Aoua Kéita, the African icebreaker for women

International Women's Day is tomorrow 8th March and, a couple of weeks ago, my elder son and I were asked at the official language school (French C1.2) to search for an African woman who had done something really important in life. It had to be among the French-speaking countries. 

 

At the beginning it was really hard to find any woman, but all of a sudden I came across this great woman: Aoua Kéita, from Mali. We found little information about her, but it was really amazing what she was able to do under her circumstances.

It is said that behind every great man there has been a great woman. In this case, behind this great woman there was also a man, his father, who made the effort to send her to school against the opinions of many people, included Aoua's mother herself!!! As you can see, education played a paramount role in the development of Aoua Kéita as a person of such great significance for her country and Africa.

 

 

Here's a link to our presentation AouaKeïta, symbole de l’engagement des femmes en Afrique! (in French, obviously) and if you wan to listen to it, you can do it using these two QR codes (the programme we used to record our presentations was Vocaroo). You can do the same: write a comment about a famous woman and once you've done it, record it and send me the QR code!

   

My musical hint for today: She works hard for the money by Donna Summer.  Here's a version with the lyrics:

 

 

 

Some activities for you to do: 

• Leadership: Representing the interests of a Maori tribe  by Linda Te Aho (BBC Learning English)

• A listening exercise for you to do: Are there benefits in helping others?    (6 Minute English, BBC Learning English)

• 

  The English We Speak: All at sea  (BBC Learning English)

• News Review:  War in Ukraine  (BBC Learning English)

 

 

LINGOHACK  >>>

Episode 220203 / 03 March 2022    >>>   Bone in the river   -    Language related to 'rivers'.  

Need-to-know language: lurking, shallows, causeway, low tide  & mudflats.

 

 

 

And going back to tennis and our champ, here are two videos for you to enjoy: Rafael Nadal's craziest tricks   &   20 Shots In Grand Slam If Were Not Filmed, Nobody Would Believe Them

By the way, have you ever heard of the Dutch football player Marco Van Basten? Here are his TOP 10 goals.

 

Danny MacAskill - How I Pulled Off My Epic Climate Stunt | Climate Games

 

 Our students and their superwomen...

 

Raquel Peinado (1º Bach A)

One of the people that I love the most is my elder sister. Her name is Lucía and she is 23 years old. She is a really cool person, she is very kind and very sympathetic with all the people. Also, she is a really good sister, we get on with each other very well. And she always does whatever she can to make me happy, and helps me. I’m very grateful to have her as a sister.

I admire her a lot, because she started a degree but she didn’t like it so she started working to earn money to be able to go to another city and study what she wants and make her dreams come true. Some years later, she is working in a hospital, she is also working as an administrator in a singing school, and from time to time she goes to restaurants to sing.

I always remember when we were children she was singing all the time, and she always dreamed to be a singer. Now, when I see her singing in restaurants, weddings, etc, I feel very happy. She hopes that in the future, the same will happen with my dreams.

All in all, I’m so proud of her because everything that she proposes, she achieves it. For that reason, I would like to be like her in the future.

Abel Martínez Padilla (3º ESO B)

 

José Adrián González (1º Bach A)

I am going to talk about the most important woman in my life and I think that If she wasn’t here, my life would be very difficult.

She is my sister, whose name  is Lucía, and she is 23 years old. She is a person who loves dancing.

In her free time she usually goes to flamenco's class, where she spends a good time with her friends. 

Now she is working with my mother, who is another important person in my life, but she would like to work as a hotel receptionist because she was for 4 years in Granada, where she studied a university degree.

 

So, when she was 18 years old, She was able to get the car licence.

She is very important to me because we have always been together in the bad moments.

When we were little we always fought over anything but now we get on  very well.

One of the things that I admire about her is that she has a stable job and in the last months she has just bought a house. 

Her personality is difficult but she has a good heart that is the important thing.

When I am older I’ll try to follow her pieces of advice.

 

Alba Arellano (1º Bach A)

Clara Campoamor was born in Madrid in 1888. Her father died when she was ten years old and she had to leave her first studies to help her family. In 1920 she started high school, got her degree and enrolled in the Faculty of Law. When she was 36 years old, she became one of the few female lawyers of the time. In 1925 she was the second woman to join the Law School of Madrid

In 1923 she participated in a cycle on feminism organized by the Female University Youth, where she began to develop her ideas on women's equality. She was the first woman to appear before the Supreme Court.

In 1928, together with her partners  from other European countries, she created the International Federation of Women in Legal Careers, and in 1930 she helped found the Spanish Women's League for Peace. She participated in the commission in charge of drafting the Republican Magna Carta, she was the first woman to speak in the Spanish Courts, in September 1931.

She defended women's suffrage in Spain, which led her to enter history as the main architect of the inclusion of women's suffrage in Spain.