A Field Trip to Sine Saloum

A couple of weeks ago (I’m way behind on my blogging, I know) I went on a three day, two night field trip to Sine Saloum, a delta region four hours south of Dakar, with the seventh graders from ISD. The Sine Saloum region is located on the Atlantic coast where a river branches out before reaching the sea, creating a series of estuaries comprised of miles of mangrove forests and dozens of small islands. It is the most ecologically diverse area in the whole of Senegal, which is why the science teacher, who was teaching a unit about ecosystems, decided to organize the trip via a couple of Peace Corps volunteers working in the region. In total, there were thirty-one of us; twenty five students, the fore core subject teachers, my cooperating teacher and me (representing the French department). We stayed on an island in a campground/hotel made up of a bunch of small huts with a restaurant in the middle. It was really beautiful and extremely peaceful.
The planned itinerary included activities that related to every subject area and all of the teachers collaborated to create a packet that the students needed to complete and hand in a week after returning from the trip. We took pirogues through the mangrove forests, bird watching and learning about mangroves, the oysters and mussels that clung to their trunks, and why estuaries are so biologically diverse. We visited a town where Senegal’s first president was born, where Christians and Muslims live side by side, and even share the same cemetery. There was a guided star gazing session where the students learned about constellations. We were supposed to visit a fish market and learn about how fish were dried and preserved and how oysters were shipped out of the region. However, one of the pirogues capsized when pulling up to the beach, which caused us to arrive a little too late to catch the presentation. However, there were massive mounds of oyster shells at the empty market, so I seized the opportunity to explain how the oyster shells were burned and mixed with sand to make bricks for building (that was the third time I’d been to the region). Then we explored the nearby village to look at some of the buildings constructed from oyster shell bricks.
For me, the best part of the trip was when we visited a local school and conducted interviews of Senegalese students. For this, my cooperating teacher and I created a list of interview questions that the kids were required to ask. Creating the questions was difficult because there are so many levels of French speakers- from francophone to beginner- within the seventh grade. This meant we needed to come up with practical questions that would guide the students to understand a little bit about the life of the average Senegalese child, but the questions had to be written at a level that all of the kids were capable of understanding. In the end we came up with eleven questions in total. Before leaving the campground to go to the village school, we started by dividing the students by ability levels. I worked with the beginners to make sure they understood the questions. Then we placed the students in groups of three or four, with at least one student from each ability level, and instructed the students that everyone had to ask some of the questions. After all, we didn’t want to see the Francophone or the advanced kids doing all of the work. When we got to the school, we visited the classrooms and then the students came outside for the interviews. It went really well. As I circulated though the groups, I noticed that everybody participated in the discussion and that the more advanced French speakers helped the beginners understand some of what was being said and ask additional questions when they wanted more information. I think some of the answers really opened our students’ eyes to the reality of being a child in Senegal. Later, the kids worked together to make complete sentences to summarize their interview. This week, I used one of interviews to supplement a unit I’m teaching about the family to my High School beginner’s class.

