Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund
2014
Mauritanian Alumni’s Proposal:
Teaching English to Poor, Young
students
Expanded Access to Education
Team
Members:
·
Diakoye Sock (Team Leader), M.A. in TESOL, St.
Michael’s College, Colchester, VT
·
Mohamed Cheikh Beina, M.A. in Linguistics,
Easter Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI
·
Salih Eba, Juniata College, B.A. in World
Literature, Huntingdon, PA
·
Zekeriya Moussa Konte, Augustana College, B.A. in
English (Creative Writing), Sioux Falls, SD
·
Cheikh Elhoussein, B.A. in Political Science,
Minnesota State University, Mankota, MN
We, members of Fulbright Alumni Mauritania,
are participating in the Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund 2014 competition.
Winning this grant will help us implement our project, which teaching English
to young Mauritanian students coming from needy families in Sebkha and El Mina
(areas of the capital city Nouakchott). Our team is composed of five former Fulbrighters.
We came back home after completing our
Fulbright programs in American colleges and universities. We chose to come back
home to share the knowledge and skills—that we have gained through our US
exchange experiences—with young Mauritanians. This will help strengthen bilateral
communications between the United States and Mauritania, a 100
Muslim
country that cooperates fully in the war against terrorism.
Muslim
country that cooperates fully in the war against terrorism.
The Project Justification
At the beginning of this new millennium,
where there is a race towards monopolizing communication in order to achieve
development, progress, and education, the English language has become an
essential tool to reach such goals. English as an international language of
trade, business, and sciences, has become the world’s first international
language. That is why the language is becoming more and more popular in
non-English speaking countries around the world, and in a number of African
countries including Mauritania. The current approach used in the Mauritanian
education system favors largely the use of the English language as a means of
communication. In this regard, after being trained in American colleges and universities,
we consider winning this grant as a great opportunity to train poor middle and
high school Mauritanian students aged between 14 and 18 to acquire knowledge,
which we think will greatly contribute to fortifying the relations between our
respective countries. Knowing that there is much to be gained with the
inclusion of the American culture and educational methodology in language
acquisition, we will focus on communicational competence to help our students
interact with native English speakers and other English language users both
inside and outside Mauritania.
English, as the international language of communication, trade,
business, and sciences, will most likely be in the near future, the basis of
the overall development of Mauritania. Mauritania will soon start benefitting
from its gold and oil resources. It will become very soon an important oil and
gold exporting country in West Africa. We expect that many international
business companies will start operations in Mauritania. This will increase the
demand for teaching English as a foreign language, as these companies would
like to hire people with good English skills. Our main goal is to teach
students who come from underserved communities who do not have the means to
afford private English classes.
For
the economic reasons mentioned above, a new education reform is needed. This
reform is to be adopted because authorities at the level of the Ministry of
National Education, teachers, and students’ parents noticed that the level of
Mauritanian students is decreasing in general, and in English in particular.
This is proven by the high percentage failure of the Mauritanian students in
national and international English exams (TOEFL, GRE etc.). The old teaching
methods and techniques—for teaching English—that have been used for many years
in Mauritania have failed. Talking about this situation, Sene ( 1988 ) said “…
the old-fashioned textbooks and traditional methods of language teaching have
reigned for more than a decade and a half, and no longer meet the needs of a
modern teaching system” (p. 1).
Authorities at the level of the Ministry of
National Education, program designers, and English language teaching specialists
are seeking new methods for teaching the language. They came up with a new
approach to teaching English to middle and High school students, called “The
Competency-Based Approach.” Here, the emphasis is put on what learners can do
with the language as well as how they manage learning. The teaching is centered
on learners and their respective environment. This approach is based on
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).
In the former education system, English was
only taught at the high school level. Now, in addition to high school, English
is also taught in middle school. What we notice is that, students in middle and
high schools are eager to learn English, and are very interested in everything
related to English (English books, cassettes, CDs, DVDs, private English classes,
American music and movies etc…) that is available to them. Here, the new
teaching methods and techniques that our team has acquired from American
colleges and universities will certainly contribute to the execution of our
project, and thus add to the new Mauritanian education reform, something that
will with no doubt bridge the gap between the US and Mauritania.
Description of the Program Details
We are offering English classes to 25
students aged 14 to 18 coming from Sebkha and El Mina, two of the poorest
neighborhoods in the capital city, Nouakchott. The purpose of these English
classes is to help our students improve their listening, speaking, reading and
writing skills, so that they can listen with better comprehension, speak with
fluency, read better and write more effectively in English.
