Author’s Note:
I wrote this work for my final project in my English writing class, Tutoring English Across Cultures. Though I have written personal narratives in the past, after this class, as well as my Writing in Medicine class, I have grown fascinated with the voices of others. The stories of others from different backgrounds are able to bring such new perspectives to the table. I tackled a few issues that I am passionate about in this essay, such as teaching students of different backgrounds and the importance of volunteering and diversity. In my roles as a volunteer leader, a female minority, and as a member of the school’s Diversity Council, I have experienced and talked to countless people about these ideas, and this project serves to consolidate my thoughts and those of others.
For this piece, I interviewed my parents and their friend, Emily, as well as three fellow ESOL volunteers. There is a dearth in writings highlighting the international student and, generally, the college student experience, and I felt that it was important to bring the stories of others to the table, especially on the behalf of my parents and their friend who would not be able to do it themselves. I kept my tone casual and authentic, making it accessible for people without a background in literary scholarship to read, understand, and finish my piece. My ideal audience for this work is for those interested in improving the multicultural student experience as well as for those interested in the implications volunteering has on creating community connections and more skilled and mature students. I can see this piece going into an online blog or as a piece in the school newspaper, and I hope to show people the importance of two-way teaching and cross-cultural understanding.
I took inspiration from several works I read throughout my class in the construction of this essay. First was Fan Shen’s piece “The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition,” where she used her own experiences to make a point about the difficulties Asian students faced when learning English. Next was “Learning with Multilingual Writers” by UNL Students, which combined a casual tone with interviews in order to make points about tutoring, such as on the necessity of collaboration and humaneness. The video Writing Across Boarders also inspired me by taking multilingual writer interviews and combining them with facts and statistics in order to help faculty and writing professionals understand how to work more productively with multilingual students. Corder’s “Rhetoric as Love” and Ratcliffe’s “Rhetorical Listening” gave me the understanding of how we must listen and exchange stories with others, remaining aware of the intricacies that come with narrative identity. Naturally, many other works also gave me the idea to conduct interviews, how to format the piece, and the importance of two-way communication, but these were the few that particularly stuck with me.
This piece was built on the interviews and came together as I attempted to understand the messages my interviewees articulated to me. As I wrote, I found more and more threads that linked the stories together, as well as to the points I wanted to make. This is definitely a work a progress, and I have revised this piece several times already. I am proud that I was able to bring the stories of those closest to me into the world, as well as being able to synthesize them together with my own experiences to produce a cognizant realization of the importance of human connection and exchange. I would like to continue to work on refining my message. For my reader, my main concern is that my piece is too scattered. Do you get the point, or is there somewhere that I seemed to be headed but never quite reached? Is there any way I could have organized this piece better? I would also like to integrate more scholarship and facts as well, yet more voices, but I would need to work on fitting it in with my casual tone and flow.
Chelsea Li
Professor Kostelnik
ENPG 3559: Tutoring Writing Across Cultures
12/16/18
Sharing Stories: Bridging the Voices of Multicultural Students and Volunteers
I embarked upon this project to explore the experiences of my parents to find what the current gaps in our system of teaching English as a second language. However, as I heard the voices of others, combined with my own experiences, I slowly saw the shape of my project morph into something new. Especially in the context of our current state of affairs, both here at the University of Virginia and the country at large, I eventually decided to use the stories I have heard in conjunction with my own to illustrate the necessity of multicultural awareness in any setting, but especially in the teaching of English speaking, reading, and writing as a second language, where ultimately, both the tutor and the tutee benefits immensely. Here, I will explore each of the stories I have collected, seeing how each builds off of the others to form a cohesive narrative with my own knowledge and the literature I have studied regarding this topic. My piece will be divided into three main sections. In the first, I will articulate the histories and opinions of several immigrants from Asia on their experiences moving to the United States, my parents and their friend. In the next, I will discuss the experiences and ideas of several volunteers who work with immigrants and international students. In the last section, I will attempt to bring together what I have learned in the classroom, what I have noticed as a leader in the volunteering community here at UVA, and what I have gathered from the stories and thoughts of others.
