Brandy Harman and Professor Chantal Thompson, French and Italian

Studies have found that foreign language students have greater success learning vocabulary when there is a visual to accompany the new words and concepts. It is also a good way to incorporate aspects of the target culture into the language lesson.

The French department has already collected a repertoire of photographs taken in France to aid in teaching vocabulary and culture. These images were placed on computer disk making them accessible to French teachers for use in their individual classrooms. Unfortunately, this collection fails to address the many french-speaking communities outside of France. I decided to travel to one of the twenty-two francophone countries in Africa to take photographs there in order to expand the scope of the existing vocabulary-related images.

Before arriving in Africa, I purchased a good camera and followed a photography course for a few weeks. This was to ensure that I could take quality photos to be used in teaching vocabulary and African culture. I also made a list of the objects and scenes that I wanted to capture based on the vocabulary usually taught in the foreign-language classroom. I then spent seven weeks in Senegal, where French is the official language. I took almost three hundred photos of things in categories such as transportation, education, house and home, etc.

I encountered some unexpected problems while trying to complete this project. It is not easy to photograph many African people. Two different obstacles arose for me; the first being that many expected me to pay them for their picture. I, of course, did not have the means to give money to every person I wanted to photograph. Some were satisfied with small gifts such as chewing gum, candy, or ball-point pens. The perhaps more difficult problem stems from an African superstition. Many believe that when you take a picture of something, you steal that being=s soul. As soon as some spotted my camera, they became very agitated and even angry. Often I had people yelling and shaking their finger at me. I had to resort to being subtle and taking pictures very quickly from farther away or hidden behind something. Several of the shots were taken from our bus while driving through the streets. This difficulty affected the quality of the photos I was able to shoot.

Fortunately, I did return with several images that will be effective in teaching vocabulary and presenting the culture of French-speaking Africa. With the help of the professors in the French department, these photographs will be categorized and placed on CD-ROM, then made available for use among French teachers. Hopefully, they will aid in further opening up the world to the foreign-language student.