In Other Words
The official newsletter of the Volunteer English Program
Click here to view the full Summer 2023 issue of In Other Words!
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Featured Stories
Embracing the Power of Dual Languages
As we gear up for another exciting school year, VEP celebrates the incredible diversity that enriches our community. For the over 60% of our students who are parents, we recognize the challenges that come with raising children in a new country while preserving the cultural heritage and language that make their families unique.
Language is not just a means of communication; it’s a bridge that connects generations and cultures. Whether it’s reading a book to their children in their native language or navigating a new book in English together, embracing both languages allows parents to offer their children the gift of bilingualism—a precious tool that opens doors to broader opportunities and a deeper understanding of the world around them.
At VEP, we are constantly adapting our tutor training methodologies to incorporate new best practices in adult language learning. Every step our students take toward mastering English while maintaining their native language is an investment in their family’s future. Here are just a few ways that fostering fluency in dual languages impacts learning for the whole family:
- Cultural Enrichment: By speaking their native language at home, parents are preserving their heritage and sharing their unique cultural values with their children. This enriches their worldview and helps them appreciate the beauty of diversity.
- Academic Success: Research shows that children who are proficient in their home language often perform better academically. Being multilingual enhances cognitive skills, problem-solving abilities, and even boosts standardized test scores. Immigrant parents who learn English are able to more actively engage in their children’s education – helping them with homework, projects and extra-curricular activities.
- Parent-Teacher Communication: Feeling confident in both languages facilitates effective communication with teachers and school staff. Learning English ensures parents can actively participate in their child’s education, stay informed about their progress, and collaborate on their growth.
- Emotional Connection: Interacting in their native language with their children creates a strong emotional bond. It helps them connect with their roots and understand their identity, fostering a sense of belonging and self-esteem for both students & parents.
- Global Perspective: In our interconnected world, being bilingual opens doors to opportunities. Children of emergent bilinguals are better equipped to engage with people from different backgrounds and contribute to a global society.
The Volunteer English Program fulfills an unspoken mandate in the Chester County community to welcome any and all immigrants and refugees who seek to empower themselves through English language skills. Our one-to-one, student goal-centered approach connects volunteers with adult English language learners. To learn more about how to help immigrant families by becoming a VEP tutor, visit our tutor page.
Tutor Sue Drummond reflects on teaching both a beginner and an advanced student.
I worked with my beginner student for 2-1/2 years. When we started, although she had taken a couple of introductory classes in English, she was very reluctant to speak. I’ve heard that called the silent stage, and it’s intimidating for a tutor. What I found is that she understood some of what I was saying though, and I built on that as if she were a very shy friend who needed me to be very patient and take the initiative in conversation. I should say right off that I am a major proponent of ordinary conversation in teaching. I tried lots of topics until I found what she was interested in (business and sports, NOT food and family). I was careful to speak clearly, slowly, using synonyms and lots of gestures, hoping that she would understand 80% of what I was saying. Once I had a topic that she wanted to talk to me about, the broken sentences started coming out. I responded enthusiastically to every effort she made, often repeating what she tried to say in a more accurate form of English and adding on, but not in a critical way. (“I like play volleyball.” “You like to play volleyball. You are tall. I bet you are a good player. Did you play on a team?”) As she became comfortable talking with me (it took months!), we both relied on Google translate quite often to express more complicated thoughts. I used my laptop because I type faster on a keyboard than on my phone. She used her phone.
In the second year, I began using Off2Class exercises over Zoom in addition to our usual conversation. It was challenging, but she liked the structure and she would do the homework assignments. Each lesson took about 30 minutes of our session. I also encouraged her to listen to English on her phone while she worked, and she often did. And I pushed her to talk to other English-speakers, but she has little contact outside her community. She has very limited opportunities to speak to Americans. She tried going to an American church, but then got a new job where she only has Mondays off.
I think we made very good progress in our time together. When we met with Donna a few months ago, she fully participated in a friendly conversation, and she tested at a higher level than before. I feel that I was able to help her quite a bit, and that if she were in a different situation where she had more opportunity to speak, she would continue to advance. Unfortunately, her work has become so demanding that she was missing many sessions and was unable to do homework or study on her own. When she decided not to continue with tutoring this year, I told her I would take her back whenever she wanted. I consider her a friend and have been to visit her just to keep up the connection.
