 I wanted to introduce Cathy Malou, who is a visiting scholar at SOAS, on a full bright. I think most of you know her. She's here for three months and it's actually your last month now. So the time is going very fast. When she's not at SOAS, her normal job is in the US. She's at William Paterson University and is a professor of education in Languages and Literacy. She's worked extensively throughout Africa and most of her work has been in the DRC and also in Rwanda, but also you've worked in South Africa, Guinea, so a range of countries. And I think we're going to hear about some of your experiences from DRC today. So I'll pass over to you. Thank you very much and thank you all for coming and thank you for the invitation to let me present and welcome to my presentation. Yes. So, let us begin. I just want to give a brief overview of what I'm going to be talking about. I'll begin with a brief explanation of my background. I'll discuss the limitations that I believe I bring to the work that I'm doing. I'll also share some of the tentative research topics because this is a work in progress. I'm also going to present a brief historical overview of the DRC. And then I will share a bit about my own classroom when I was in English as a foreign language teacher there in the 1970s. We will fast forward and meet that same classroom as I saw it in 2014. And then I will be talking about English language clubs that really should be English language clubs as opposed to English clubs. I'll share some of the survey data that I've gathered. Again, the limitations of what I believe my survey and other data represent and a list of references. And let me say right now, the audience is very small. So, I would appreciate and encourage you to interrupt and let's have a give and take here. We don't need to have it as formal as it might be were we in a big lecture hall. Okay, a little bit about my background. Let me begin in 1963 in the United States, President Kennedy said to all Americans, Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country. And this was the impetus to create the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps is a voluntary organization that usually brings young Americans to developing countries to do all kinds of work. Some of it is teaching, it can be nursing, healthcare, community service. And I decided when I finished college to become a Peace Corps volunteer. I joined and I was sent to at that time, Zaire, one of the other names for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I worked there for two years as an English as a foreign language teacher at an all girls secondary school Catholic. And I'll be telling you a little bit more about that in a few more minutes. I returned to the States, I got a master's degree in education. And five years later I rejoined the Peace Corps and was sent to Rwanda where I became an English language inspector and visited and worked with some of the secondary school teachers. I also developed curriculum materials for teaching English in Rwanda. I came back to the States and I was a foreign language teacher, English and French for about 20 years. And then I decided to get a PhD and I got a PhD in language literacy and learning. I taught, did teacher preparation for about 10 years and then I received my first Fulbright scholarship and I went to, I was sent to Rwanda where I was an English language teacher at the university level. So I prepared teachers in Rwanda just as I had been doing in the United States. After that experience I was offered a few positions, short term positions with the United States Department of State and I was sent back to the Congo. And I think you might be able to imagine what it was like for me having started my career in the Congo and as I approached the twilight of my career I returned to the Congo. So it was quite an exciting experience for me. Part of the work that I did in the Congo was to engage in a fact finding mission to find out what people would like to talk about in English language clubs and I used what I learned to create handbooks that are now being used in the Congo in the English language clubs. Based on that, those three trips, I developed the survey that I administered and gathered other data which is part of the basis of my presentation today. Also, when I was thinking about the work that I was doing with these English club materials I found myself becoming uncomfortable with the work. I found myself asking how many languages can we ask people to learn and are my efforts really giving Congolese access to the international community? Am I really assisting them with their personal professional development or am I engaging in a new form of colonialism, linguistic colonialism? These were questions that troubled me and they continue to provoke lots of thoughts for me. So based on my brief background, let me just talk briefly about the limitations that I bring. First of all, my area is not linguistics. I am a teacher educator. Yes, I teach foreign languages but my area really is teacher education, middle level education, classroom research, that kind of thing. So I acknowledge right from the get go that I'm not a linguist. I also have a lot of data that is personal. It's anecdotal. Yes, I've got survey data but a lot of this comes out of my own personal experiences. I did some fact finding with the people in the Congo and I conducted