First Week of Work

Hi everyone!

I know this is a bit after the fact, because I’ve been here for 6 weeks now, but I’m going to walk you all through my first week of working in Dakar (after the conference in Saly) because it's kind of funny how little I actually worked.

We’ll get caught up, don’t worry! J

Monday:

When we were doing our orientation at the Embassy, a man came to talk to us about FASTEF, not only to introduce the university to the one who would be working there (that would be me), but also for the other ETAs to know how the teachers they’re working with may have been trained (or not trained at all). That man’s name is Mathiam Thiam, and I really like him, so I was interested to see that he would be teaching a course to the higher level MA students “Issues in Communicative Language Teaching”. I asked him if I could sit in on his course, not only for my own interest, but also to better connect his class with mine. His class meets on Mondays from 11am-1pm, and I teach a class later in the afternoon, from 3pm-5pm. I went in early to be there in time for his class, but when no one came, I found out that they had moved it (just for this week) to Wednesday.

Bummer because I work at the US Embassy on Wednesdays and am not usually on campus at all… Oh well, Mr. Thiam said I could join them starting next week. So then I just spent time continuing to prepare for starting my classes that week, since I had from 11am to 3pm to work before my afternoon class. 3pm comes… no students. I asked Mr. Diagne who had them earlier that day if they had come and he said they were there, didn’t know why they hadn’t come except that on their schedule I was simply listed as “ETA” without my name or a room number (this is because they made the schedule before they had that information), so they probably didn’t even know that a class was even being held. In the words of my colleague from the week before: “Huh, I guess we’ll start next week…” And that was my first day, ha ha!

Tuesday: A holiday, so I went to Gorée Island with some other westerners:

Brenna, who I met at the Embassy Oktoberfest/softball game, is a Canadian here on an NGO internship geared towards urban development, mainly waste management. Colleen is a Fulbright Student Scholar here to research migration driven economics. Anthony (the other Fulbright ETA) and his wife Alyson went with us as well. I wrote a blog about it, which you can read here.

Wednesday:

I work with the RELO (Regional English Language Officer) department of the embassy on Wednesdays, so I headed over to the embassy in the morning to start there. The first thing I do is help Safi with the semi-weekly Webinar called Shaping the Way We Teach. The webinars are grouped into 6-week courses, usually on a theme. It is hosted by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of English Language Programs in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

It’s a program for English teachers around the globe and usually addresses methodological topics that help English teachers be interactive, student-centered language instructors. If they ‘attend’ at least 4 out of the 6 webinars, then they receive a certificate of completion from the RELO office. My job is to do the pre-webinar discussion, help them participate in the webinar while it is going on, hold a post-webinar discussion, and finally, give a quiz on what was discussed. Those who answer the questions correctly get a prize from the RELO office, usually some sort of teaching material they wouldn’t already have.

After the webinar, I went over to the Language Resource Center, which is basically a small library that anyone interested in English materials can have access to for free, they just have to apply for membership. I had met the woman who runs it, Rachel, at Bob Posts house the first Friday we were in town, as well as at the Oktoberfest. I asked her what she would need me for, and she told me about the conversation club that meets on Wednesdays, as well as the film screening afterwards. The conversation is usually led by an article (of my choice) that would generally be connected to the theme of the month (decided by the State Department). For example, November’s theme is education and, to a lesser degree, holidays. We read the article together and discuss it.

The film is also connected to the theme of the month. Because Rachel had to go to Guinea Bissau to see Liam (the ELF placed there), there wouldn’t be the discussion or film that day (I don’t think they knew that I’d be there…). So I’d start next week. I think I’ll show Finding Forrester, which is one of my favorite movies! Leaving the embassy (which means recuperating my cell phone) I see a message from Mr. Boye at FASTEF: classes have been cancelled for the next day because they have to spend the whole day going through applications for a new lecturer. They wanted me to be there to observe the process and help if I could. Darn… I was really looking forward to getting to teach.

Thursday:

I arrived at FASTEF at 9am and was, of course, the first one there for the 9am meeting. I’m still operating on American time, so I’m annoyingly on time for things. Everyone else trickled in eventually. They had 12 candidates for hiring a lecturer for our department. The university itself gives the departments a spreadsheet that they plug scores into depending on the criteria. For example, Cursus du Candidat (candidate’s educational background) with categories such as the year they graduated high school and got their master’s degree, if they have any “mentions” (honors), etc. There’s also a category for publications and professional experience. The committee discussed each candidate and filled out the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet had some formulas imbedded it in that no one really understood, so it wasn’t an easy task. For example, there was a column marked “nombre de redoublements” which means they calculated a gap in time between degrees as being due to having to retake years because of failure or something similar. None of the professors on the committee could understand why that was in there, especially because the gaps between degrees (in between their Masters and PhD for example) were usually explained by their work experience. The problem with this was the fact that the calculation for that column resulted in points being taken away from the candidate, so experience actually hurt them.