The $25,000 grant will help us cover the
project expenses as the program activities will be spread throughout an entire
year.
A. Enhancement Activities
There are a lot of approaches and methods
used in second language teaching. In order that successful language learning occurs,
the method or the approach that is based on the learner’s needs, interests, and
motivations is the most effective. For this reason, Content-Based Second
Language Instruction in general, which responds to this concern, is the one
that is more suitable to our students and the context in which we will teach.
In the
past decades, Mauritanian teachers used the Grammar Translation Method. Talking
about this method, Brown (2007a) said: “It does virtually nothing to enhance a
student’s communicative ability in the language […] It requires few specialized
skills on the part of teachers” (16). Teaching was focused on explicit grammar
rules, repetition, and memorization. Students were learning without
understanding and thinking on what they were learning. Brown (2007a) adds by
saying: “Little thought was given at the time to teaching oral use of
languages” (16). Widdowson (1978) stressed the need to gear language teaching
to the needs and interests of the learners and to move away from a mechanical,
decontextualized presentation of grammar and pronunciation rules. So, the traditional
methods need to be reviewed to meet the needs of a modern teaching system.
In our curriculum, the units focus on English
communicative classroom teaching. The classroom teaching is based on
communicative-tasks-based activities. When learning, the students observe or
listen first before doing the tasks. The activities include classroom and real
life situations. In this context, our teaching
would be inclined to the reality of the learner. In this regard, we should not
just limit our teaching to in-class grammatical exercises, but we have also to
teach our learners how to write cover letters and have interviews in English,
hold phone conversations with native English speakers and express themselves
and read in English in the same capacity as objectives. Our curriculum is
designed following the theme-based instruction model because every unit is
based on a daily life topic. We will use the contents of the textbooks to work
on grammar, vocabulary, conjugation, and pronunciation skills that learners need
in order to engage in real life situations.
As Fulbright alumni, after having lived in
the American society for more than two years, our experiences will be a
tremendous support to the learners. In addition, the US Embassy and its
American officers and employees, the Embassy’s Information Resource Center
(IRC), American professors from the University of Nouakchott, the Alumni
Resource Center (ARC), American visiting speakers, cultural specialists, and other
Mauritanian Fulbright Alumni will be very important sources of knowledge that
we will use to teach American studies to help our learners to better understand
the American culture and its values. For students to practice their spoken
English and enrich their learning experiences and provide variety and interest
to the program, we will ask the US Embassy to regularly invite our students to
the appropriate Embassy events and activities, such as July 4th, as
special guests. This is very important to us as the Mauritanian youth know only
the American society through Rap music and violent action movies (Avatar)—different
from the real American society.
B. Student Selection Criteria and Process
Students will be selected from the areas of
Sebkha and El-Mina. Priority is given to the students who come from poor
families aged between 14 and 18 years old. The program targets students of
public middle and high schools. Only 25 students will be admitted to the
program through a testing process.
We will contact the headmasters of different
schools to assist us in identifying the students who fit the age requirement.
After checking the IDs and birth certificates of each student, the candidates
will be given a test in order to select those who are eligible to take part in
the program. In addition, we intend to give equal opportunity to both genders
and students coming from all Mauritanian ethnic groups.
The team will write a placement test that
focuses on basic English skills (Grammar, vocabulary, listening, etc…). Based
on their test grades, students will be placed in the appropriate level,
Beginner, Elementary, or intermediate.
C. Materials Used
We will use Mauritanian textbooks, American
textbooks, and others. In the classroom, the learners are taught the content;
they use the language learned from the content to practice in the communication
task activities.
The activities mentioned above can be
supplemented with materials such as journal articles on those themes, authentic
contexts on video recordings showing people interacting by using the content
language, films, CDs, DVDs and audiotapes, and even sometimes inviting guest
speakers to talk about some of the issues raised in the content material. The
learners will find the knowledge so useful and meaningful that it will increase
their motivation which aids in the acquisition process. Teaching language
through content-based instruction is more real. It provides a real-world
context for teaching language.
In addition to this, we will use library
books, articles from regular journals
and magazines like Time Magazine, New York Times, Newsweek, Discover,
Scientific American, among others that the American Embassy supplies us with at
“The American Corner” library that it has created for the University of
Nouakchott in the English Department to help students.