Journeys Across 7,000 Miles
First, I would like to introduce my mother Juan Chen, or Jodie here in the United States. She came from Beijing, the capital city of China. As a child, she excelled at school and athletics, regularly ranking top in her middle and high school. Her English instruction started in middle school, where her and her peers were taught by an American teacher. She became proficient in the English language, particularly focusing on grammar, pushing herself to study out of English grammar books. However, while the classes focused heavily on grammar and vocabulary, they never learned to construct anything more complex than sentences. After an entrance exam, she was able to go the University of Science and Technology in China, one of the top STEM universities in the nation. It was not as easy for her to excel in such a competitive university as it was back in her high school and middle school, and owing to her high GRE and TOEFL scores, she eventually decided to come to America to attend Florida State University, pursuing a graduate degree in Chemistry.
When asked what the best way to learn to speak and understand English, she recommended immersion. Coming to America to study helped her comprehension by leaps and bounds. However, she admitted, she never received formal English writing instruction, owing to the fact that she was specializing in chemistry. She never had to take any English classes, and the main form of writing she had to do was writing lab reports. For those, she simply copied the format of the example lab reports given to her. She did write one personal statement for application to an MBA program (which she did end up making), but recalled that even she could tell that her essay was not the best, the resulting work a hodge-podge of different personal statement examples, just as she learned to write her lab reports. In terms of help, she enlisted the aid of an online tutor, who returned her draft back with only minor edits before she submitted her application. Even now, my mother states that she wouldn’t be able to write a good essay to save her life.
If she had known about the existence of a writing center back, my mother said she would have loved to use it, but not only as a place to bring her written work for help, but also as a place where she could receive book recommendations and prompts, casually writing and reading with someone nearby who could help her with hard vocabulary or sentence structures. This also could have been supplemented by talking with native speakers, and her biggest regret was not socializing with other American students, preferring to stick around international students who had also come from mainland China. She could study grammar and vocabulary as much as she wanted, but she never was able to gain the easy-going day to day fluency that native speakers had when they chatted and sent emails/texts, with our slang, idioms, and other language quirks. And more importantly, with her English and the fact that she never really felt like she belonged, she ultimately chose not to pursue an MBA, settling down with my father. Even though she didn’t pursue an MBA, she did follow her dream of going into business and now works in real estate and entrepreneurship, fields that allows her to interact with and talk to people, something that she prefers over working by her lonesome in a chemistry lab every day. However, she still primarily hangs out with her friends who came here from mainland China, though she makes an effort to invite her non-Asian co-workers and our non-Asian neighbors to our parties.
Today, my mother is a voracious reader, ordering at least one book off Amazon a week. The books cover a variety of topics, from The Art of Love to How to Write a Medical School Personal Statement (though the latter one may be for me). She often asks for my help proofreading her emails and guiding my brother in his essays, and she is supportive of my goal to learn English and to continue to improve my communication skills and mindset. She believes in the importance of a multicultural environment and never judging someone by their skin color or where they came from. She pushes me to work with people with different backgrounds and to have a voice in society, to be able to make a difference and be a positive influence in the lives of others. And even though she can’t write an essay to save her life, after all her reading, she sure can decide whether she likes my writings that I show to her!
Next is the story of my father, Jianming Li, or Jimmy, his “English” name. He came from Fuzhou city, the capital of the Fujian province in China, a rural area near the sea. When I was a child, he would regale me stories of how he would frolic around the mountains right next to his home, eating sugar canes from the fields and capturing dragonflies to play with. Sometimes, the stories would take a darker turn, such as how his father died young and how his pet dogs were killed by Mao Zedong’s police forces. However, he always dreamed of doing and going somewhere greater, and education was his path forward. He proudly reminds me and the rest of our family, to this day, about how he went to an agricultural community college in Beijing at the mere age of 15, escaping the confines of his small village. “Of course,” he joked, “I only went to college early because the rest of my friends went, and they were three years older than me!”
He eventually came to America for graduate school at in 1988. Though he wasn’t necessarily the best student, just like my mother, he was chosen due to his high GRE and TOEFL scores, particularly on the English sections. He didn’t take his English studies seriously until college, and by then, he didn’t have much time or guidance, so most of his English knowledge was self-taught. He would pore over grammar instruction books, and he ended up memorizing the entire English dictionary in order to pass the exams. He also credits the book, For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway, for helping him greatly in his journey in learning to read and write English while he was in China. His hard work paid off, and he was afforded the opportunity to come to America to study his chosen field, biology, at Florida State University, where he eventually met my mother. He eventually finished his PhD in biophysics at the University of North Carolina, following his research mentor when he moved.
