Association of Teachers of English in Senegal (ATES) English Language Day 2009
Ndèye Marie Guèye Fall, ATES Vice President of Communication, Technical Advisor’s Assistant for ELT Bureau d’Anglais / Ministry of Education
The Association of Teachers of English in Senegal (ATES) organizes an English Language Day (ELD) each year in order to promote the language as well as to give teachers of English in Senegal the opportunity to develop professionally. ATES also provides students with the opportunity to make connections between the language they learn in class and how it can be used in life through extracurricular activities that are part of the event.
On May 2, 2009, the national ATES organized its 10th ELD at Ecole des Bibliothécaires Archivistes et Documentalistes (EBAD) of the University of Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal. This event provided the opportunity for ATES to welcome Rae Roberts, our guest representative from WATESOL, our sister organization in Washington, DC. Rae was very busy visiting schools in Dakar (Franco-Senegalaise Dial DIOP) and the suburbs (Limamoulaye High School). She also had a chance to visit the Bureau d’Anglais at the Ministry of Education and learn about its role in ELT. Finally, she presented a very interesting topic entitled “Learning in the 21st Century” in line with ATES’ 2009 concern in in-service training, “ELT and IT.”
In addition to offering professional development for teachers, ELD always offers an opportunity for students to enjoy the English language through extracurricular activities such as vocabulary, Scrabble games, Mastermind, drawing workshops, and poetry and dictation contests. They also enjoy staged plays performed by schools’ English clubs and drumming. It’s also an opportunity for ATES to invite all partners involved in IT such as School Net Africa, English language institutes such as the British Senegalese Institute, and publishers such as HACHETTE-EDICEF to exhibit their books, products, and services. This year was special in terms of culinary specialties as ATES was able to involve at least eight different nationalities that all presented foods from their own countries. All participants were given certificates and winners got prizes. English is FUN!
Below are two poems written by contestants from different grade levels.
English
Mariama Kesso Diallo, 9th grade
Martin Luther King Junior High
English, my heart, my life is easy
When I hear you, I’m happy
English my language, you are loving
I can’t help dreaming of you when I’m sleeping
You take me to a high level
You are the first language I speak when I travel
Illegal Emigration
Birane Thiam, 11th grade
Dakar Modern Senior High
The fact of being jobless
Disturbs our success
But once we are filled with discourage
It will be so tough to have more courage
We want to succeed, reason why we are ambitious
And if we keep on this way, we will be more courageous
If we want to go and find a job, it’s because of poverty
We do not have the same living conditions, reason why there is no equality
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