International Mother Language Day 2010

On 21st of February, 2010, the Sentinel English Language Institute (SELI) celebrated the 11th anniversary of UNESCO's International Mother Language Day, which promotes the viability and diversity of languages and culture. For this second annual celebration, SELI was joined by the local chapter of International PEN, Sierra Leone PEN, which shares SELI's concern for the preservation of all Sierra Leone languages and the development of their literatures. UNESCO assesses how endangered a language is by using a set of nine factors. One of these factors is whether an active literature exists in the language. Learn more about this event by opening the report pictured here.

We've Added Journals to our Club

The Young Writers club that had moved to the SELI facility a year ago, is now back in Services Junior Secondary School, Wilberforce. We're going strong! Here you see a content conference, and editing with dictionaries. We now start our meetings with dialogue/response journals, which encourages punctuality, stimulates creativity, lets me know what's going on in the students' lives, and makes mini-lessons more effective. Here's Fanta's haiku from her journal:

There are sixteen round
holes in the classroom window.
They bring fresh air in.

Alieu is reading his in this video.

Six rice bags standing
to separate the two classrooms.
The sticks hold them up.

We're grateful for recent donations from individuals to SELI that enabled us to buy additional materials for these clubs, such as files and markers to keep the students' drafts organized.