While he finally fulfilled one of his life-long dreams, his struggles were far from over after he landed in the United States. When asked about his experiences in writing instruction, he thought intensely for several long minutes before shrugging. Once again like my mother, he reported he never received any writing instruction after coming to America, especially as he also came to study in a scientific field. He had to write lab reports, but he simply copied the format from example lab reports that were given to him. He recounts a time when he was assigned to be a biochemistry lab teaching assistant, and he was given little to no instruction on how to be an effective teacher. At the end of class, though he received several glowing course evaluations, a few extremely negative ones have still lingered in his mind. They criticized his heavy accent and his illegible comments, complaining that he didn’t understand English. My father was upset and vowed to continue to improve his English, as well as being more open-minded and accepting than his seemingly racist students. Over time, his English has improved, and today, he is always the first to strike up conversation with anyone, making sure to crack a copious amount of jokes, regardless of their race or ethnicity.
However, my father continues to wish his writing and conversational abilities were better. Today, he is able to write technical paragraphs and write-ups for his IT job, but, like my mother, he couldn’t write an essay if his life depended on it. If there was a writing center, he stated he would have utilized it, especially for book recommendations and just general ways to improve his writing. Like my mother, my father also stated that he wished he was able to have more casual conversations with his peers in university. To him, a lot of learning a language includes gaining the necessary cultural competencies. Through understanding of culture, you would be able to figure out which books you should read, what movies to watch, and how the language really is naturally in that moment in time. For example, there are so many phrases in English that cannot be understood without the cultural background behind it, and in fact, might even cause confusion. For example, why are the words freedom, democracy, and even eagle so important to us? Why was the bride wearing white at her wedding? In many cultures, including China, white is actually the color of mourning. Additionally, you learn so much by talking to people who come from different backgrounds, American or not.
Back in university, he expressed that it was hard to get to know native English speakers, even when he wanted to. Most of the students in his program were from mainland China, and native English speakers didn’t necessarily go out of their way to hang out with him and his peers. My father brought up how one of his close friends, Bo, would go to the park every Sunday to converse with a nice, elderly white man. Bo learned a lot about American culture and heard a lot of interesting stories, often sharing them with my father, and Bo would trade his own cultural experiences and stories with the old man. One day, the old man wasn’t there. Fearing the worst, Bo called the old man who didn’t respond. Later, Bo received an apologetic call from the old man. The old man had received the Nobel Prize, and now, he was overwhelmed with calls, interviews, meetings, and more. Previously, with nothing to do, he was able to go to the park every Sunday to talk to Bo, but now, he wouldn’t have the time for a while. Bo was sorry to see him go, but he appreciated being able to exchange knowledge and life stories with this prestigious scientist that had taken the time to talk with him, a student from China, for hours every weekend.
My father, channeling that willingness to talk to people of different backgrounds, now regularly converses and hangs out with his co-workers and people he encounters in his day to day routines, asking them about their culture and about phrases or words he isn’t familiar with. He records his findings on his website on this page, http://jianmingli.com/wp/?page_id=15, which is full of interesting idioms and acronyms, several which even I haven’t heard of, often equating these English sayings to their Chinese equivalents. For example, when we say “splitting hairs,” the Chinese equivalent saying is “??????” or “looking for bones in an egg.” By noting and forming connections between English and his own native language, my father has become rather proficient with English language and colloquialisms. Along with my mother, he reads a lot of books, and though he affirms my mother is the better speaker out of them two, possibly owing to the nature of her work in real estate, my mother defers to him on writing. He would proofread my brother’s and my essays when we were younger and even sometimes now. He, like my mom, might not be able to write essays, but after years of reading and talking to others, I value his input on my pieces of writing.
My last story for this section is my mom’s co-worker, Emily, who came to America when she was seventeen from Inner Mongolia, one of the autonomous regions located within the People’s Republic of China in the north. She claims that her family was probably the first to immigrate from Inner Mongolia to America. As she came over at such an early age, her experience was a bit different than that of my parents and their peers. When Emily arrived to America and enrolled in high school in Alexandria, Virginia, she knew essentially no English. She didn’t even know the alphabet. Unable to read the signs in her school, she would arrive late for every class because she couldn’t find where they were. As her teachers lectured, she just doodled because she could never hope to keep up or take notes on what they were saying.