a survey and interview questions but that is the limit of what I have in terms of my research. So what about some of the topics that I'm pursuing? What I'm really looking at are topics that have to do with the historical and contemporary nature of English language teaching and learning in the DRC. I'm also wondering about the data, the self-reported demographic and linguistic descriptions of the English language for English language learners and I'm struggling with this notion of English language teaching and learning as emancipation or recolonisation. So let me give you just a brief overview of the Congo when I was thinking about even applying to SOAS. At first I thought well maybe SOAS won't be interested because the Congo never came into their point of view. The British had their own colonies and the Congo wasn't one of them and so maybe they won't be interested. But then I thought well maybe they will be because you have not had a lot of contact with the Francophone world of Africa. So as we know the country borders of Rwanda were drawn. They were not determined based on any kind of linguistic or ethnic borders. They were determined by a bunch of men sitting in some place probably in London drawing and making decisions. For example we know that some of the languages in the Congo Lingala for example is spoken on either side of the Congo River. Congo River is a border, a frontier but that language and that ethnic group spans across. So in terms of the original people in the Congo I went to the Congolese Embassy website that's for the UK and I took directly from what they report. And there they said that the first inhabitants they are calling them pygmies and they were the farmers. In 2000 BC to 500 AD more of the Bantus came. The Bantus are considered also farmers and they represented the broad linguistic languages of Lingala, Chiluba and Swahili. In addition in the eastern part of the Congo we have the influence from the East Africans again Bantus and those were predominantly herders bringing with them the language of Ki Swahili. And finally we have the Hamites who are also herders who it is believed it came into the Congo region from Darfur and from Ethiopia also bringing Swahili. As I did some of my preliminary research I thought that it might be useful if I just create a chart with some of the dates and the important information historically that had to do predominantly with language policy. The Congo Free State was created in 1885 based on the Conference of Berlin and what I found most interesting particularly for people in the UK is the fact that in 1904 the Congo Reform Association was created. This was a British based association that was concerned with reporting out letting the world know about the atrocities that were being committed in the Congo by and through the agency of King Leopold II. It was really based and because of this Congo Reform Association in the UK that eventually the Congo was removed from the control of King Leopold II and placed into the control of the Belgian government. There were not big changes that were made with that power shift but there were some and it's because of the Congo Reform Association that in 1908 the colonial charter was created which gave the Congo to the Belgian government and the Belgian government called it the Belgian Congo. Over the years in the early 1900s there were influences from the Flemish side. Some of them were quite nationalistic and they believed that there should be the equal opportunity for the use of Flemish as well as French in the Congo. The minister of the colonies, Louis Frank also felt the same way and that influence was felt in the 1950s when bilingualism became a language policy. Bilingualism did not mean with African languages it meant with Flemish and French. One other item that I found particularly disturbing from my point of view as an American was that in 1920 we saw the influence of the Phelps Stokes Fund. This was an American based fund which focused on racist ethnocentric philosophies and had a tremendous influence on some of the things that were going on in the Belgian Congo. In 1960 we know that the Congo became independent and in 1965 to 1997 was the reign of the dictator Mobutu. Let's look now in a little bit more specific detail about the language policies shortly before independence and through to the time that I came into the Congo. As you can see from this chart there was a huge amount of movement in terms of language policy shifting from medium of instruction which at some points were Congolese languages at other points were French and there was this backwards and forwards kind of movement which gave no kind of consistency to the policies and practices in the Congo in terms of the languages that were used. Fast forward now to 1971 and my time in the Congo which was 1973. So as I told you I can speak now from personal experience about this English language teaching and learning and the practices that went on. These practices depended on in large part the geographical location of the school the school budget access to teaching materials whether or not the schools had access to those the teacher training how well or poorly the teachers were trained and the teachers knowledge of the languages they were expected to speak. In my case I taught at an all girls Catholic boarding school it was on a paved road 90 minutes outside the capital