Jean Dard (June 21, 1789 â October 1, 1833) was a French teacher in Saint-Louis, Senegal who, in 1817, opened the first French-language school in Africa. He also compiled the first French-Wolof dictionary and grammar (1846).
Dard developed a new approach for teaching French as a foreign language, the "mutual method" or méthode de traduction (translation method), based on a learning approach pioneered by Aloïsius ÃÂdouard Camille Gaultier, by which children were taught to read and write in their native Wolof and then learned French by translating. According to Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow, Dard's method was "very modern and very effective, and Dard was said to have achieved remarkable results with it."
In Senegal, Dard took a signare with whom he had a son. He then returned to France for reasons of health and married Charlotte-Adélaïde PicardâÂÂan eyewitness of the wreck of the MéduseâÂÂwith whom he had three additional children. Dard served as a teacher and the town secretary in Bligny-lès-Beaune. The Dards returned to Senegal in 1832; however, he died there a year later.
At the school he founded in Saint-Louis, Jean Dard practiced what was known at the time as âÂÂmutual instructionâÂÂ, drawing in particular on the writings of Aloïsius ÃÂdouard Camille Gaultier(~1746âÂÂ1818). One of the advantages of this teaching method is that it allows a single teacher to instruct a large number of students at once.