Teaching in the Target Language

One of the biggest challenges for me thus far has been teaching entirely in French. The French Department at ISD has established a policy that only French is to be spoken in the classroom. In fact, some teachers have gone so far as to never speak English at school- or at least when there are students within earshot- to the extent that some students are not even aware that their French teachers actually speak English! It often sounds like kids are debating the existence of Santa Clause, with one student saying something like “I heard Madame D. speak English,” and another responding incredulously “Don’t lie, she doesn’t speak English!” I was even shocked the first time I heard my cooperating teacher speak English to another teacher- not because I didn’t know she could, but because it sounded bizarre to me after only having heard her speak French day in and day out.
The idea behind the “only French” policy is that it makes room for acquisition in the classroom. The French department’s philosophy is that the best way to learn a language is to hear as much of it as possible. At the same time, this policy levels the playing field for the English language learners who make up 60% of the student body, ensuring that all students are equally confused. Most foreign language teachers adopt similar rules for advanced level courses (i.e. French III and beyond), but the jury is still out on whether or not this approach works in beginners’ classes. It certainly seems to take more time to cover the curriculum, but I think that the balance between acquisition and learning is important. And from what I have seen, it yields fairly positive results. Without being aware of it, the students seem to absorb vocabulary words and understand verb tenses before they are even taught. Yet while all of this is wonderful, I have to admit speaking only French in the classroom has been problematic for me for a number of reasons.
First of all, though I do everything I can to honor the department’s policy; I am unable to perpetuate the myth that I do not speak English. This is because I coached the school’s soccer team in the first trimester (practice was conducted in English) and did some substitute teaching at the school in between college semesters in classes other than French. So it is no secret that I speak English and I do not even try to hide it. That is why kids get more frustrated with me when I stubbornly refuse to explain something in any language but French; they know I am capable of speaking English even if they are not sure if Madame D. can. Sometimes I get the feeling that the department is unhappy with this, but there is nothing that I can do at this point.
Next, speaking only French in front of my cooperating teachers has been nerve racking for me. After all, they are completely Francophone (one is from France and the other from Mauritius), and I am terrified of making mistakes in front of them (and believe me, I do). I am even uncomfortable speaking French in front of the upper level kids for the same reason. I secretly worry that they will scoff at me when they realize my French is not perfect.
Speaking French for the upper level kids can certainly be scary, but teaching exclusively in French is even more difficult with the middle school beginners’ class. It is not that I fear that my vocabulary is too limited; it is that just that it is not easy to explain grammatical rules and vocabulary terms to kids who can hardly understand what I am saying. Imagine generating a vocabulary list with no English definitions to go along side the French words. It really requires me to speak slowly, choose my words carefully, and be creative. Add to this the fact that the kids get frustrated because they know I speak English and it begins to become clear how much of a powder keg the room can be in terms of classroom management!

My classes

I’ve taken over two classes since the start of student teaching and more will be coming. The first is a beginners Middle School class that I started teaching one week into the semester. I worked with the same kids during practicum, so at least I am comfortable with them. The class meets every day for 50 minutes and thus far, I have pretty much stuck to the classroom teacher’s curriculum while using my own lesson plans. In other words, I look at what she intends to teach and decide how I would teach it. Of course, I bounce ideas off of her in the process of developing the lessons. So far, we have been working on a unit about clothing. We started by reviewing colors, then moving on to different articles of clothing. Then they learned about adjective agreement as they learned to describe the color of their classmates’ clothes. I administered my first test this week, but that is definitely worthy of its own blog entry. The other class is an intermediate High School class that I just started teaching this week. The High School at ISD follows a block schedule, so I have this class every other day for an hour and a half. This week, we are working on a unit about Cyrano de Bergerac. Fortunately, the lessons for the unit have already been created and are pretty cut and dry. But I am planning on supplementing the unit with some historical information. Teaching in French has Next week, I will be acquiring a High School beginner’s class that meets on the days I don’t teach the intermediate class. I’ve been observing these kids for a while and frankly, I’m terrified of teaching them.

First Lesson

In the second week of the semester, I taught my first lesson for student teaching to a middle school beginners’ class that I worked with during practicum. It was the first lesson in unit about “tastes and colors”; a unit in which students will learn the names of articles of clothing, the last two subject pronouns “nous” and “on”, possessive adjectives, and the verbs “mettre” and “pouvoir”. They will also be reviewing colors and learned how to make them agree with the genders of the nouns (for example articles of clothing) they describe.
The purpose of this lesson was to review colors. The previous unit was about modes of transportation, so I brought in a model of a car rapide that my wife had made out of a cardboard box for her Halloween costume. A car rapide is a local bus that is painted many bright colors and has religious sayings written all over it. It is a form of public transportation provided by the Muslim brotherhoods. I also put ten different colored pencils on the students’ desks.
To begin the lesson, I covered the model car rapide with bed sheet and wrote a riddle on the board, offering clues as to what could be under the sheet. When someone finally guessed what it was, I asked the students to name some of the colors that the bus was painted. As they named the colors, I made a on the board. I then asked the students to hold up the colored pencil that corresponded with the color that I called aloud. The students then opened their binder to their vocsbulary list from the previous unit, which consisted of black and white images of different modes of transportation. I then started to say things like “I want to see a green car, a yellow taxi, and a red boat.” I walked around to make sure they were coloring in the pictures with the correct colors and then ended the class with a discussion about how to make the colors agree with the noun. For example, I would ask them if the word for car was masculine or feminine and then ask them what they needed to do in order to make the color agree with the gender of the noun. We eventually ran out of time.
I think the lesson went pretty well. I used the vocabulary from the previous unit to introduce the topic and acted as more of a facilitator when it came to generating the list of vocabulary terms and explaining how to make the colors agree with the noun they supply. My favorite part was the intro with the car rapide. I only fear that I will not always be able to come up with fun and creative ideas.