city of Kinshasa. The nuns were extremely conscientious about making sure that we had everything that we needed and that they followed the language policies to the letter because they were always easy targets for the language inspectors. It was always easy for them to hop on the road and come out to inspect the school so the nuns were pretty careful about what they were doing. So here I've got two photographs from my teaching time there. On the left is a photograph of the 11th grade class there were 25 students in that class and on the right is a photograph of the 9th grade classroom there were 35 students in that classroom. The angle of my camera doesn't allow you to see the entire classroom but believe me there were 35 students which felt like a pretty, pretty big classroom. I'm sorry? Are you in the photo? There I am. Photography at that time in the Congo was a very, very tricky thing because Mabutu had a policy that no photographs were allowed to be taken and so when I started looking back I found that I had very, very few photographs so these are quite precious for me. As I said I had everything that I needed I had textbooks for all four grade levels that I taught all my students had textbooks each one of them had a textbook they all had tallye, their notebooks they all had pens, paper, pencils, rulers, erasers I had a blackboard, chalk, I had everything unlike some other Peace Corps volunteers who had very, very little. Some of them were teaching in situations where they didn't even have blackboards. So, while I was there in 1973 to 1975 there took place a quite famous world event which was the heavyweight boxing champion about between George Foreman and Mohammed Ali and for some reason even to this day I can recite for you the chant that people would say which was Ali Bumaye, Ali Bumaye in Lingala meant, kill him Ali just to kill him. So, I took this photograph in 2014 when I returned and it is a photograph that is stating that they are going to pay, have a commemoration for 40 years after the fight with Mohammed Ali. So, my, as I said before my return to the Congo was something that I really couldn't imagine it seemed like it brought my professional experiences kind of full circle and the other thing that I was able to do was to return to the school where I had been working and I was able to see what was going on there. I found that the classrooms had different colored paint on the walls and that there were very few students in the classroom. On the left is a photograph of the 11th grade classroom and there were enough seats for just 16 students. On the right is the 12th grade classroom an English language classroom and not much different from when I was a teacher except that there were only enough desks for 10 students which meant that the classes had become much, much smaller. You can't see through, on the PowerPoint but you might be able to make out that here we've got a verb conjugation. The verb to eat is conjugated in the simple present tense and over here we have the rule for the use of the simple present, simple present continuous tense. So the form of instruction was the old kind of grammar translation instruction that continues to be used. I asked about the low number of students in the classroom and I was told that now families have many more choices for where they can send their young girls and so that's one of the reasons why the enrollment is now so low. I want to turn my attention now to focus on my tentative research project. These English language clubs and this was done through my work in 2014 and 2015. I found that there's a grassroots movement that seems to be sweeping across the Congo. There's an effort by the local population who want to practice English, the English that they have been learning in schools and secondary schools. They study English for four years at the secondary level and depending on their major they study it also at the university. This practice however is sporadic, irregular and erratic and it depends on the geographical location of the school, the availability of materials, the school budget and the teacher training and conscientiousness of the school to access whatever it is that they need. The reasons for people, the general public wanting to learn English are similar to many of the reasons given in the language policy decisions that I've been reading about. They want to join the international community and they don't believe that French is going to give them access to that. So what goes on in English language clubs? On my visit to the Congo I stopped at 15 clubs and I attended a meeting at each one of the club. In this photograph we have one English language club where two presenters are talking and telling the club members how to prevent the spread of Ebola. The presentation is being given in English and afterwards there was a discussion. On the right this is an English club that is taking place in the English language classroom run by the US Embassy. You can see that we have gender balance. We have co-presidents, a man and a woman and they are talking with the members of the English language club. There are about 50 members in the English language club that's based at the embassy and in this club there are more than 100 members. So one of the most favorite events in the club are the participation by the audience and the skits, dramas, music that's sung that are presented