Teaching - SENEGAL Project Information for Teaching in Senegal

Our Voluntary Teaching in Senegal

Our Teaching projects are based in and around the city of St Louis, around 4 hours north of the busy capital Dakar. Most volunteers are placed in secondary schools where the students range from 11 to 22 years old depending on the school. There are also placements working with adults, and even some in a military camp! On average a class has 30 pupils but it could have as many as 50. Volunteers are expected to work for about 4 hours per day.

Examples of Teaching Placements in Senegal

Camp El-Hadj Omar

Military personnel from all over the St Louis region attend El-Hadj Omar for English language lessons. Senegalese soldiers tend to be heavily involved in international peace-keeping missions, often in Anglophone countries, so are keen to pick up additional language skills. The camp is well equipped with a language laboratory that can accommodate 20 students, and classes are based on a range of textbooks and cassettes from the US Ministry of Defence. Volunteers will be a valuable classroom resource to encourage communication, as the textbooks are often dull and dated, and the spoken English of the teacher is far from fluent.

The volunteer's usual hours of work are 8am to 1pm, Tuesday to Friday. There are four classes divided by ability, with the majority in the intermediate/upper levels. Your role will involve planning and teaching classes alongside M Diouf, supervising listening exercises and encouraging spoken communication among the students. You will sometimes be asked to prepare your own lessons or to prepare classroom resources, and students may be keen to organise less formal conversation groups with you in their own time.

You will begin your placement by observing classes and familiarising yourself with the textbooks and with the level of students. After a few days of acclimatisation you will begin teaching collaboratively with M Diouf and are welcome to suggest your own ideas for adding variety and interest to lessons. There are no classes in the afternoon and you will be able to return to eat with your host family.

If you have any particular interests or skills that you wish to incorporate in your placement please speak to your supervisor or a member of Projects Abroad staff.

Projects Abroad Summer School

The first Projects Abroad Summer Programme was organised in 2005. There are at least three months of summer holiday in Senegal, leaving many children at a loose end. The Projects Abroad programme provides a fun, educational and safe environment for youngsters and adults of all ages, and is open to anyone who wants to attend. The foundation of the Programme is English lessons, but we will also be organising drama groups, team sports and athletics, creative activities, and IT classes. Although the Programme will mainly concentrate on school-age students, there will also be classes held for university students and professionals. Volunteers will be largely organising and running the Programme, with regular planning meetings organised by the Country Director and a Senegalese teaching supervisor.

Volunteers teach in pairs. They are asked to prepare brief lesson plans and learning schedules together each month. Lessons should be structured but do not have to be too formal, and can involve simulation games, debates and creative activities. Senegalese pupils like tests (!) and there should be a test organised every two weeks to check on students' learning. There will be regular meetings to plan lessons, share ideas and give feedback, and a record will be kept of what areas have been covered so that volunteers joining the Programme in July and August do not repeat material. There will also be a drama group that runs alongside. The Programme will end with a prize-giving ceremony and show for parents and local officials.

College AHL Guillabert

The school was founded in 1988 and is one of the biggest in St Louis, set in several large buildings on a spacious, sandy campus with sports pitches. It shares the campus with another school, Lycée Charles de Gaulle. It is a public school which means that it is partially government-funded, although students must pay an annual fee. Students come from a variety of backgrounds although most are not well-off and textbooks are often shared between two or three children. The buildings are reasonably well-kept and facilities include a computer room with printers and internet access.

The school is open from 8am to 5pm, with classes running throughout the day. Volunteers are able to return to their host family for lunch. There is a friendly staff-room where you can eat, mark work and plan lessons. Lessons generally last one or two hours.

All our projects offer a truly rewarding experience for both you and the children and staff that you work with. Seeing the results of your efforts makes it clear what a worthwhile project it is that you are part of!