COA~COA BEAT
Cynthia’s School Nouakchott, Mauritania, West Africa
Cynthia Chisholm ’86 welcomes inquiries, interns and visitors to the school in Mauritania, West Africa. Write her at englishnkc@yahoo.com
It was late in August of 2001 that I was invited to teach English in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. September 11, 2001 decided me. With twenty years of experience as a teacher in this country, I needed to understand Islam and what the rest of the world felt about America. For two years, I taught at the American International School of Nouakchott, but I still felt remote from the real life of the country. I also saw a real need for the working people of the region to know English. I began to formulate a plan for an English school for adults. I found an abandoned building and took the leap. While I studied on-line at the School for International Training in Language School Management, I gathered a group of local university graduates with sufficient proficiency and teaching experience for a faculty. Training started in September 2004, with a twomonth, six-day-a-week schedule. With only a few samples for textbooks, I had the teachers use what they knew. Based on what the West African population would need to work with native-English speakers, they wrote a curriculum, then we tried their lessons on students. As one group team-taught, their fellow trainees observed. Afterwards, we held self- and peer-evaluation sessions, the most informative part of the process. The English Language Center, informally known as “Cynthia’s School,” opened its doors in Nouakchott in late 2004 with nearly two hundred students. Already, it has gained a reputation across the country for quality English training, serving more than three hundred students across the socioeconomic spectrum of Mauritania. We teach guards and drivers, doctors and government officials. No one believed I could merge the classes like that, but we never had a problem. Our biggest challenge was getting the public to believe local teachers could provide quality instruction, but now we’re doubling in size, beginning an internationally-recognized teacher certification program in English as a Foreign Language and considering classes in computers and other work skills. Ultimately, the school has the potential to really make a difference in helping Mauritanians gain viable employment. When I think back on this amazing year, I realize that COA is where I developed the skills and mind-set to use everything in my capacity and eclectic knowledge-base to strike out on my own and make this happen. With students discussing sustainable development or the implications of democracy, the school feels like a small COA on the edge of the Sahara. “English is only a tool. You have to ‘do’ something with it,” I tell my students. Our hope is that English will be used to make wise and informed decisions for the future of this country. ~ Cynthia Chisholm ’86 COA | 3