to the group. Afterwards the club members usually talk about what they've seen. The skits are usually focused on romantic problems and have to do with how they are and have to do with husband-wife relations or young men and young women relations. What I want to share for you is a video clip from one of the clubs. It's a neighborhood club. It meets twice a month in one of the classrooms in one of the local elementary schools. There are at least 15 members in this club, the African Academy. The clip that I'm going to show you is about a wife, a young woman who comes to see her pastor and she is telling him that she's there because her husband doesn't want her to work at her job anymore. He's jealous. Yes, come in please. I have a little problem with my husband. He said that I have to choose between him and my job. Yes. You have to choose between your job and him. I don't know why. I feel that it's a problem of the job. It was my most problem. I don't know why. So is that problem right now with your husband? Okay, it's ready. Okay, so problem of jealousy, problems between the husband and wife, jealousy about the wife working outside the home. Okay, I have another clip that I'd like to show you and it's from the White House English Club. And I think that I don't need to say too much more about the clip. Let me just tell you that this club meets every week after their Sunday religious service. There are more than 100 members in the club. And I think you'll figure out for yourselves what this clip is about. Something. The kids and kids that school is so hot running around in my needs. I think, oh! That's good too. Yes, I'll have some, I'll say it now. I'm going to put it off for some more. And then at the time, I want to make a show for the people. But I want to put it off. I see it, I see it. Ew! I'm going to put it off. I just want to write because I have some guitar and some things that I want to do. Blackboard people. Ew! Ow! Ew! Ew! Ew! My scores. I say I want to sing some of my guitar. Let me get to sing. Those are just two examples of the many different things that go on in the English clubs. One other thing that I wanted to share with you was something that I found a little bit surprising. And I'd be curious to hear any ideas that you might have about this. As I told you, I visited the websites for the Congolese Embassy in the United States and also in London. Here is a screenshot of the Congolese Embassy website in the United States. And this is the one in the UK. I was a bit puzzled because as you can see, the first lines are translated and then everything else is in English. French. I'm sorry, French. Yeah, thanks. Two English-speaking countries, but one country has an English website and the other country has the website in French. I don't have any way to explain it. I wonder if anybody does. Why does it list a list of passports? Yes. What happens when you click? When you click, then I think that it lists all the passports that have received the visas. And so if you need to pick up your passport, you just look for your name and you've got your visa there. That's two websites for London. This one's London and the other one's the US. But I'm wondering whether there's... That's the US website? I've got you. I'm just re-Israelian. European for the missions in the European countries. What language is it in? I'm not answering your question. It's a puzzle. Is it in Oslo? Is it in Norwegian? I don't know. That's a good question. I should look to see. Why? I don't know. I just kind of throw that out there. Was it the ambassador's decision? But you've also got this information in the black box. It says, read more in English. It doesn't actually say, Lizzie. That could be a function of having access to it through an English language portal. Okay. It's not bilingual in the English one, is it? I couldn't find anything bilingual on that site. But when I scrolled down and I had history, people, culture, and then business, and when I clicked on business it took me two articles that were written in English. But everything else, culture, language, the information I shared at the beginning in the overview, that was all in French. But these are now to collect your passports if you're requesting a visa. So is British people wanting to go? I think British or Congolese. But it's not that it's serving only the Congolese. It's for everything. We do learn French as a second language in schools. It doesn't mean that we would speak French for everybody. Okay. So what I want to share with you now is information about the survey that I conducted. Perhaps you can give me some of your ideas about what I might be able to do with it. So based on my three recent trips to the Congo I designed and administered a survey and I conducted open-ended interviews with individuals and with focus groups. I am a qualitative researcher and I feel like a fish out of water with some of this. I have 41 participants who completed paper copies of my survey in the Eastern Congo. I have 92 participants who completed paper copies of the survey in Kinshasa, the capital. I have 22 participants who completed paper copies of the survey in the rural part of the Congo and central Congo. And then I have 134 participants who completed online copies of the survey. I think I have a lot of descriptive statistical data. So the categories of data that I have include demographic