[ti:In Africa, New Technologies Help Teach Women to Read] [ar:Jerilyn Watson] [al:Education Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]This is the VOA Learning English Education Report. [00:05.53]More and more Africans are using text messages, [00:11.10]e-mail and social media to communicate. [00:15.01]In Senegal, educators are using new technologies [00:20.73]to teach women to read. [00:22.57]The United Nations Educational Scientific [00:27.20]and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, [00:30.35]launched the program in Senegal two years ago. [00:34.76]But UNESCO officials are now expanding it [00:39.33]to as many as six other African countries. [00:43.19]Mariama Daffe sits in front of a television [00:48.52]at her home in a community near Senegal's capital Dakar. [00:53.68]She is learning to write and work with numbers. [00:58.72]Ms. Daffe started this home-study program a year ago. [01:04.39]She was 39 years old at the time. [01:09.17]The Ministry of Education joined with UNESCO [01:14.52]to create these training modules for literacy -- [01:18.54]reading and writing. [01:20.46]The program appears daily on state television. [01:24.80]Women taking part say these lessons [01:28.94]have made them more independent. [01:31.30]Mariama Daffe says, [01:34.39]"These days I have my mobile telephone, [01:37.32]and I can read messages [01:39.64]and I can send messages, too." [01:42.32]Ms. Daffe finishes her lesson [01:46.44]and starts preparing dinner for her husband [01:49.50]and three children. [01:50.65]She says the TV programs are convenient. [01:54.68]She studies three modules a week, [01:58.41]yet she has a full-time job [02:00.47]and travels two hours by bus every day. [02:04.48]At-home study programs are easy to operate [02:08.73]and not costly. [02:10.65]That makes them especially useful [02:13.91]for a place like Senegal, [02:16.34]which has limited money to teach literacy. [02:19.61]But some women prefer the classroom experience. [02:25.29]Ten minutes down the road from Mariama Daffe's home, [02:30.94]women write on a chalkboard [02:33.84]at the local elementary school. [02:36.69]Thirty-nine-year-old Astou Keita says [02:43.09]it is never too late to learn. [02:45.41]She says, "My kids laugh at me. [02:50.94]They think it is funny [02:53.21]that I started learning at this age." [02:55.94]Mamadou Diallo is a teacher. [03:00.41]He uses a laptop computer and a projector [03:05.37]to prepare an interactive display wall. [03:09.27]The students use the wall [03:12.27]while a class in mathematics is taught. [03:15.93]Mr. Diallo says the first time [03:19.61]the women saw the interactive display wall, [03:22.67]they became very interested. [03:25.75]They could not wait to try it. [03:28.63]He told them, [03:30.60]"First, we need to work on the chalkboard [03:33.92]before we can start the math." [03:36.48]He asks a student to read a word problem [03:41.12]and do the work with numbers. [03:43.38]She then answers the mathematical problem on the wall. [03:49.22]And that's the VOA Learning English Education Report. [03:54.84]I'm Jerilyn Watson.