Tuesdays with English

I’m trying to write about some of my projects more.  Today’s assignment: the English Class I’ve been co-leading for the past 8 months... go!

The background...

A few months into my Peace Corps service, during those floundering days of finding yourself and scratching desperately for any sort of project to do, I stumbled across the Thies American Corner at the Cultural Center.  This turned out to be a pivotal moment for me, as I would eventually judge music contests, dance drill routines with small children, and listen to American spirituals and spoken word poetry at this wondrous place.  But before all of that, the American Corner was simply the first  English library I'd found, and moreover, the first place that explicitly asked for my help: they wanted me to teach English Class.

English Class: it seemed simple enough.  It seemed like one of the few things I could do wholeheartedly and do well – after all, I’ve been messing around with English for upwards of 20 years.  I’d always dabbled in education, leading literacy classes at Notre Dame and teaching English to immigrants and non-native speakers in Chicago.  This sounded like a great opportunity.  Nonetheless, a small part of me wondered if teaching English wouldn’t be helping Senegal as much as it’d be helping me and my need to feel busy.  Did people in Senegal really need to learn English?  If anything, shouldn’t I be pushing French literacy or something?

But I committed to the class, and as time went on, I committed to the idea of it as well.  Naysayers will have you think that English is obsolete here, and in many parts of the country, it is.  But in my area, a bustling city only an hour from the capital, having a good grasp of English really can be the deciding factor between working as a chauffeur or working in an office.  And as I personally like to think of it, knowing another language opens up a whole new set of ideas, information to be read and accessed directly.  So I shouldn’t have been so hard on myself.

The people...

I organized the class with my sitemate Clare, and right as we were set to begin, we had the good fortune of hearing from two more, Rose and Colin, who wanted to work with us.  Rose worked for IFESH, an education and training NGO, and Colin was a visiting English Teaching Fellow from the American Embassy in Dakar.  After a few months, another Peace Corps volunteer, Kathleen, joined in as well. Their experience and help proved invaluable, and along with the continuous support of the Senegalese staff at the Cultural Center, we had quite a popular course going on at the Center before too long.

Teachers like going out to dinner.  Teachers are people too!

Our students were a smorgasboard of ages and backgrounds.  We had shy middle school students who slowly revealed their prowess, local English teachers who wanted to learn new ideas, housewives with self-proclaimed loves of English, as well as artists, musicians, and rappers.  In what remains one of our greatest ideas, Clare and I decided from day one that each student would have an American name to use during the class, each starting with a different letter.  I never tired of using names like “Xavier,” “Frank,” “Ira,” and “Queenie” with our students.

Clare and I found that the students were receptive to our interactive teaching methods.  

The classes...

We named our course “English and American Culture,” partially to meet the American Corner requirements and partially so we could guiltlessly show clips from Dreamgirls in addition to teaching English.  Our classes covered everything from nutrition to sports to movies to art, and we tried to make the classes as interactive as we could – definitely a deviation from the Senegalese lecture education everyone was used to.  It was a learning experience. 

Posing with some of the students and staff after our spring roll demonstration.  I am holding the knife so that the students know I'm in charge.  

Sometimes our lessons would be huge successes, such as the time I demonstrated how to make spring rolls during our food class and got to see middle aged Senegalese men cutting carrots for the first time.  Listening to the class translate “Mama” by Tupac and “We are the World,” both songs they chose and voted on, were similarly rewarding.  On the other hand, having everyone make valentines on Valentine’s Day eventually proved a little weird, as did the day I asked small groups to describe each other and “sexy” came up one too many times.  But this is how we learn!  

We also experienced the occasional love letter (does “je te chasse” translate to “I am going to hunt you” as I think it does?) and occasional original love song, in Rose’s case.  Clearly, we made our students comfortable with the idea of expressing themselves fully and in new ways.  On my end, I certainly enjoyed acting out words like “angry cooking” or “cartwheel” whenever I had the chance, as well as forcing my students into improv acting situations.  More often than not, they rose to the challenge, and then went beyond it to a theatrical place involving jealousy, murder, and marriage. 

A highlight for all of us was the graduation ceremony.  There, we played super high-stakes review games, handed out certificates, and were usually treated to some sort of impromptu music performance.  Sometimes these festivities involved rapping, and sometimes they involved the director of the center breaking into the lost falsetto of his youth.  But always, they involved a potluck, the most American tradition of them all.  The concept took a little bit of explaining, but once everyone showed up with endless sugary drinks, peanuts, popcorn, mangoes, and beignets, they proved to have the idea down.  The graduation ceremonies gave our students an opportunity to make us pose for hours of camera phone photos with every single class member in every single possible group combination. 

One of our youngest students, who came to both sessions.  The first time around, his name was Sam, but during session two, he made the executive decision to call himself Obama.  Get it?  Executive decision? No but that really happened.

Ultimately, our little English class has become one of my favorite projects here, mostly because of how closely we get to work with all of our students.  As Colin said to me the other day, this class is one of the few places where we truly see a cross-section of Senegal, unlike the NGOs and universities where we do a lot of our city-based work.  I’ve loved chatting with all our participants, learning about their far-flung endeavors like filming documentaries and competing in debate competitions.  Plus, their generosity and gratefulness is astounding, and I’ve been sent emails, thank you letters, and dinner invitations far after class ended.  Senegalese people certainly know how to make a gal feel appreciated!

The session 1 class poses at the end of their commencement ceremony.

At the moment, we may face some changes as Colin, Rose, and Clare are all in the process of leaving Senegal, and I’m needing a break as my Plan project and Girls’ Camp have picked up.  But in a cool twist, the Cultural Center is considering hiring some of our best students to be assistant teachers and help some American lead teachers.  See what I mean?  Learning English can incite economic recovery!  At least for a few people.  We’ll see what happens.  Anyway!  So that concludes this session of Lisa describing how she fills some of her time, even though I know this blog often makes it sound like I’m just chasing monkeys or dancing to drum music with babies.