information, age, gender, education, career profession, formal English language education and a number of years that people have studied where they studied in school or university. Informal English language learning experiences whether they are in English clubs or elsewhere. I have self-reports about their knowledge of English, the African languages they speak, and French. And I also have data that gives me information about their opinions, about the importance of English, the roles and skills of their English teachers, the role of English in their lives, and English club activities. I also conducted open-ended interviews and there were open-ended questions for the participants to answer at the end of the survey and the topics included the benefits to participation in the clubs, the problems with participation, whether they attended the clubs, what was enjoyable or not, suggested activities that they wanted to have done, and then I had a other space where they could add more information. Based on what I've shared so far, I wonder if there's anything here that strikes you, if there's any ideas that you have about what I might be able to do with this data. Are you going to show someone else? This is about all that I have. I haven't started analyzing the data now. Is that the slide you wanted? Yes, it is. I was just trying to get my head around the net. Just exactly what it is. So the open-ended questions were just the ones on the second slide? Yes. These were basically how old are you? Tick-off boxes, put circles around my knowledge of English, I think very well, poor, that kind of thing. So why did you do this research? I did the research. It grew out of my assignment to go and identify topics and then write up materials for English language clubs. And while I was there, I said to myself, my goodness, I have this huge number of participants. Maybe I should create a survey and give it to them, which is what I did, which also becomes part of the limitations of this. I didn't go specifically to administer a survey and to gather this data, but it came up as I was in the process of doing this other work. It seems to me like there could be some useful information here, but I'm not quite sure. Can we draw out of it how people knew that they had this opportunity to join the clubs? That wasn't one of the questions that I asked. It isn't? It was not. Can we draw out of it? I believe that we can, based on their opinions about the importance of English and the role of English. I'm curious to know what it is that motivates people to join the English language clubs. Why they took it at school, because they had the option not to. Why they continued with it? Yes, yes. Why? Why give it time and effort? Right, exactly. I was puzzled too. It's a lot of time and effort, but every club that I visited, they were really enthusiastic. The US Embassy had a workshop for the English language club leaders, and that was where I got the 292 participants, because they had 200 come to that one-day workshop. It's extremely popular in Keto, in Ecuador too, by the US Embassy, and I don't know why there. From anecdotal evidence, not yet having looked in this data, people would tell me that they just feel like French is no longer useful. You go look on the internet, and you don't find a lot of websites that are in French. Everything is in English. Yes. Also perhaps the formal learning opportunities are not adequate, but they need extra practice. Yes, I think that they want to expand their knowledge of English. They also said that it felt like it would give them access to a more global world, a more global community. There were groups, hospitals had English language clubs. Churches, as I showed you, the Michael Jackson clip was done at a church, had English language clubs. Professional lawyers and people like that would create clubs. Taxi drivers had English clubs. The idea being particularly in Kinshasa, Bukavu in the East, where there might be reasons for tourists to come, they felt like they'd be better able to engage and help tourists. Hotels would have English language clubs, so it's really, really interesting for me. When did it all start with the English language clubs? So it wasn't there in the 70s when you were there? No, I didn't hear about anything like that. How did it, because it's obviously grown and spread, how did it all begin? I don't know. I might guess that maybe there were some schools that had English language clubs after schools. Well, it's been, I think most of the Peace Corps left in 1995, so it's been what, 20 years since any of that influence is there. But maybe, maybe, if any of the Peace Corps volunteers had clubs that they wanted to do that. Could you move to the next slide again? Thanks. Do you look at what the British Council does? I'm aware that the British Council is quite active in some of this, but I haven't done any kind of systematic examination of what the British Council does. But I know they're quite active. I don't really know what they do either. Except that they offer people traineeships, they offer some versions of bursaries or scholarships for people to become good teachers of English as a second language, for people who intend to live in a non-English-speaking country. Now, still, go on the website, you'll find options to apply for such things. And people from South Asia that I've known gravitated to the British Council to