UBD? WTF?!

The UBD unit that I’m required to create for student teaching has been a major source of stress for me. It’s been on my mind since practicum, and as much as I feel that I have a strong grasp of backward design, I am still going through the motions about what my unit will cover. I’ve been collaborating with my cooperating teachers, searching their curriculum maps for the school year so I can align my learning objectives with the content that they intend to cover. But thus far I have not made a final decision on what the theme of the unit will be. In terms of cultural context, the unit will be about West Africa. After all, it makes sense seeing as how I’ve been living here for almost six months and have travelled around the region. Yet, West Africa is a dynamic place, which makes difficult to decide on one topic. For example, should I teach a unit focusing on the region as a whole; the lives of women in West Africa; or just Senegal. Next, I haven’t decided which class will be taught the unit. The intermediate kids are orally very strong and their level is more comparable to an advanced class in the US, but I feel that it may be more meaningful to design a unit for beginners. The question is: How do I inject content gauged for beginners into a cultural context that seems so complex and over their heads? Honestly, all of these questions have been keeping me up at night.

Introduction to Student Teaching

Well, here I am two weeks into student teaching and I’m already a bundle of nerves. This stress has many sources, ranging from the mountain of coursework that I have to complete to the good old-fashioned classroom stage fright. Meanwhile, I feel like I am struggling to keep many people happy, as I try to meet different deadlines for different people and attempt to strike a delicate balance between my personal beliefs about pedagogy and adhering to the curriculum and policies of my cooperating teachers. It is all pretty overwhelming, and while I always thought that I would be comforted by the thought that this is the last phase of the teaching program, there are so many obstacles in front of me that I have not been able to even focus on how great it will feel to have this all done with. I’ve even been experiencing crises of confidence. The purpose of this blog is to allow me take some time every now and then and reflect on my experiences student teaching. Who knows, it might even help to mitigate some of the stress.