She was assigned a peer guide for her first few months, a fellow student who led her to her classes and helped her out that she was very grateful for. Her teachers were also very accommodating, writing down notes for her and communicating with her through writing so that she wouldn’t get overwhelmed by their fast speech. After testing, she was placed in the advanced math, physics, and science courses, though she remained in English as a Second Language classes. Around six months later, she was able to generally speak and understand English, and she holds that immersion is the best way to learn to speak and comprehend a language. Her ESOL classes in high school helped teach her the basics, but as she transferred in at the beginning of her junior year, by the time she graduated, she was only able to learn the basic vocabulary and grammar, learning to write rudimentary sentences.
She noted one experience that spurred her to do her best to learn English and to talk to those around her in school. She remembered going home after school to help out with her family restaurant, as usual, and sitting at the table with her other relatives. She complained about school, bemoaning how hard English was to learn. Her aunties scoffed and reassured her that she didn’t have to learn English because she could always just be with them forever. That was the moment Emily realized that she didn’t want that life. She couldn’t imagine ten years down the road that she would still be in the same cramped restaurant, huddled around a table with her relatives speaking Chinese as they wrapped utensils in napkins and ribbons. English and education would be her way out. Emily began to study English in earnest, frequently consulting her older cousin who helped out around the restaurant on words and phrases she wasn’t sure about.
However, it was yet around another table that she found peers who would help her integrate into American society. She recalls that early on during lunch time, she would sit alone in the cafeteria. It wasn’t long before a few girls waved her over, asking her to sit with them. Though her English wasn’t the best, the girls were patient, talking to her and explaining terms and pop culture phenomenon. By linking the English she was learning to its cultural context, she was able to not just learn English, but understand it in its natural sense. There were some misunderstandings, but it is only through trial and error and practice can anyone learn a language. She recounts one of the girls asking her whether she was from Hong Kong. Hong Kong sounds similar to ?? (Hángk?ng), or airline, in Chinese, so Emily thought the girl was asking if she came to America via airline. She was mildly offended that her classmate thought she might have travelled to America illegally, such as by boat, and replied that she had indeed came to America via airline. It was only later on that the misconception was cleared up, and both she and the girl had a good laugh about it.
Though her ESOL classes were helpful, it was through her interactions with these girls and her other classmates that really taught her a lot of modern English and American culture, allowing her to keep up with the most popular books, shows, and more while gaining the confidence to fit in and speak up. Eventually, she applied to and went to George Mason University, with aid from her professors and counselor who guided her every step of a way. Emily was, and still is, extremely grateful for the compassionate students and faculty who helped make her transition from Inner Mongolia to America a bit more bearable.
Emily believes it takes a combination of factors to successfully learn a language. For her, immersion helped with speaking and understanding. Her ESOL class helped her with the foundations of writing and reading, but to her, it also requires massive amounts of time outside of class studying grammar and vocabulary. It’s not hard to learn grammar and vocabulary, but it necessitates perseverance, and without the foundations of grammar and vocabulary, it is very hard to move onto upper level writing forms, such as paragraphs and essays. She expressed she would have loved to have had a writing center, or somewhere she could have gone to for help when she had questions about grammar and/or vocabulary. Additionally, though her interactions with her classmates did help a bit with this, she wished she had someone she could have asked for book recommendations or someone she could have read and discussed books with, such as in a book club. Her advice to people who wanted to learn English was to take initiative to talk to others to practice English, ask questions, and understand American culture, as well as having the willpower and discipline to read instruction books and novels to drill the basics.