improve their English. To be around people that spoke English well. And to hear the radio programs. And it was, I don't know exactly clubs, but they were clubby. I read one study that developed, I think it's in Malawi, English-language teaching materials using British Council materials. And when I was in Rwanda in 2014, the British Council was extremely active. And they were bringing in English-language teachers into the country to teach at the schools and also to do what I was doing, help with teacher preparation in the area of English. I think it's interesting how you said that lawyers and so-on professionals so that's interesting to be done. It's not just, poor Africans were wanting to kind of better their English servants. Like she said, what's behind it? Is it more to do with the cultural aspirations of the English way of life or seeing English as the sort of global, you know, super... As some of the conversations that I had, it was the idea that English is going to get us some place. Forget French now, the French are... It's not meaning the people, the British people, but the English language. If we know the English language, we're going to have many more opportunities. So it's not just the Britishness element. It's the English language. Right. Yeah, it's the English language. I'm quite sure that the adults are teaching English in a place called Asylum Access Equal Law, where everybody refuge you of some sort. According to the South American definition of that, which is different to the New England definition, but that's teasing up the law a little bit. Anyway, people seeking refuge. And they saw English as the language of commerce. So if they needed their intention to learn English, was associated with their intention to start their business. But it doesn't mean it's the only reason. That's what I'm thinking. And anecdotal, that's what I know, motivated some of them. And then mothers and children, you just felt that they're children. It was an opportunity for children to learn something useful. Yeah, I think, as with everything, individual people have their different reasons and motivations. But, you know, if there can be a way to identify what some of those principle ones are, that might be useful. Okay. Let me just reiterate some of the limitations that I believe exist in this kind of survey, data interviews and focus groups. From my perspective, obviously my ethnicity, my age, my gender, I think may impact on the data that I gathered. My knowledge, I have knowledge there, but I should say my lack of knowledge of any of the languages spoken in the Congo, except for very brief phrases of greetings and things like that. My lack of a kind of in-depth or a deep understanding of the various cultures there. I wonder about the role that my last name plays. It's an ethnic name that is easily recognized, belonging to one particular group. The survey design, the fact that I kind of did this after the fact, the fact that it was hard copy, had its own parameters of limitations, as did the online. The timing of my work, there was very little time to kind of really pilot the survey and test it out. The planning of the whole study was kind of haphazard after the fact. For my point of view, I'm mindful of these as limitations. One of the other questions that I have for all of you is, as I said, I'm not a linguist. This is not my area of expertise. So part of my time here at SOAS has been to do as much reading as I can. I have a list of references that I have read, but I wonder if there are references that you think I need to read that need to be included. Are there names of classic people, people who you'd say are classic thinkers in the field that I don't have here? The name of a person who gave a lecture, she was employed by SOAS, and she was doing an in-house professional development class for teachers here recently. It was pretty missed ability. Anyway, it's all on video. So you can hear what she said, which is really if she is a linguist. Let me get my hand. If I can take your... Sure, sure. I'll send you the link for the video. I don't even know it. She's checked. Alina. I was able to attend her. Yes, yes. So what's the inspiring? Very, very interesting. You don't need to. Thank you. I had my kind of information here. I don't. What is your morning? I was also sitting here. No. Why did you ask her at Catherine Wallis? Don't you think she would know someone? Yes, I can also ask her. That's a good suggestion. Catherine Wallis, she's the Institute of Education across the road. Catherine Wallis? She's here. She's the second, third last person. Oh, yes, yes. She's actually here. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Okay, good. Well, maybe I'm not across the road. Where are we going to fix? Who was the other person you said was the conglist? Sally Coco Mofwene. Sally Coco Mofwene. Sally? Sally. Mofwene is the same. Yes, Chicago. Yes. Okay. There's nothing to do with education or whatever. There are some things like linguistic ecology. Okay. Interesting person anyway. Okay, thank you, thank you. That's, it's, you know, a totally new field for me. So I'm kind of trying to find my way. So. There's another lady who taught me philosophy last year, Bernadette La Frenchie. Franchie, franchie. And she may have left Sowers and be some more girls, but she's studying African philosophies and also Hanna, bringing it together with Hanna Arland. She's young and extraordinary. And who's the man about the Italian man? I don't know if he teaches philosophy. Does anybody know? But she was kind of his protege. His. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. Cosmose. I'm more than the audience are now. Another question I'll ask you is, if you can think of a publication venue that might be interested in something like this. Do you know the British Association of Proud university, language and African Specialized Interest Group? I think that that was the theme. You're involved in that, obviously. Obviously. I don't know what they publish, I'm only perfectly involved. So, mae'r byw yn ddim yn lŵnig, ychydig i'w ddweud y gallwn i ddim ymddir iawn. Rydych chi'n ddiddorol. Mae'r ddwylo'r rydyn ni, a gydwch chi'n gwybod yw bethau, maen nhw'n meddwl i'r llaw i'r gwneud yn ymddir i wneud. Mae'r ddiddorol i'r Llyfriddor Cysylltu i'r Llyfriddor i'r Llyfriddor i'w ddiddorol i'r Llyfriddor i'r Llyfriddor. They've also done what Pakistan would do, basically, both of them were interesting and similar in a way, but she was saying, don't go for English. OK, great! That would be great. This might be slightly wrong. I'm not sure. Anyway, I've got a paper copy because we had a talk by Gwlythweid. They've published in that book of chapters some time ago now. The Bagey Council has printed a whole load of copies that were misprinted that didn't have anything on the spine. So they just don't have a box or anything. So I think I might still have a few if you want one. Oh I'd love one. Okay, okay, great. Well, I do want to thank you for your attendance, and I'm open to any further questions, discussion, conversation, chatting. There are also drinks and dinner options at many places around. I have a question about the textbooks. Where are they developed? Are they from the UK, US, or are they locally developed? Which textbooks are you on? The ones that they use in the schools. OK, so the ones that we used in 1973 were published by, we called them Cartledge. I believe it was Longman, and they were, the title went something like English for Sprangophone Africa, or English for French-speaking Africa. And, you know, I remember very distinctly in year two I was supposed to teach about the locks along the St. Lawrence Seaway, and I was supposed to teach about hot and cold running water faucets, and all of these things that just had no connection to the environment and where I was. Today, there were no books in the classrooms that I visited, so I don't know what's being used in the government-run classrooms. But that's interesting, that in the 70s, even though these textbooks were specifically for Francophone countries, that still the topics were... Yes, now some of the topics were interesting and relevant, particularly in the last two years of education. They had a couple of folktales, they had some short stories. There was the mountains of the moon, a story about King Solomon's mines, things like that, but still they were mixed in with, you know, other things that I just had a hard time figuring out how to make them relevant for the learners in my classroom. How are you perceived as a white American woman? How are the students interrupted and how are they perceived? For example, the traditional African disciplinary system whipping the child, I don't know how you manage to... Well, I have two different stories to tell. So in the 1970s, first of all, I was a new teacher. I had any experience in teaching in the United States anywhere, so there I was in the Congo trying to be a teacher, and confronting cultural differences. The nuns had very tight control on what was going on. And so if I had any disciplinary problems, I would tell them and they would speak with the students. I never saw anybody being hit or reprimanded in that way. There was always the conversation or the discussion. But I remember speaking with someone and I said, expressing my frustration, you know, I don't know why they're not listening to me. And this person said, well, now listen, you're a young woman, you're not married, and you don't have children. And you know, what do you expect? So when I returned and I was teaching in Rwanda, now granted a different country, different ethnic group, I expressed to someone how things were going so well at the university. Students were listening to me and I was so pleased. And then I repeated this story of what happened to me. And I said, and so now I have gray hair, I have children, and this must be really working. And the professor said back to me, the Rwandan professor, oh no, Madame, that doesn't work anymore. Nobody cares about the old people. All we care about now is the younger generations. So I felt like I was, you know, missing the boat every moment wherever I went. But yes, the problems that I had with discipline in the Congo, I, you know, I would have had similar problems in the United States. I'm pretty much convinced it was my problems with teaching and not necessarily my language. One other thing that you might find interesting is that with my work in Rwanda, the students would joke at me whenever I started talking about literature. And we're going to be talking about British literature now. And they would all start laughing. And if I wanted to wake them up, I would say, well now we're going to talk about British literature. And then they would, they always