This year I started with a new student who is at an advanced level. She reads well and understands what I am saying, but she does struggle to find the right words to express herself. I suppose you’d say her receptive skills are better than her productive skills. We are using the Challenger workbook, which she likes very much. I assign a chapter and she’ll do two! She has the time to study that my beginner student did not. But because I emphasize conversation and speaking, we spend most of every session talking. I still try to speak clearly and a bit more slowly than I would to an American, and she says she understands me when she cannot always understand others. I think that builds her confidence, even if it is a bit artificial. I correct her pronunciation or phrasing, but gently, and only when she might not be understood. We keep Google translate handy, plus a pad of paper and pencil for drawing pictures and writing words. I encourage her to speak to other mothers at the Y (she has 5 kids!) and she does. She watches TV with subtitles on. I think that is good for her, but I am urging her to rely less on seeing the printed word and to focus on listening. The family does not speak English at home, as they want their children to retain their native language. But the kids are learning English very quickly at school. The family has only been in the US about 7 months.
I can’t say yet how much I am helping this new student improve, but I’m quite hopeful. She is willing to put in the work required and is becoming more integrated into US culture, so she’ll have more opportunities to speak and learn. Meeting with me twice a week keeps her focused and progressing. It is certainly more comfortable to work with someone who can already hold a basic conversation, but there is a different challenge in bringing them to a more proficient level. And the progress is more subtle. Do they use verb tenses more appropriately? How much larger is their vocabulary? I’m icing the cake, not making the batter.
Is it harder to teach a beginner? Yes, in some ways it is. You feel so inadequate when communication is difficult. And of course, they feel equally inadequate. But it is very rewarding to see them progress as you form a connection and they start to trust you. It’s challenging. You have to be more inventive. Try one thing, try another thing. Repeat yourself. Use the book. Forget the book. Read out loud together. Draw pictures. Watch a YouTube. Laugh. Share. Above all, talk and listen. When a beginner student progresses, it makes such a BIG difference to their life, you know you’ve really accomplished something.
Beginner or advanced, it’s all good.
Jackie, a VEP student since 2020, talks about her introduction to VEP through our conversation group and her close relationship with her tutor.
Life does not go as we planned. At least, it was my case… In August 2019, all my family- my husband, my son, and I left all we had in South Korea and started our lives in the US, at West Chester… Experiencing culture and life as a language training course student [in South Korea] and engaging in a real life with a kid and husband was totally different. I confronted so many situations that I’ve never faced before, and my English, which I mainly ‘studied’ for academic purposes, was not fluent enough as I expected it to be. On top of the language barrier and cultural differences I was facing on a daily basis, the loneliness that l never experienced in my lifetime struck me really hard. Without any friends and other family members except for my husband and son, I had nobody to talk to or not a single place to go when everyone headed to their work or school.
Then, I remembered one of my friends who already had experience in the US telling me… to go to the library and start from there… I went to a library in West Chester and found out there is an English conversation group. I joined the group, run by Jane from VEP, and eventually, I was able to meet my tutor, Sarah.
I don’t even know where to start to talk about my wonderful tutor, Sarah. Of course, language-wise I have learned a lot from her… Thanks to her patience and precise corrections, I am making fewer errors now, and… I am learning a lot of expressions that I can use in real life, and that gives me confidence that I can maybe mingle with other people living here better in the near future.
Not only about English, but she is also my role model in the US. She is one of the most beautiful, intelligent, and warm-hearted people I’ve met. Her knowledge of other cultures and understanding of human beings is just mind-blowing. When the Korean movie ‘Minari’ which is about the lives of Korean-Americans in the ’70s and ’80s was streaming, she watched it to get a better understanding of Korean culture. I was moved by her doing so since that movie was not a mega-hit nor English spoken. (Now I know how it is hard to watch a movie that is not in English.) I could feel her warm heart, spending her time to understand her student, and it really meant a lot to me.
Her healthy lifestyle, love of outdoor activities, and her enthusiasm for learning also inspired me in many ways. She encouraged me to start exercising, and I enrolled in YMCA. And her love for cycling made me think of getting bicycles for my whole family, and we are enjoying our bike ride every weekend. On top of that, her eagerness for learning musical instruments started an artistic fire in me, and I started to paint again (I used to paint Korean Folk Painting, called ‘Minhwa’), hoping to give her a decent and beautiful Korean traditional painting one day.