From my interviews with my parents and their friend Emily, I was in awe of their experiences and what they had gone through in their journey here to the States. I never really thought about the details before, but their stories illustrate what it is like to be an immigrant coming to America better than anything I could have come up with. Fan Shen’s piece, “The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition,” is a prime example of the importance of bringing the voice of ESOL students into the forefront. However, unlike Fan Shen who was trained in writing, we still miss the stories of countless of students like my mother, my father, and their friend Emily who were never given the necessary guidance to craft their own narratives. From just these interviews, I can see a few common threads and points that merit further discussion. For one, despite a lot of the texts in the current pedagogy, grammar and vocabulary are still very important foundations necessary for the teaching of ESOL students, and the best way to learn these basics is through drilling, reading, and continual practice on the student’s part. Second, many ESOL students, especially ones who go into STEM subjects, which is a majority of international students, never truly gain the competencies required to articulate their stories, even in adulthood. Lastly, natural conversations and cultural exchanges are essential to fully grasp the English language, as well as being a great way to learn English and expand one’s worldview. Next, I aim to speak to the volunteer experience, especially in the context of working with ESOL students, identifying what the volunteers look for when they commit to volunteering and what motivates them to continue. In the final section, I will argue for how bringing ESOL students and volunteers together benefits all parties in a multitude of ways.
What Does It Mean to Volunteer?
I would like to highlight Monica Jinsi, a third-year Biochemistry major from Bahrain who volunteers with VISAS (Volunteers with International Students, Staff, and Scholars) at UVA. In her role, she attends classroom sessions to observe and advise TAs, often international graduate students. While she doesn’t help too much with writing, they do work on a lot of speaking, such as the importance of enunciation. They also teach what the American expectations on how TAs should interact with students during office hours. They conduct example office hours to show international TAs how TAs typically interact with students. Working with students from all over the globe, she has noticed how different cultures tend to have different teaching styles. In some countries, TAs are rather terse and blunt, acting as an authority figure. But here, we expound upon the principle of respect and equity, and more often than not, TAs become friends with their students. A good majority of international graduate students go through the VISAS program here at some point.
Monica enjoys her role as a VISAS volunteer, finding it fun. She does it mainly out of altruism and empathy. Being an international student herself, her first language was Hindi, though having begun learning English at the age of 5, she now has native fluency. Remembering her own struggles in acquiring English, she believes helping others learn English is one of the most significant activities she does. However, as much as she teaches the international students she works with, she remarked how enlightening it was to learn from the variety of different cultures and experiences the international students had. It really opened her eyes to the fact that there was so much left out there.
When asked about volunteers who do not enjoy their volunteering experience, Monica replied instantly that volunteers must have an element of passion. Volunteers shouldn’t forget that they are volunteers first, responsible for the important task of helping the community, and even if the role isn’t what they initially envisioned it to be, they should be aware that they have made a commitment and try to learn what they can. Volunteering can be a great learning experience, and just as we do labs for science classes, by bringing the concepts from the classroom to the real world, concepts become more engaging and memorable. Additionally, volunteers cannot be forced. Students can only get something out of volunteering if they do it willingly and with an open-mind—otherwise, it may as well be a waste of time.
Courtny Cushman is a second-year student at UVA that volunteered with the LAMA (Latin and Migrant Aid) program with Madison House for her ENPG 3559 class, Tutoring Writing Across Cultures. Once a week for two hours, she works with an ESOL student on their homework and other assignments. A church initiative, her site encompasses Hispanic students from elementary school to high school. Courtney believes her volunteering is a valuable experience that allows her to better understand the community and world around her, taking her out of the UVA “bubble.” Additionally, tutoring others allows Courtny to improve her own skills in a variety of disciplines, such as practicing her Spanish, reestablishing her knowledge of the foundations of English writing, and aiding her in improving her people skills in general, something valuable in any field. She also stated that she volunteers out of altruism and that volunteering helps her “feel good.” Even though her volunteering experience may not directly relate to the upper-level concepts she learns in class, it still provides an avenue where she can apply the general principles of understanding, listening, and more importantly, it allows her to see the very people the class she is taking aims to help.
Lara Jabbour is also a second-year student at UVA that volunteered with the ESOL program with Madison House twice a week for her ENPG 3599 class, Tutoring Writing Across Cultures. She loved volunteering and helping out the immigrants who come to improve their English comprehension, primarily adults ranging from twenty to sixty years old. She and the other volunteers read together with the immigrants, helping them understand problematic phrases or words. She enjoyed applying the techniques she learned in class, and she believes having a in-person experience to see the people and ideas she had studied come to life would be a valuable supplement to any course. Additionally, the professor should tailor the course and volunteering opportunity so they complement each other, which is a process that naturally occurs over time, but any sort of real visualization of abstract concepts is important. Volunteers, no matter whether they are volunteering for a class or not, should come in with the expectation of open-mindedness in order to have the full experience. Preferably they should do it for altruistic purposes, but even if not, both the volunteers and the community they are working with have a lot to gain from each other, as long as both parties are willing to learn.
