Learn English Through Krio

 

 

I hope you can see this photo well, because a very special, unique activity is going on in this SELI Young Writers club in northern Sierra Leone at Dankawalie Secondary School. 

All SELI Young Writers club meetings open with a 10-15 minute mini-lesson that precedes writing.  As one option for this mini-lesson, SELI donates copies of the workbook, Learn English Through Krio (formerly called The SELI Wordbook), in which one page at a time teachers can help students distinguish the form, use and meaning of an English cognate in Krio. It needs to be said that it is unusual at any level in Sierra Leone schools for teachers to clarify the differences between Krio and English.

The special thing we are seeing in this photo is a DSS club senior-secondary experienced writer using this workbook to conduct a mini-lesson for junior-secondary newcomers to the club. All of these students speak Kuranko as their primary language. They have learned Krio (informally) and English (formally) in school. A fellow student—an older brother, we might call him—can easily remember how confusing it was for him to distinguish Krio from English when he was their age, making him ideal for delivering this mini-lesson. 

Well done, Dankawalie Secondary School!

Thank you!

 In wishing everyone a happy new year, I want especially to thank a very special anonymous donor for supporting SELI’s writing programs last month. Thank you so much for your generosity! That was a boost we needed.  

You see here some of the students in a SELI Young Writers club at the SDA Primary School in Samuel Town, on the rural Freetown Peninsula in Sierra Leone. I have just had a wonderful time typing up forty-two final drafts of the writing pieces these class 5 and 6 students have completed, and they tell me they have more to send me!

I will be returning these final copies along with the 3-4 revised drafts and conferencing notes attached to each one. Each person in the club is trying to complete at least five writing pieces to earn a club booklet of their work (and, as a side benefit, be better prepared for exams and promotions facing them at the end of the school year 👍.) 

I do enjoy reading their work. All of them are putting true personal experiences on paper for the first time. The emotional incidences playing in their heads as they write, matter. What will the effect be on the reader if they put this first, or if they don’t mention that? Every writer reading this knows that such questions don't go away as you advance; they stay with you and make you a better writer. 

For giving these children the chance to learn how to write, we all thank you! 👏