Kaolack : diary of an African experience

Monday October 28^th : First day of class

I had decided to write a collective letter to my new students and to start the session with it. (Thank you, Mario, for having taught me the power of letter writing in class situations). In this letter, I first described the positive feedback the former trainers had given me about the group, then gave a global view of the content of the course (focus on expressing oneself in a great variety of situations) and expressed my congratulations for their performance in “Tomorrow…London”, the theatre play. I also suggested they might want to answer my letter. I must confess only one person answered this first letter. But, the second one (which I wrote 4 weeks later) brought me eleven replies…

Mid November : how to meet their needs ?

The first days of class allowed us to get to know each other and gave me a clearer picture of the level and the needs of the group : beginner to lower-intermediate, most of them having had some English classes at secondary school. Aural as well as written comprehension was fairly good. Concerning speaking, I noticed that most of them speak slowly and it’s not a question of hesitation or searching the right word, it’s the rhythm of the whole speech which sounds unusual to my ears. It is as if they play with sudden accelerations and slow-downs. It’s clear they love speaking !

One of my concerns is also to find the right material (and the “right English”) to use in the class. Neighbouring Gambia is an English-speaking country, but the contacts with its inhabitants are not necessarily frequent. In Africa, people don’t travel as much as we do. In Kaolack, several British or American newspapers and magazines – as well as African press written in English – can be found, but this material is expensive. Connections on the Internet are available in the cybercafés, but it’s also expensive. Besides, linguistically speaking, that material doesn’t fit the actual level of English of the trainees.

I visited the only library of the city, called l’Alliance Franco-Sénégalaise. It is housed in a very original building which was awarded the Aga Khan Prize for architecture : bright colours cover the façade and the inside walls, a maze of small rooms welcome readers, an open-air stage offer opportunities for concerts and theatre performances. But, the English books section proposes half a shelf of old paperbacks… So, I resolved to use the audio and visual material of the course book I had brought as guidelines (Sometimes, the electricity cuts did not allow me to use any of it anyway !) and I got some good surprises :

for instance, the day I introduced “A Poem of Robert Burns” - I quote :
“The Golden Age we’ll then revive;

Each man will be a brother;

In harmony we shall live,

And share the earth together;

In Virtue train’d, enlighten’d

Youth Will love each fellow-creature;

And future years shall prove the truth

That Man is good by nature:

Then let us toast with three times three

The reign of Peace and Liberty! " –

I was wondering how they would react. Aren’t space, time and cultural gaps too wide ? Not at all ! First, they have a great love for literary texts (Nobody has forgotten here that Léopold Sédar Senghor, the President of Senegal from1960 to 1980, received a Nobel Prize for Poetry) and then, they got intensively involved in a debate which focused on the gap existing between the third world countries and developed countries, the necessity of dreams and utopias, the role of women in Senegalese society,…Everyone wanted to add something and the debate went on and on, in Wolof, French, during the break time…

Another example ? One activity is based on a few slides showing a very typical aspect of British life : Fish & Chips. The students are shown a silent film, they suggest lines of dialogue and improvise a little sketch. Those were absolutely hilarious ! Meeting a friend in the street (and inviting him to have a drink or a snack) IS definitely an important social event in Senegal !

A last example of cultural enrichment : in a well-known activity dealing with lexical development (words to name the different members of a family + descriptive vocabulary), I drew my own – simple -family tree on the blackboard and let them ask me some questions. When I asked them to draw their own family trees, I started to realise they were getting involved in a much more complex task. As a matter of fact, polygamy still exists in Senegal and the so-called trees looked like mutant octopuses with dozens of branches. Commenting them was even more complex !