By Adama Kone, Teacher Project Manager
One of the biggest challenges facing students in Mali is the fact that school is not taught in their mother tongue language. Instead, schools use French for instruction and often leave students behind if they aren’t able to pick up French quickly in primary school. This year, we piloted the French Language Intervention Project (FLIP), designed to help 7th graders brush up their French skills as they enter middle school.
I want to share the story of one of our students who participated in the FLIP pilot: Dramane D., a 14-year-old student in 7th grade at Harman Family Middle School. Mali Rising Foundation provided eight extra French classes with his school. Dramane and thirty-nine other students in his class took part in the classes. I had the chance to talk with him and he told us how he felt about the classes:
Dramane receives his certification of completion of FLIP from his teacher at the end of 8 weeks of studying.
“ I am Dramane and I participated in all eight French classes organized by Mali Rising Foundation at my school. I like my French teacher who taught us all the lessons. He is wonderful because I understand his explanations well. I was excited every time we had an extra class with my teacher.
We would work in groups together and play with flashcards telling the meanings of words to each other. My favorite part about the classes was using the flashcards. I always tried to get more meanings right than anyone else in my group. Sometimes my classmates would laugh at me because I would mess up the meanings. After the extra classes, outside the classroom, my classmates and I would talk about how the classes went. Sometimes, we would go to a friend’s house to do homework to get ready for the next class.
When I do homework with my classmates, we usually have long discussions on the answers because we do not know who is right and who is not. Our extra French classes organized by Mali Rising Foundation gave us the opportunity to have those kinds of discussions many times. The classes helped us understand that we must come together even after the extra classes so that we can learn more from each other.
One day I was part of a group to do an exercise as homework. The homework involved reading a text and answering questions. Each of us took a sheet to use for answers. We read the text but then we were stumped! So we all sat down and looked at each other silently…I laughed because I did not know what to do that day actually. We did not do anything that day and we dismissed the meeting without making real progress on the homework.
But the next day we came again and tried to do the same homework and this time we succeeded together! I really liked that our teacher allowed us to do homework together in groups. I always enjoyed working with my group and we will keep doing our homework together because it helps me learn more and better from my classmates.
I am grateful to my French teacher and to the donors of Mali Rising Foundation for helping me learn more and better this year! I am so proud of certificate of completion, which will be a great souvenir for me. It will also please my father so much, who is always proud when I work hard!”
