appreciated, but anyone fluent in English is welcome. Teaching experience will be helpful (but not required).

Volunteer Responsibilities

Volunteers work as an English instructor either in private schools or public school or schools run by orphanages. Volunteers teach English 2-3 hours a day (six days a week) in primary, secondary and high school. Other assistance is also needed with organizing games, drawing, singing, dancing and other creative education and extra curricular activities. Some support with administration is also appreciated. Volunteers work mostly as an assistant to the main English teacher. In Tanzania , most schools have at least one permanent English teacher on staff.

School Holidays

Most Tanzanian schools are closed in between semesters, during midterms evaluations, during new enrolment and also on public and national holidays.

•  June 15th - July 27th (End of first semester and start of second semester)
•  Sep 19th - Oct 10th (Midterm evaluation)
•  Dec 15th - Jan 1st - (New enrolment)
•  President Day

*Dates may change

Room/Food/Supervision

IFRE manages living accommodations, provides meals and supervision for volunteers for the entirety of their stay in Tanzania . During the volunteer period, most volunteers stay in our safe and secure homebase in Moshi/Arusha. IFRE's home base is located in a beautiful area nearly 30 km from the Kilimanjaro International Airport . We try to create a “home away from home” for volunteers staying at our home base. It is a perfect situation for volunteers to live safely and comfortably while making many new friends and sharing experience every day. Most of volunteers project in Tanzania are located within 1-10 KM of our home base so you may walk or ride a local bus to your project. In the evening when you return to home base, you can relax, eat dinner, explore local areas or simply share experience with volunteer comrades. Our home base provides a same-gender shared room and shared bathroom with running water and a “western” style toilet.

Occasionally, depending on volunteer traffic, available projects or distance to a volunteer's assigned project, we may also place our volunteers with carefully pre-screened host families. Our host families are socially respected and are experienced with hosting international volunteers. They have strong interest in our volunteers' safety and well being and demonstrate this with caution and care. In most host family situations, volunteers will share a room with another volunteer of the same gender. Another viable option is an at-orphanage stay. Many orphanages in Tanzania have set aside special rooms to house international volunteers.

Throughout the volunteer project, our local staff stays in contact with volunteers with either face-to-face visits or via email/telephone. IFRE's main office is in Moshi and our in-country coordinator serves as a point of contact for local volunteers. With longer placements, we visit our volunteers every 2 weeks (when possible) and volunteers are always welcome at the local office. If project placement is local, we request that volunteers stop by the office once a week to keep us posted on how they are doing with their home stay and project. If project placement is very far from our main office, then our local staff members maintain communication by either email and/or phone and the local project director serves as a volunteer's contact.