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Fula Language Program

Fula Language Program contains 19 hours of audio, and one textbook in PDF file format with 505 pages.

The Fula Language Program consists of forty numbered units, three review units, and a glossary. Each unit includes a dialogue or other basic sentences and variation drills on basic sentences including certain vocabulary. In addition, many units also contain grammar notes, drills on the grammar notes, narratives, and questions and topics for discussion.

The first twenty units have a review unit after each of the first three of four five-unit groups. This portion contains most of the grammatical exposition in the course and also the majority of the manipulative drill material. The remaining units 21 - 40 contain relatively little grammatical explanation and drill, being devoted to dialog and narrative texts with exercises mainly based upon theme.

Each dialog consists of ten to fifteen short utterances. These are presented at normal speed and the student repeats the utterances in imitation of the instructor.

On the audio recordings, each dialog is recorded three times. The first recording, called "Dialog for Listening," is at normal speed without spaces or repetition. The student listens to this recording several times with his book openand gets the general meaning of the dialog exchange. The student then proceeds directly to the second recording, called "Dialog for Learning". In this portion, each sentence is repeated and spaces are provided for student repetition. The final recording is called "Dialogue for Fluency". The sentences are recorded once each with spaces between.

The dialogue is taught in segments first, then as a whole. The steps involved are:

1. Listening

2. Memorizing by repetition of break-downs and whole sentences

3. Developing fluency by additional repetition of whole sentences

4. Participating by assuming one role in the dialogue,

5. Confirming comprehension by re-listing.

Drills are recorded first for listening, then for familiarization through repetition, and finally for participation. During the participation step, when the student performs the required manipulation, his utterances are confirmed on the audio immediately following the space provided for his participation.

Drills are generally in two groups in any unit: a) variation drills on pattern sentences, which provide opportunities for the student to develop flexibility in the use of patterns already memorized, and b) grammar drills, which are intended to provide practice for the student in the operation of the patterns explained in the immediately preceding grammar notes.

About the Fula Language

Fula (also known as Peul, Fulani, etc.) is widely spoken throughout the grassland areas of West Africa from the Atlantic to Cameroun. It has been extensively studied by scholars interested in its linguistic structure or in the ethnography and culture of its speakers. Few of these studies are of much assistance to the beginning student of the language. The present brier introduction to the essentials of Sene-Gambian Fula is designed to provide the basic grammatical structures likely to be needed early in the student's experience with Fula, plus a more generalized 'feel' for the structure of the language, in the context of a limted vocabulary, likely to prove userul in everyday situations.

Fula (variously also called, in European languages, Fulani, Peul, Poular, Toucouleur, Fulfulde) is the language of the Fulbe (singular Pullo), cattle raising and farming peoples of Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroun and adjacent areas in other states. The people are generally referred to by the term applied to their language.

In none of the countries where they live do the Fula people form a majority. The principal concentrations are in the Fouta Toro an adjacent areas of Senegal, Mali and Gambia, in the Fouta Diallon area around Labe in Guinea, and in the Northern Region of Nigeria and adjacent parts of Niger and Cameroun. Smaller concentrations, primarily of cattle-herding Fulbe, occur all across the Savannah areas of West Africa.

The Fulbe are predominantly Muslim. In Nigeria they have a relatively recent history of poiltical hegemony over other tribes. Many important leaders in Guinea, Northern Region of Nigeria, and Federal Nigeria,are Fulbe.