D. Number of Teachers
Our team is made up of five Fulbright alumni
who have gained tremendous experience from studying at American universities (St.
Michael’s College in VT; Augustana College, SD; Minnesota State University, MN;
and Juniata College, PA). We also have taught English at various schools and
English centers in Nouakchott.
E.
Cost and Expenses of the Program
The total amount needed to
cover the program is $25,000:
ü Classroom
Rent: $1,655.16/year
To offer classes in
a favorable environment, we will be renting a classroom in a private school at
$68.965/month over a period of 12 months. Another room is necessary to house
the computers we will be buying for students, which will also cost
$68.965/month.
ü Books
and supplies: $1,724.136/year
Textbooks and other
school supplies (pens, pencils, notebooks, etc.) will be distributed in two
installments over a year. Each student will receive approximately $35 per
installment.
ü Furniture:
$762.068/year
To avoid that
our students sit uncomfortably on broken benches or squalid, dusty,
virus-ridden floors, we will provide them with comfortable seating: 13 benches
at a price of approximately $59 per bench.
ü Food and
refreshments: $ 10,344.827/year
Learning in empty
stomachs kills motivation. Therefore, to keep our students active and ready for
class, we will provide them with food and beverages: $3.45 will be allocated to
each student per day for 10 days a month over a period of 12 months.
ü Transportation:
$ 6,240/year
Security is our top
priority. So our students travel safely to school and back home, we will rent a
bus for approximately $52 a day for 10 days a month over a period of a year.
ü Technology:
$3,702/year
Incorporating
technology in the learning environment is indispensable in this day and age.
Our students will be initiated to surfing the internet, creating email
accounts, and doing research on Google. To attain this objective, we will give
them 12 second-hand computers—a computer for every two students—at a price of
approximately $173 per computer. The monthly cost of internet will add up to
approximately $138/month over a period of 12 months.
The total cost
would be $24,428.191. The remaining amount of the $25,000 will be used to help teachers
with transportation.
F.
Class Schedule
Classes will take place in the
morning hours on Fridays and Saturdays of each week.
September 2014 Intensive Program (every
day except Fridays and Saturdays, from 10:00 am to 5:00pm)
October 2014- 28 hours
Fridays: 3, 10, 17, 24, 31
Saturdays: 4, 11, 18, 25
November 2014- 28 hours
Fridays: 7, 14, 21, 28
Saturdays: 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
December 2014- 24 hours
Fridays: 5, 12, 19, 26
Saturdays: 6, 13, 20, 27
January 2015- 30 hours
Fridays: 2, 9, 16, 23, 30
Saturdays: 3, 10, 17, 24, 31
February 2015- 24 hours
Fridays: 6, 13, 20, 27
Saturdays: 7, 14, 21, 28
March 2015- 24 hours
Fridays: 6, 13, 20, 27
Saturdays: 7, 14, 21, 28
April 2015- 24 hours
Fridays: 3, 10, 17, 24
Saturdays: 4, 11, 18, 25
May 2015- 30 hours
Fridays: 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
Saturdays: 2, 9, 16, 23, 30
June 2015-24 hours
Fridays: 5, 12, 19, 26
Saturdays: 6, 13, 20, 27
July 2015-27 hours
Fridays: 3, 10, 17, 24, 31
Saturdays: 4, 11, 18, 25
August 2015-24 hours
Fridays: 7, 14, 21, 28
Saturdays: 8, 15, 22, 29
July 2015-27 hours
Fridays: 3, 10, 17, 24, 31
Saturdays: 4, 11, 18, 25
August 2015-24 hours
Fridays: 7, 14, 21, 28
Saturdays: 8, 15, 22, 29
G.
Summer Session Activities
We will have two weeks of
intensive sessions during the summer, mid-August, where students will the
chance to do activities that will allow them to practice their English. The
activities will include:
·
Field trips
(libraries, restaurant, museums, beach, etc)
·
Scrabble
tournaments
·
Spelling Bee
competition
·
Bingo Games
·
Basket Ball
·
Watching Movies
·
Soccer
·
Creative Writing
·
Debates
·
Learning English
through music
References:
Brown, H. D. (2007a). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching.
Pearson Education, Inc.
Sene, S. (1988). Reading Comprehension in Mauritanian
Secondary Schools:
Problems and Suggested Solutions. Ecole Normale Supérieure de Nouakchott.
Widdowson, H. G. (1978). Teaching language as communication.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