On Cultural Contexts

Integrating culture into curriculum is as undeniably indispensable aspect of foreign language education. This is why “Culture” figures so prominently into the Five C’s comprising the Standards for Foreign Language Learning. Foreign language instruction involves more than merely imparting some grammatical rules and vocabulary and sending students on their way. Students need some sort of context for the content; a pragmatic and practical framework into which they can input their newfound knowledge. In this way, the learner begins to recognize the value of the target language beyond the classroom, as he or she is able to apply the material being taught to them in a meaningful way.
Unfortunately, efforts to expose students to the target culture by instructors may be met by obstinacy on the part of the learner. The root of this reluctance to accept other cultures lies in the individual learner’s own culture. Students’ attempts to understand a new culture often involve comparing it to their own, and the end result is that they simply dismiss the new culture as inferior or “stupid”. This is particularly true with American adolescents. They are at an age when they have been more or less fully indoctrinated into their own culture and when developmentally they are still relatively egocentric. At the same time, they are living in a country that is relatively isolated and that is more accustomed to exporting it own language and culture, rather than importing others. Therefore, it is difficult to expect American students to be able to look at the world through a different lens.
Yet this is, nonetheless, one of the primary goals of foreign language instruction and it has become increasingly crucial in a world of dissolving borders and integrated economies. Educators must do everything in their power to broaden students’ intellectual horizons so that they realize, as I once read on a bookmarker, that “other cultures are not failed attempts to imitate [their] own.”
In order to accomplish this lofty goal, foreign language teachers need to first find ways to encourage students to recognize how their own culture influences their perception of the world. How does this translate into actual classroom practices, lessons, and units? It is a process of starting with the individual student’s frame of reference and moving on to investigate the target culture. For example, in a lesson about “homes and houses” a teacher might first ask students to describe their own homes or possibly even draw maps of their houses (as I once observed in a lesson). From here, the lesson can progress to examining homes within the target culture. In my case, the class might give a description of what their homes look like, and then examine photos that explore the different architectural styles that exist within France.
The class I am currently taking at RIC, as well as the school in which I am conducting my practicum, have placed a great deal of emphasis on Understanding by Design (UBD). For SED 410, I am in the process of developing my own UBD unit. Meanwhile, the school in which I have been placed, International School of Dakar (ISD), has required all teachers to input their curriculum into UBD units. Therefore, it is highly appropriate for me to address how cultural contexts relate to UBD units, specifically the one I am working on. Developing a UBD unit has certain stages, and choosing a cultural context is part of Stage one. However, I am beginning to come to the conclusion that there is no particular order within stage one. For example, I could decide what vocabulary and grammar I want students to learn, and then choose the context in which the content will be presented. From there I can build a unit accordingly. I could also reverse the order of the first step by choosing the topic or cultural context I want to explore and then deciding what grammar and vocabulary students will learn over the course of the exploration.
Right now, I am mulling over two units. The first is one about the Francophone world and I would be teaching it next March. The second is centered upon the theme of life for teenagers in France and it would be comprised of some lessons I already taught at ISD for which I generated my own material. For the Francophone unit, it has been more a matter of me choosing the context before the content. For the latter, I chose the context based upon the content I wanted to cover.
In my experiences at ISD, I try to evaluate the role culture plays in the lessons I teach and observe, and over the past three months I have noticed some things. First of all, teachers here do not necessarily face the same cultural obstacles as those faced by American foreign language teachers. The students at ISD are from around the world and most have lived in or visited several countries, so for the most part, they are accepting of the other cultures. In addition, most of them see the value in learning other languages because they have already had to learn another language at one point in their lives in order to socially interact with their peers. I should also point out that Senegal is a French-speaking country and the benefits of learning French are fairly obvious.
The next thing I noticed in my time at ISD is that the cultural aspects of lessons do not necessarily have to be glaring. Sometimes, the cultural component is extremely subtle. The French department at ISD only teaches in French; in part out of fairness to English Language Learners, and in part trying to strike a balance between language “acquisition” and “learning’ (i.e. introducing students to words before they use them in class). In doing so, they bring French culture into every lesson. As TLC points out, students’ attempts to equate other cultures with their own is similar to assuming that every word in a foreign language can be literally translated into their native language (Hadley, Alice Omaggio Teaching Language in Context; Third edition, pg 347). In French, people do not say “I AM 15 years old” or “I AM hungry.” They say “I HAVE fifteen years” or” I HAVE hunger.” There is really no such thing as literal translation and by conducting lessons entirely in French and rarely providing English equivalents of new vocabulary, the ISD teachers avoid the misconception that such a thing exists. My only question is how does that bode for “Comparisons”, which insists that students should be encouraged to make comparisons between the target language and their own? When I talked with my cooperating teacher about UBD and my difficulties grappling with how to inject culture into lessons, this is what she said. “The entire lesson is culture. Their binders are not ‘binders’. They’re ‘classeurs’. I use French songs and gestures to do everything from teaching the alphabet, to scolding students who misbehave. Simply doing everything in the French exposes them to French culture.” Of course, that is not a literal translation of what she said.
Incorporating culture into French curriculum can be potentially complicated for me. Culture is dynamic and though I have spent a significant amount of time in France and other Francophone countries, I am not French and I am by no means an expert on French culture. The Francophone world is vast and the influence of French language extends well beyond the borders of “l’hexagone”. There are Francophone countries in North and sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, North and South America, and Southeast Asia, and each of these countries and regions has its own unique culture. For me this creates two problems. First, it requires me to have at least a basic understanding of a very large geographic area, to be able to identify the majority of these countries, and to be capable of explaining the role France played in their history.
The other problem revolves around the question of how much time I should devote to each of these countries and regions. If my lessons focus almost exclusively on places like France and Canada, it would only provide students with a narrow glimpse of the massive Francophone world. At the same time, doing so would inherently assign a greater value to what some may deem to be “real” French culture, implying that one culture is “superior” to others. All of this could certainly be difficult. However, as much as the size and scope of French culture poses a challenge for me, it is precisely what I think I will enjoy most about being a French teacher. In the end, it will create countless opportunities for me to encourage students to look beyond their own back yards.