There is the column about professional experience, but it wasn’t weighted as heavily, so it was a bit of a wash between the amount they lost for “redoublements” and what they gained in the experience category. The other part that many questioned, myself included, was the weight of the degree types.

PhDs and Doctorates were most heavily weighted (between 7 and 13 points depending on the type of degree). Masters degrees were weighted at 5 points (side note: if they had multiple Masters degrees, they still only got 5 points…). The interesting part of this was that it didn’t seem to matter what the degree was in. A PhD in French literature was weighted the same as a PhD in American literature (remember this is the English Department of the university).

The Senegalese National Syllabus requires Communicative Language teaching for English, so you would think that those with the most educational background in CLT/TOEFL/TESL would be most valued, but that didn’t seem to be the case. There was a candidate who had 3 Masters degree: One in English from Senegal, a Masters in teaching English from Columbia’s Teachers College, and another in TOEFL from Cambridge. Just looking at degrees, he was awarded the simple 5 points for having a Masters (having 3 doesn’t equate to more points because then it would be equivalent to a PhD…) It also didn’t seem to matter where the degree was done, so a Masters from Columbia’s Teachers College or Cambridge was equivalent to any Masters degree done in Senegal. It was very interesting to follow the process.

I did get to be of some help… One candidate listed that he had a Masters degree from Fulbright. Sounds impressive, right? I had to explain to the committee that Fulbright is a scholarship program, they do not award degrees. His thesis connected to his “Fulbright” awarded degree had the University of Oregon on it, but I could tell something was off. The thesis supervisor was listed with just a name, but no title or university department affiliation to it. Very strange. Needless to say, that candidate did not end up in the top 5.

When they finished with the point system, I thought they would take the top 5 and call interviews, or ask them to do a mini lesson demonstration or something like that, so I was surprised when they chose the person with the most points and called it a day. And that was my crash course in how professors are hired at Universities in Senegal!

Friday

I finally got to teach my first class on Friday! I see each class twice a week, once for American Culture/fluency development and again for Communicative Language Activities. My Friday morning class is with the highest level of students the university has: students who are to be certified to teach high school when they finish here. Many of them have a good amount of teaching experience. The next class was with the students at a lower level who are here to get certification for the middle-school level. There are only 3 men in that class, so they get a lot of fluency practice. These men have numerous years of experience teaching English in elementary schools out in the villages. Their English level is fairly low, so the activities and explanations take more time. They are also much more wary of technology, and I have to remember that they will be working in rural areas that generally have no electricity, so the activities they will be able to do with their students aren’t the same as the other students who will be in the larger cities.

Our first day was just getting to know each other by doing some ice-breakers, and explaining what we were going to accomplish throughout the semester. All the activities we do in our fluency class are also activities that they can use with their students, so usually when we finish one activity, I take the time to explain how I prepared for the activity and we talk about ways to modify it for different levels of students. We had a good time and it was nice to be in front of students again!

That was my first week of “work” and I only actually got to teach on the last day! Oh well, I’ll hopefully get into a rhythm eventually…

Gorée Island

There are places on this earth that, having been witness to unspeakable sadness or horror, hold within them a power that will forever leave a mark on sensitive souls who pass there. Some locations that fall into this category include Auschwitz, the 9/11 memorial in NYC, Montsegur (in the south of France where the Cathars made their last stand), Gettysburg,  and where I found myself visiting on a day off from work, Gorée Island.

The 45-acre island is 1.2 miles off the coast of Senegal and is the most visited site in Senegal. It has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1978 and considered worth preservation by French colonists since 1944. The central location of the island made it extremely valuable for European powers because it connected the North to the South and was easily defendable. Because of that, it was one of the first places in Africa to be settled by European colonists, and a central part of holding power in the area. It changed hands from the original Portuguese, to the Netherlands, then back to the Portuguese, then back to the Dutch, on to British control of it before the French finally took control that lasted until independence in 1960. From the 15^th century until the French abolished slavery in 1848, Gorée Island was the center of the West African slave trade. 20 million Africans passed through the slave trading center that was this island. It was the last of the African continent they would touch, and for about 20% of them whose lives would be cut short while on the Atlantic, their final chance to feel solid land beneath their feet.

