Amadou Talla

Since his arrival at the Academy in 2015, Instructor of Modern Languages Amadou Talla has established himself as a much-loved member of the community.  His ever-present energy is contagious, whether he is teaching French, coaching the girls’ junior varsity soccer team, joking with students from Dow House, or playing reggae on his bass in a band of several Exeter faculty members.

Talla was born in Senegal and grew up speaking Fulani at home, Wolof with his friends and French at school. His interest in English grew out of a love of reggae music.  “I loved reggae, and I wanted to understand what Bob Marley was saying,” Talla said. Currently, he is fluent in six languages—Fulani, Wolof, French, English, Portuguese and Spanish—and he is also studying Arabic.

Talla visited the United States for the first time in 1996 as an international counselor for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). He was working as a high school English teacher in Senegal at the time and decided to continue his teaching career abroad. He settled permanently in the U.S. in 1998 and held several middle school teaching posts before applying for a position at Exeter, which he describes as “the only school that really got to the bottom of what I’m about.”

Talla has adapted well to Harkness-style teaching. “Harkness works perfectly with teaching languages; it’s very good that students actually get to use the language in big or small groups,” he said.  He believes that confidence is the key to mastering a foreign language. “The most important thing is not necessarily your mistakes—you need to focus on getting the message across. Obviously, at school we teach you to do both: communicating and communicating well. But you need to have the confidence to talk.”

“[Talla] loves bringing people together in the best ways, intellectually and creatively.”

Prep Johanna Martinez said that Talla’s focus on conversation helps her to feel more engaged in the classroom. “He really emphasizes the importance of us practicing the language. I see him at D-hall on occasion and he always speaks to me in French. He goes beyond the simple exercises and makes us do skits in class so we can understand the material better,” Martinez commented.

Talla values the dedication of Exeter students to learning. “I love the quality of teaching that I’m able to do here, and that’s only possible because of the quality of my students and their level of commitment and determination,” he said.  However, there are still a few things Talla misses about his life in Senegal, one of the most prominent being “the quality of social life.” He claims that the Senegalese social atmosphere is much less reserved than that of the U.S. “You go to work, you’re done for the day, and you stop by a friend’s house. Just like that. I have a feeling you can’t really do that here,” he said. 

Along with the realization that he carried an English accent, moving to the U.S. also increased Talla’s awareness of his own ethnicity and the impact it has on the way others view him. He recalled the first time his friend described a song by Gerry Rafferty as “white music.”

“It was a difficult kind of learning. It’s difficult to learn that people will look at you differently and that some people will listen to certain kinds of music because it’s from this race or this culture,” he said. Talla describes himself as being “more culture-conscious, more color-conscious and more race-conscious” since moving to the U.S.

In the Exeter community, Talla has found that his students and colleagues are often surprised when he reveals that he is a practicing Muslim who prays five times a day. “It shouldn’t be surprising that people are practicing their faith. It’s normal. It’s important enough to me so I make sure that it happens,” he said. Talla keeps a prayer rug in his classroom and says that the prayers help him to refocus throughout the day. “Whenever I feel scattered, I return to my spiritual place,” he said.

Talla believes that the heightened stigma toward people who practice the Islamic faith should serve as an incentive for “the Muslim community to come together and present themselves in a positive way.” “There are millions of peaceful Muslims around the world and they are the majority,” Talla said.  “Unfortunately, the media focuses on the small minority who do these terrible things. We just need to show who we are so that people realize being Muslim does not mean you are a terrorist.”

Although he is a relatively recent addition to the Exeter community, Talla has already immersed himself in all aspects of life at the Academy and continues to make positive contributions to the community.  English Instructor Lionel Hearon said that Talla is a unifying figure. “He loves bringing people together in the best ways, intellectually and creatively,” Hearon said.