Lara’s favorite change over the course of her volunteering was seeing the community members she volunteered with go from quiet, shaky, and nervous to outspoken participants each possessing their own unique stories. She loved getting to know and connecting with people different from her, and from them, she has learned a lot about the world outside of her limited experiences. While she loved empowering the community members she worked with to take charge of their English learning, she is also empowered by the fact that she is able to work with others to make a tangible impact.
My volunteering experiences resonate with the volunteers I have interviewed, and I agree with their points which I see crop up over and over again. The one session that I had with my ESOL tutee that struck me was not necessarily the one where I taught her the most, but rather, the one where I was able to help her believe in herself. Having had a teacher in her community college English class that told my tutee that she was a failure that would never improve, my tutee had all but given up on learning the strict rules of English writing. However, I let her know that I saw potential in her. Writing is freedom to express your voice, and with practice, I looked forward to hearing hers. There was no doubt that she had to put in a lot of effort herself. But as long as she did, though it may take years, she will reach her goal of being able to articulate her thoughts in English. At the end of the semester, she thanked me for believing in her. Though I may not be volunteering over winter break, I hoped I had made an impact that would last far past my physical presence as an ESOL volunteer. In the end, volunteers can only do so much in the time we have. But the positive influence we have can last for years after we have left, changing the course of someone’s life.
Though I initially set out to volunteer to bolster my resume and to give back to the community as I had with my tutee, I have found that I have gained enormously from volunteering myself, as many of the volunteers I talked to also expressed. Thus, I have continually sought out more opportunities to volunteer, and though a large part was so that my time could go toward a worthy cause, more selfishly, it was to help me develop as a more skilled, mature individual. Currently, I volunteer not only with the ESOL program, but also as the Head Program Director of the CLASS elementary education program, as the Program Director of a hospital volunteering unit, with the HELP Line crisis hotline, and as a firefighter-EMT with the Seminole Trail Volunteer Fire Department. Through these experiences, I have acquired concrete skills, such as how to articulate myself through writing and speech, graphic design, how to be an empathetic crisis counselor, how to design activities for students, how to treat patients, and how to be part of a team to quench a fire, just to name a few. I have also acquired soft, but no less important, skills, such as how to be a good manager, a motivational leader, a prompt communicator, and part of a larger team. These experiences have also supplemented what I have learned in my classes, allowing me to put a face to the words of a pedagogical article or a scientific textbook enhancing my understanding, as well as allowing me to apply the skills of rhetorical listening, empathetic writing instruction, and two-way communication. Most importantly, I have grown immensely as a person since my arrival at this university. I have begun to value the importance of a diversity of voices and stories in any issue. I have realized my own limits and just how little I know about the world around me. Together, we can empower each other to take the next steps required to change ourselves and the community around us for the better.
Before I close off on this section, I do have to note that this positive change is contingent, as Monica stated, on the volunteer being open to the experience and the experience being compatible with the volunteer. It is a bit idealistic to assume that all volunteers volunteer altruistically, and many do volunteer just to add an item to their resume or to just casually experience a field they may had been interested in. If they do not go into an experience looking for ways they can learn and a willingness to talk to others, they may not get anything out of the experience. Additionally, sometimes a volunteer and a volunteering site may not mesh well. If a volunteer doesn’t know what is going on, doesn’t feel like they are being appreciated, or doesn’t feel like they are making a difference at a site, it is natural that their interest may fade.
However, looking at Madison House survey results from ESOL and LAMA for this semester, it seems that volunteering is generally a rewarding experience for volunteers, and they tend to decide to volunteer more to contribute altruistically than necessarily just to improve professionally. For ESOL and LAMA, respectively, 92.86% and 91.43% of respondents indicated they volunteered for altruistic purposes. 71.43% of ESOL volunteers and 77.14% of LAMA volunteers indicated they volunteered to get to know the Charlottesville area and be involved in the community. 35.71% of ESOL volunteers and 77.14% of LAMA volunteers indicated they volunteered to feel good about themselves and to develop skills. Lastly, 28.57% of ESOL volunteers and 48.57% of LAMA volunteers indicated they volunteered to enhance a classroom experience or to gain professional experience.