Fort d'Estrées

We (Brenna, Colleen, Anthony, Alyson, and I) started out our time on Gorée at a museum that traced the history of the island, which cannot be separated from the history of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The Historical Museum of Senegal is housed inside what used to be Fort d’Estrées, or the Northern Battery, built in 1852.  It has a circular set up that carried us clockwise through history. We learned about the original Portuguese colonists and the changing of hands throughout the centuries. We read about the slave trade and the commerce that drove it. One particular piece of information that stood out to me, for obvious reasons, was how the Spanish would ship horses down to West Africa to trade for slaves. One good horse was worth 20 men...

Gary the Gorée Pelican

After the museum we decided to have lunch while we waited for the House of Slaves to open up again at 2pm. We decided on a place that was right on the water, but in the shade and with a nice breeze. There is always something soothing about hearing waves tumble over rocks and I am glad we chose that particular place. All of us had something traditionally Senegalese: mafé poulet, yassa poulet or yassa poisson with guava or bouye juice (from the baobab tree).  Everything was very good and we lingered over our meals, also indulging in coffee and dessert. We were entertained by a large pelican who decided to join us at the restaurant, hanging out at the door of the kitchen, hoping for something to fall from a passing tray. I’ve never been that close to a pelican, so I don’t know if he was larger than normal, but he was pretty big. We were definitely fascinated by him, naming him Gary the Gorée Pelican for a bit of fun. The whole time I was thinking how jealous my bird-loving cousin Morgan would be that I was this close to one of her favorite birds!

Brenna enjoying the water

We left the restaurant for the House of Slaves, but it was closed for a private tour until 4pm, so we wandered around the island, and especially enjoyed the sand artists. These artists use different colors of sand from all over the regions to create their works of art. They use a special kind of glue and wood to complete each piece. The art is not easily damaged and the only way to ruin it is to soak it in water. The pieces are beautifully done and I am hoping to get some before I leave.

We still had some time, so we went down to the beach and dipped our feet in the water. Brenna was smart enough to remember her bathing suit, so she actually got to go in the beautiful water. It looked amazing and I won’t forget mine next time! We were at the House of Slaves at 4pm so as not to miss it before it closed.

This is the pièce de résistance of the island, an old slave house built in 1776. It was in this house and others like it that slaves awaited their departure on the ships crossing the Atlantic. The ground floor of the home contains holding cells with labels: Hommes, Femmes, Jeunes Femmes, Enfants where the slaves were held awaiting transport, as well as the famous Door of no Return that leads to nowhere but the waters of the Atlantic. This is the place that overwhelms the soul with the tragedy it has seen. Standing in the cell labeled Enfants, I could almost hear the din and feel the despair of crying children unable to comprehend why they were separated from their mothers, fathers, and older siblings. As I stared out of the Door of no Return, I saw the vast morgue that is the Atlantic Ocean and wondered why humanity is capable of inflicting such evil on itself, and will it ever stop?

We were a sober group that left the House of Slaves and decided to walk up the hill to the top viewpoint of the island. As we wound our way up the hill, we passed many artisans selling their work to the cruisers who swarmed the island that day. At the top, I was gazing towards the west when I looked down and realized that I was wearing the jewelry I’d gotten earlier this year in Martinique. It hit me that I had been on both sides of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade this year: about 25% of the slaves who left the West Coast of Africa ended up in the Caribbean. It was a sobering, full-circle kind of thing, and I kind of wished there was a Toni Morrison Bench by the Road for contemplation like the one in Fort-de-France.

As we waited for the 5:30pm ferry back to Dakar, I struck up a conversation with a few of the cruisers waiting as well. A couple of snow-birds who spend half the year in Montana and the other half in South Africa, and another couple, originally British, but now living in Michigan. We chatted about traveling and the benefits of seeing, and learning in, different parts of the world, continuing our conversation when we got on the ferry. At this point it was just Colleen, Brenna and myself because Anthony and Alyson had left just after lunch. We were all chatting with each other and the two couples that had sat behind us, discussing the island and its important history. At one point, Colleen and I were chatting and an older British woman sitting in front of us interrupted us to ask Colleen “Do you ever stop talking?” At first, we thought we’d heard her wrong, but she then said “Don’t you ever shut up? You’ve been talking this entire ferry ride!” I was shocked. We were not being particularly loud, and we had been talking with the people around and behind us as well. Colleen answered (more politely than I probably could have) “I’m sorry If us talking is bothering you, maybe you can move to another part of the boat, because this is a public ferry and we paid just as much as you did to be on here.” I was still so shocked that someone would be so rude that I had stopped our conversation, but then willfully started it back up again, just to prove a point. It was a bit of a bummer to end the day in that way.

