The Who, What, Where, and How of Foreign Languages: A Study of Foreign Language Curricula At Four-Year Colleges In Mississippi

This paper studies the eight four-year public universities within the state of Mississippi and their French and Spanish foreign language curriculums in order to compare their curriculums to those of The American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages’ standards of the Five C’s: communication, communities, culture, connections, and comparisons. The results are broken down into three sections by each college’s overall rankings, each college’s individual course offerings, and culture offerings. The data provides interesting results that shows that while a university may offer more or less foreign language courses, their curriculum did not necessarily reflect the standards that ACTFL describes as good standards for learning a foreign language

The importance of some Sahelian browse species as feed for goats

Browse species contribute substantially to the availability of feed for livestock in the Sahelian zone of Burkina Faso. This study aimed to identify the most appreciated and utilized browse species, to evaluate their potential for fodder production and nutritive value, and to test the possibility of using them in intensive animal production. In the first experiment the behaviour of cattle, sheep and goats was studied and a survey was undertaken in the study area to estimate the indigenous knowledge of browse species and their utilisation by ruminants. In the second experiment, Acacia senegal, Guiera senegalensis and Pterocarpus lucens, species that were found to be well utilized, were studied by estimating the phenological variation over time and the edible biomass production, total and directly accessible to sheep (0.87 m), goats (1.65 m) or cattle (1.47 m). Biomass production was also estimated using dendrometric parameters. The chemical composition of biomass (leaves and green pods) was determined in the third experiment, followed by measurement of the voluntary intake and apparent digestibility of the leaves and pods (except for G. senegalensis) using goats. Their effect (except for A. senegal leaves) on growth, carcass characteristics and parasite resistance was evaluated in the fourth experiment, feeding the browses ad libitum with a fixed amount of bran and hay and compared with a control diet containing cottonseed cake. The farmers classified the browse species according to their availability, their nutritive value, and several other usages. The feeding activities of all animal species decreased from rainy to dry season, with the decline in fodder availability, while resting and ruminating activities were increasing at the same time. Cattle browsed (leaves and litter) during the whole the study period for around 5% of the time spent on pasture. Sheep and goats made a shift in their feeding activities from grazing to browsing (28% and 52% of the time spent on pasture, respectively, for sheep and goats) when the herbaceous biomass decreased. A. senegal, G. senegalensis and P. lucens started the foliation phase as soon as the rains started, while A. senegal lost leaves earlier. The proportion of accessible biomass was higher for G. senegalensis, but P. lucens had higher total edible biomass. Goats browsing at higher height had more edible biomass at their disposal than cattle and sheep, although the chemical composition was similar for biomass accessible by all three animal species. The crown diameter predicted well the total edible biomass production of the three browse species. The crude protein (CP) content was 114, 157 and 217 g/kg dry matter (DM) and the neutral detergent fibre content 604, 534 and 412 g/kg DM for G. senegalensis, P. lucens and A. senegal, respectively. The highest intake was of the P. lucens leaves diet (864 g) and the lowest of the G. senegalensis diet (397 g). Pods from A. senegal were more consumed than pods of P. lucens. The leaves of A. senegal and P. lucens had similar digestibilities of CP, while A. senegal pods had higher digestibility of all nutrients than P. lucens pods. Goats fed A. senegal pods showed higher growth rate (56 g/day) and the goats on P. lucens pods had the lowest (24 g/day). The carcass weight, dressing percentage and weight of the primal cuts were higher for goats fed A. senegal pods, P. lucens leaves and the control diet. In conclusion, A. senegal pods and P. lucens leaves can be recommended as supplemental feed to poor quality roughages

Remembering the Taste of Senegal

2012 essay contest winner Arielle Ramberg\u27s Remembering the Taste of Senegal Ramberg traveled abroad in 2010 but participated in the 2012 essay contest

Informality, Trade Policies And Smuggling In West Africa

In West Africa, recorded intra-regional trade is small but informal cross-border trade (ICBT) is pervasive, despite regional integration schemes intended to promote official trade. We argue that ICBT must be understood in light of two features of West African national boundaries: divergent economic policies between neighboring countries and the ease with which informal operators can ship goods across borders. We focus on two ICBT clusters: Senegal–The Gambia and Nigeria–Benin–Togo. Nigeria and Senegal have protected their domestic industries with high import barriers, whereas Benin, Togo and The Gambia have maintained lower import taxation. These differential trade policies, together with high mobility of goods and people across borders, lead to widespread smuggling, with goods imported legally in low-tax countries and re-exported unofficially to countries with higher import duties