At the end of the semester, 71.42% of ESOL volunteers and 91.17% of LAMA volunteers believed they helped their site at least a bit. 100% of ESOL volunteers and 93.55% of LAMA volunteers agreed or strongly agreed that they felt like they were part of a larger community of students and more connected to Charlottesville. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being worsened and 5 being extensively improved, ESOL and LAMA volunteers on average gave themselves a bit above a 4 in how much they have changed in their understanding of how background, culture, and experience can affect how people interpret a problem as well as their empathy toward people with different religious, ethnic, or cultural backgrounds.
Intertwining Voices
As I conducted my interviews, I wasn’t sure how I would bring the voices of ESOL speakers and volunteers, especially the ones that worked with them, together. However, as I listened to the stories of others, common threads naturally emerged within each group and between them, particularly when I asked them about how we could best facilitate the learning of ESOL students. The volunteers I interviewed had several suggestions for ways we could improve and expand upon the resources we offer to international students and immigrants in the community. Monica would like to see more personal interactions, offering 1 on 1 meetings with foreign graduate students to casually talk about cultural differences and read books together, similar to a buddy system. This reflected what my parents and Emily had said about the importance of having a willing, non-judgmental partner to talk to and ask questions about English and American culture. By having such an institution in place, it would provide an avenue for international students and native-born students to interact with each other freely. As so many international students tend to stay within their program and only talk to people who had come from the same country as them, having a platform for conversing with others outside of their comfort zone would be a great resource and opportunity for those international students like my father and his friend who would like to talk to people of different backgrounds. This buddy system idea is also strikingly reminiscent of the high school student assigned to Emily who was such a great help to her in the first few months she transferred to an American high school. We have a lot of peer mentorship programs such as ULink and other major/racial/ethnic specific programs. Why not between people of different ages and backgrounds?
Courtny believes the writing center is important, which could do with more advertising, but that we also need to encourage reading. This was greatly reminiscent of the advice given by my parents and Emily as well, who credited reading by themselves as the number one way that helped them improve their English. This works nicely with the book club idea given by Monica above. Additionally, utilizing technology, Courtny suggested an online forum for questions and answers moderated by writing center staff or volunteers, similar to the current Piazza system used in a lot of classes. This would further reduce the barrier of entry and make it easier for people to ask questions about English or just generally about American culture. I think it would be neat to add in video calling as well, where writing center staff or volunteers can help international students online, hold classes, and just read and chat together with other interested parties. One issue I faced volunteering this semester was that my tutee would often be busy with family or other important events, and we would go one or two weeks without contact. Being able to work online would have helped remedy that.
In summary, by listening to the voices of international students, we see that they value multiple methods and support structures in their quest to not only learn English, but also to feel that they have the ability to succeed as part of our American society. From the voices of the volunteers who work with them, we can see that the experience gives them personal satisfaction, improves their skills, enhances their classroom experiences, and changes their mindset for the better, as long as they remain open and continually reflect on their sessions. I would also like for these interviews to speak for themselves—there are no doubt countless more points that I have not sufficiently expanded upon, but having these stories written down and disseminated allow these students to share their own unique narratives and perspectives on the issues of today, contributing to the pool of experiences and literature already in place.
In the process of creating a multi-faceted, more interconnected tutoring system, we would also be facilitating cultural exchange that would not only help international students and immigrants improve their English, but also help all parties involved gain a greater perspective on the world. With the current state of our nation today, I feel there is nothing more important than conversation. The first step is getting people of different backgrounds to talk to each other. Especially at UVA, where there are often tense conflicts between Charlottesville residents, students, conservatives, liberals, whites, and minorities, there is nothing more important than facilitating connections. Volunteering to teach English to ESOL students and community members of all different backgrounds can help bring us closer to the goal. With our new President, James Ryan, espousing these very values of communication and community service, I am excited to see how we can move forward to improve English instruction for immigrants while furthering the overarching goal of creating a more understanding university, city, county, state, and ultimately, world.