I definitely want to go back to Gorée Island; it is a beautiful place with a profound history to it that merits multiple visits. Maybe I’ll make sure there aren’t any cruise ships in port next time…

Saly

Saly

I’d heard that Saly was a nice place and a popular tourist destination, so I headed out there anticipating it would be nice, and boy was I not disappointed!!

Since the rest of the RELO office was already there, I got a ride with a couple of English teachers who were heading out there from Dakar as well. Both teachers in the car were named Abdouleye, so at least I only had one name to learn! Saly is about 60 kilometers from Dakar (that’s about 35 miles), so it wouldn’t normally take more than an hour to get there. The exit off the highway we needed was closed, so it took us a little longer, but we got there. I was surprised when we pulled up outside a 5-Star seaside resort!

The Neptune Hotel has a bungalow style set up, so there were a bunch of round bungalows, each with 4 rooms (2 on the ground floor, 2 upstairs), although I’m sure there were some family-style suites that may have taken up an entire floor, or bungalow for that matter. My suite had a sitting room, bedroom and large bathroom on the ground floor. Because it was during the week of Toussaint vacations in France, there were a ton of French families staying there.

We had arrived around 11am and happened to see Safi as we walked in, so she let us know that we would have a couple of hours to settle into our rooms before the group ate lunch at 1pm. Lunch was a set menu with 2 choices for each course (appetizer, main, dessert) and a choice of drink. I found out that would be the case for every lunch and dinner during the conference.

Lesson planning practice

I was able to see some of the people I had met over the course of the three day orientation we had, including the Access teacher who let us take over her class, Marème, the woman who does the teacher training/evaluation for the Ministry of Education, Ngueye, and the Peace Corps Volunteer, Alex. Those three, along with myself and Safi, were the only women there. The rest of the teachers were men. It’s an interesting difference in that teaching is a predominantly female dominated field in the US, while it is predominantly male in Senegal.

This conference, as I mentioned before, was for Access teachers. As I mentioned in my Orientation blog, the Access program is an after-school program for underprivileged kids (i.e. not the principle’s son or the mayor’s daughter) funded by the US government.

Senegalese Access Students

When an English teacher wants to start an Access class in their school, they go through a pretty long process to get it established, including recruiting 16 students (equally gender balanced) for the 2-year commitment. Not only do the students have to be committed to the program, their parents/guardians also have to be because these students are going to do 360 extra hours of English study over the course of 2 years, including extra lessons twice a week (usually Wednesdays and Saturdays) plus summer camps, enhancement activities such as community service, and some ‘intensive’ sessions of 4+ hours in addition to everything else (in order to get the 360 hours in).

My part of the conference was an hour and 15 minute workshop on Service Learning, Active Citizenship & Leadership training. Since that title was all they gave me as a prompt for my presentation, I wasn’t really sure where to start. I decided to start at the most basic level; with the definition of each term, especially as applied to the Access program. I used the Access handbook as a guide, and after learning more about the program, decided to gear my presentation towards how to integrate all three aspects into an enhancement activity.

I found this article, by Stephanie Harbin, about the value of leadership training for teenagers and integrated that into it as well. In the end, the presentation and discussion went really, really well. The Access teachers all participated and contributed to the discussion, which kept it lively and interesting. It apparently ended up being exactly what the directors of the conference were looking for, which was a lucky, albeit educated, guess on my part.

I was the last presenter on Thursday, and then there were workshops all day on Friday and Saturday morning as well. Because we usually only had a couple of hours in between the end of the day’s conference sessions and dinner, we never actually had time to go into the town of Saly. I’m definitely going to have to come back, since I’ve heard that it’s worth a visit. While there was very little free time during the conference, that time was usually spent with Alex, the PCV, enjoying the pool or the beach. At one point, I was enjoying the pool before dinner and just started laughing…

I couldn’t figure out how on earth it happened that I was sitting in a giant pool at a seaside resort in Saly, Senegal, but I could definitely get used to it (but seriously can’t expect anything like this to happen again, ha ha!). I definitely enjoyed myself, especially getting to know other teachers who are passionate about what they do, and in a spectacular setting.