Imagine, for just a moment, how you feel when you have to deliver a prepared speech… in a limited time… to an unknown number of people… in a room you have never seen before. Now, deliver that speech in a language other than the one you grew up speaking.
ESL students come in all shapes and sizes. They speak a variety of languages and tribal dialects. They often come here with degrees more advanced than the ones you or I hold and experiences we can only begin to imagine. They come to the United States for a multitude of reasons; but they all arrive at Delaware Tech to learn English.
Part of learning English this semester included presenting to attendees from our campus community during the final Global Understanding event. Often relying on each other’s knowledge, the students worked together to prepare PowerPoint presentations on their respective countries. They practiced their speeches in front of each other before presenting to another ESL class in another room. They were required to add information and cut time from their speeches before practicing again… And again.
Their audience wasn’t huge, but it would have made me nervous. Tina Burnett brought her first-year seminar. ESL students who were required participants last year were relieved to just watch this year’s students. Administrators, faculty, and students hoping to win a free trip abroad came to watch. Fellow classmates and friends also came to watch these students share pieces of themselves and their cultures.
As students from common countries or regions told us about their homelands, their politics, their food, their traditions, and their schools, I saw what I have always found to be my ultimate goal for education: the appreciation and cooperation of people who are different, but share one main value: becoming the best version of themselves that they are able to be.
Many students participated in this event, but two stand out. Luis, a young man from Mexico who has a degree in architecture, is here for the semester just to learn English. He also quickly became known as the class computer guru and handled every click of the PowerPoint that happened that day (except for his own which he entrusted to one of his classmates). Okezie, who we fondly call “elderly” is a 57-year-old Nigerian man who was a chemistry teacher before becoming a marriage counselor. He gave up that life to give his children the opportunity to experience American education, handle loading and unloading at a local grocery store, and attend Delaware Tech so that he can begin all over again.
The highlight of my day came not when I watched Okezie dance his traditional tribal dance, nor in hearing Luis describe the architectural design of his Mexican idol, but in watching Luis flip Okezie a “thumb’s up” and the two share a discreet high-five when Okezie had the nerve to dance in front of not only his class, but the teachers, administrators and other students who had come to watch the event. There it was, that link between people with nothing in common that you can only find in a school. I saw mutual respect and admiration between men from different generations, from different continents, who speak different languages and yet communicate and collaborate at a level that goes beyond words.
We followed up the presentations with a trip to the Culinary Café where Chef Ed’s American students fed my international contingency French cuisine. They laughed and talked (in English) and enjoyed the company of their new friends and I was struck again by how wonderful school is, how collaboration is everywhere around us just waiting to be appreciated, how a computer or a tennis ball or a game is completely unnecessary to having a collaborative classroom.
ESL students come in all shapes and sizes. They speak a variety of languages and tribal dialects. They often come here with degrees more advanced than the ones you or I hold and experiences we can only begin to imagine. They come to the United States for a multitude of reasons; but they all arrive at Delaware Tech to learn English.
Part of learning English this semester included presenting to attendees from our campus community during the final Global Understanding event. Often relying on each other’s knowledge, the students worked together to prepare PowerPoint presentations on their respective countries. They practiced their speeches in front of each other before presenting to another ESL class in another room. They were required to add information and cut time from their speeches before practicing again… And again.
Their audience wasn’t huge, but it would have made me nervous. Tina Burnett brought her first-year seminar. ESL students who were required participants last year were relieved to just watch this year’s students. Administrators, faculty, and students hoping to win a free trip abroad came to watch. Fellow classmates and friends also came to watch these students share pieces of themselves and their cultures.
As students from common countries or regions told us about their homelands, their politics, their food, their traditions, and their schools, I saw what I have always found to be my ultimate goal for education: the appreciation and cooperation of people who are different, but share one main value: becoming the best version of themselves that they are able to be.
Many students participated in this event, but two stand out. Luis, a young man from Mexico who has a degree in architecture, is here for the semester just to learn English. He also quickly became known as the class computer guru and handled every click of the PowerPoint that happened that day (except for his own which he entrusted to one of his classmates). Okezie, who we fondly call “elderly” is a 57-year-old Nigerian man who was a chemistry teacher before becoming a marriage counselor. He gave up that life to give his children the opportunity to experience American education, handle loading and unloading at a local grocery store, and attend Delaware Tech so that he can begin all over again.
The highlight of my day came not when I watched Okezie dance his traditional tribal dance, nor in hearing Luis describe the architectural design of his Mexican idol, but in watching Luis flip Okezie a “thumb’s up” and the two share a discreet high-five when Okezie had the nerve to dance in front of not only his class, but the teachers, administrators and other students who had come to watch the event. There it was, that link between people with nothing in common that you can only find in a school. I saw mutual respect and admiration between men from different generations, from different continents, who speak different languages and yet communicate and collaborate at a level that goes beyond words.
We followed up the presentations with a trip to the Culinary Café where Chef Ed’s American students fed my international contingency French cuisine. They laughed and talked (in English) and enjoyed the company of their new friends and I was struck again by how wonderful school is, how collaboration is everywhere around us just waiting to be appreciated, how a computer or a tennis ball or a game is completely unnecessary to having a collaborative classroom.