In Ghana, students copied notes from an old chalkboard. In France, they listened to American music and translated the lyrics.

Classes in both countries were taught by ISU students.

Last summer, Emily Nieman, junior in agricultural education, taught agricultural science in Kumasi, Ghana.

“The people were so loving and caring,” she said. “I wanted to stay there and teach forever.”

Kyra Levine, who graduated in 2003 in philosophy and classical culture, taught conversational English in Rennes, France, last year.

“It was a really enriching and rewarding experience,” she said.

Nieman traveled to Ghana with Self-Help International, a non-profit organization that strives to lessen world hunger by helping people become self-sufficient. While in Kumasi, she spent five weeks teaching at Saint Louis Junior Secondary School.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Africa and gain an international experience that would help me grow as a person, and to help other people,” Nieman said.

When she arrived in Ghana, Nieman said, she was greeted by culture shock.

“The first two weeks were the hardest because we realized we couldn’t go down the road for pizza or call for help on our cell phones,” she said. “You have to go at it with an open mind.”

Although everyone spoke a tribal language, Nieman taught her classes in English.

The school Nieman worked at was crowded and in poor condition. She said the walls were falling down and there was a hole in the floor. Nieman could see into the classrooms behind and below her.

The school had 740 students and there were about 50 students, ages 12 to 19, in each class. Nieman taught three classes.

Because there was only one textbook, the students had to copy all their notes from a chalkboard. She said it was so worn, it was hard to read what was written. This is how they did all their studying, and Nieman said she wasn’t allowed to tailor the curriculum.

Nieman taught agriculture production — specifically cooperative farming and how to maximize farming. She said these were important subjects because most of her students will become farmers or traders. Nieman covered about a chapter a week, but she said the students weren’t the only ones who learned.

“I think it was a mutual learning process,” Nieman said. “The students thought it was really cool to teach me something.”

She said the students were amazed that Iowa didn’t have rainforests. Because Iowa doesn’t have monkeys, they drew Nieman pictures of monkeys and offered to take her to the zoo to see them.

Levine, teaching English in France, was able to tailor the curriculum and teach smaller classes.

After taking a year of French at Iowa State, Levine spent a year teaching at Lycee Sevigne and Lycee Louis Guilloux. She got the job through Frenchculture.org, a program that has native speakers of English teach in French high schools.

“You don’t have to be fluent in French,” she said. “It just helps.”

To prepare for the trip, Levine researched France and talked to everyone she knew who had been there.

“I loved it immediately because it was such an adventure and so different from the United States,” she said.

Levine taught conversational English to supplement the students’ English grammar. She taught 24 classes that each had about 10 students. The students weren’t fluent in English.

“I tried to speak English all the time to make them comfortable with hearing and speaking the language,” she said.

Levine said she was able to develop her own lesson plans and that the students were receptive to her way of doing things. They were also fascinated by who she was and where she came from.

“They were very interested in my point of view on world affairs as an American,” she said.

Both students said their teaching abroad experiences were positive.

“It’s changed the way I look at American culture,” Nieman said. “American culture isn’t better. It’s just different.”