kept saying, oh Madame, your mouth is so garbled with the way you speak American English. Is that American English or British English? Is that one that they prefer? My sense was that they really preferred the British English because they could understand it better. It was clearer for them. Many told me that they loved my accent. But, you know, I was the teacher and I was giving grades. So I'm realistic about what students tell me sometimes. Your diction was beautifully clear in spite of being American English actually. Just frankly. Why don't you play your handicap? Yes, in spite of the fact that English is my second language, right? I was going to ask just one more question. I don't know what he's written much. I know it is late. When you said mountains of the moon, she's worked in the mountains of the moon. She made me behind some of those materials. ISLEI, she is gaining the British Association of the Specialized Language in Africa group. But she's also had a lot of experience teaching English, I think, anyway. So she might be an interesting person for you to talk to. Where she is at the moment, I have no idea. No, Catherine Wallace, that would be lovely if I could meet her. She may be retired, I'm not sure. But she was based across the road in the history of education. That would be great. She may well be other people there. Now she's specialist in education. They do a lot of things like development education. So just go and chat with her. Sure, sure, sure. Thank you. And your name is? Julius Halibank. So I'll tell them you sent me. Lovely. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. I'll be using my so-asked email address as long as I can. I need to check to see if I can extend my use of that email address. I don't know if that will be possible or not. I wanted to ask you one thing to know. I wanted to ask you one about the business about, is it culture and imperialism or are we helping people? Yes, I think that's more of an interesting topic. And also can you tell us more about what we've been doing here with so-as? Okay. Do you mind if I sit and make this a little more chatty and informal? I hope this doesn't disturb the videography. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the first question was? The issue you mentioned that the community... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just don't have an answer for that. I don't know. The number of council reports I mentioned is trying to address as well. Are they obviously going to give to you about it? You know, I met people who, for example, had moved from one province to another. And so they learned Swahili in the street playing with their friends. But they would go home and they would speak Chiluba to their parents. And eventually they couldn't speak Chiluba, but they could understand it. So the parents would speak Chiluba, the children would speak to the parents in Swahili. And then with Mabutu's impact, Lingala was quite prominent. And then people moved to Kinshasa, where Lingala was spoken. And then they had to learn French. And then they were learning English. And I mean, how many languages can you ask someone to learn? Infinity. Hadn't you talked to our colleague Friedrich Ulupaker? No. She is running a project on multidigorism in Senegal, particularly looking at this issue and people speaking lots of languages, which are doing language language just as needed, et cetera. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, it's just mind-boggling to me. Really. So what I'm doing at SOAS is I'm basically doing research. I've got a library card and then access to the internet, SOAS library database online. And I've been doing a lot of reading and writing and thinking. And the first opportunity I had to meet anyone was at the department meeting last week. Sheena has been very helpful in checking in with me to be sure I don't need anything. But other than that, I've been feeling a little bit... It's really a pity that we didn't really know about that, because when we looked around this thing and introduced you, I thought it was the beginning of your stuff. And I've been on Spotify anyway. Oh. Well, the other thing is that it is a very short time. Three months. I'm grateful for every day of it. But three months really goes quite fast. Maybe what I needed to do was set things up before I came, rather than wait until I got here to be in touch. You talked to our colleagues who teach world English as well. I met somebody at the reception in the Brunei Gallery when they were showing the new exhibit for the centenary, but nothing formal. So Anne Cowles would be someone. She's in linguistics, but yet of global English. She would be at excellent content, because she's also been on research of online language and internet. Okay. So if you come down and see the other one that teaches online, come down to this area. Okay. Well, you're certainly welcome to email me if you have any ideas. If anyone wants to email Kathy, we can give you the email address at the end. So if you have any more... Julia has it, but maybe the two of you don't. Well, I also have it on my hand out at the bottom. Okay. So if you have any suggestions, it would be great if you could email. I think we'll end here, but thank you, Kathy, very much for this informative talk. Thank you very much. Really interesting. So maybe you can just give a round of applause. Thank you guys.