TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
IN SENEGAL, WEST AFRICA
After fifteen years of teaching French as a foreign language to Americans it was a delightful
exercise to teach English, my native tongue, to young Senegalese people. I used the same methods
to teach the language I know so well, give and take a few rules, which I looked up. Here are a few of my observations:
- As the only white faced female teacher in a High School of 4000 students which covers the last three
years of study before the French baccalaureat exam, I found my situation challenging and rewarding.
- Going to school is a luxury, not a requirement, so students take their studies very seriously.
- English is deemed to be their primary source of salvation because contact with the world beyond this
country's borders is the only way to find work and earn a decent living. Thus, teaching those who are
in the Science track, as I did, was extra special. They will use English abroad to gain wealth and
then either send their fortune back to Senegal or return there with the means necessary to set up
a business.
- Students were not accustomed to working in groups insomuch as I had 65 to a class and such decentralization
risked deteriorating into chaos. However, I perservered in my quest to give my students a taste of the
American way.
- I taught students to debate modern issues, including who to let live or die if a liver were only
available to one of seven different dying patients. Destined to be doctors, they had never considered the ethical issues before.
They squeezed out every bit of English they knew to address this grave issue.
- We also made videos of Senegalese scenes for me to show to my students in America.
- My task was relatively easy in that they were learning English as a third or forth language.
- Students came from different ethic backgrounds: Pulaar, Toucouleur, Fulani, Diala, Serer, Mandingo,but Wolof was the
most popular in Senegal, so everyone needed to learn Wolof to do commerce in the marketplace.
- French is the offical language of Senegal, so all education is taught in French. This allows most of Northern Africa to have a universal language in which to
communicate.
- Students learn to read and write in French; ethnic languages are only taught in the
Department of Linguistics at the University of Dakar.
- Students are required to begin learning English in their fifth year of elementary school and most take it through the thirteenth year.
Many students studied another language: Arabic, Portugese, German, or Russian during the High School
years.
- The streets of Dakar sound like a Tower of Babel. It is impressive!