I shouldn’t forget to mention our outside-of-class activities together. Our first field trip was to a Delaware Art Museum. I love art and so does she. She picked me up at my apartment (due to my poor driving skill), and went to the art museum together, and it was such a joyful experience. After visiting the art museum, we had lunch at Pure Bread, which was my first American-style lunch outside of the house. I went to Longwood Gardens with her for the first time (and I became a member after that! I just fell in love with the place!), and she also invited all my family to her house for dinner. It was a lovely night and I was so grateful for the time. After I moved into a house I asked her about gardening, and she happily visited my house to plant some spring flowers. Thanks to her, our family had a great flower pot in our patio railing and was able to enjoy beautiful pinkish petunia and geranium all summer. We are planning to plant our fall flowers pretty soon, and I am looking forward to planting them.
Along with the time with my tutor from VEP, Sarah, I also take part in a West Chester library conversation group run by Jane (my [other] great teacher and I appreciate her so much too!) from time to time and I will help to facilitate a few sessions from the following week. This is another exciting experience I am looking forward to. The conversation group at the library was a great lead to know about VEP and its amazing tutors, and I am so grateful to Jane for being such a wonderful liaison. Without her conversation group, I would never be able to know about amazing programs like VEP.
If anyone asks me what VEP is to me, I would say this is more than just learning a language. It’s like you have another family and precious friend in a new place. When I first came here in the US, without a single friend, I didn’t even know where to buy groceries. I didn’t know where to go for exercise and how to enroll, where to take my kid on weekends, or what to do for certain school activities not to mention that I had no one to put as emergency contact information for my son’s summer camp. Now, I know and have answers to all the questions above, and in many cases, I got help from my tutor Sarah. So, I want to say what VEP is doing is saving a whole family and I do appreciate that. My goal, for now, is that, when I become more experienced living in the US, I want to find any way to help new immigrants living here in Chester County as VEP does. I want to help others as I got such great help. Thank you, VEP. Sending my special thanks to my tutor, Sarah and conversation leader, Jane.
Fikreta, a VEP student since 2017, reflects on her experience as a refugee and the current plight of Ukranians displaced by the Russian invasion of their country.
Instead of “Good Morning” on February 24, my husband greeted me with, “The Russians invaded Ukraine,” and glaring at me for a long time, he silently told me everything I needed to know. It was clear to me that his first thought had sparked a comparison of Ukraine’s situation with that of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which Serbia militarily attacked in 1992. I could see him silently reliving all the horrors that followed, rewinding with incredible speed the beginning of the war in former Yugoslavia, when the official dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began. Until 1991, SFR of Yugoslavia was a state composed of 6 republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and the two autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina.
Later that day, I studied for a long time a photo of a mother and son, each with their heads bowed and leaning against each other. The photo had been taken at the train station of one of the Ukrainian cities on the Polish border. The boy, in my estimation, could have been about 16 years old, with long curly hair over his ears – a very youthful hairstyle. I thought, harmonious and relaxed he kept his head down, leaning uncertainly against his mother. He kept his hands down as if adhering to the sides of his body. He had a backpack on his back and a small suitcase on wheels next to him. At times his eyes were in a blank downward stare. Other times they were softly closed and aimed at the station’s floor as his mother leaned against him and hugged him with her arms.
The photo did not give an impression of the security of an embrace, it reflected mother and son overwhelmed by new circumstances. They seemed lost and many Ukrainians seemed lost that day, even though they remained in their own country, and even though the rest of the world felt nothing different. I was not surprised. As is usually the case, no one takes the beginning of war seriously until the last moment, when the first shots and the first grenades are fired, providing powerful deadly explosions.
There was no caption below the photo identifying the name of the train station. What I still remember today, after more than a month of war, is that I envisioned one entire story about that boy’s life while watching him rapidly board the train. What was he thinking as he stared at the floor? What was his mother thinking about? They probably thought they would ever meet again. Usually at the beginning of a war people believe that it will end quickly. They do not foresee all its horrors, so they often dream of a resumption of life as soon as possible, strongly believing that the “world powers” – the rest of Europe and the USA would help them to stop the war. Unfortunately, none of this is usually true!
I continued to study the boy’s long hair – I like such hairstyles for young people and imagined the intensity of his desires to quickly meet his loved ones who stayed in Ukraine! Where and to whom did he go? Which country was his destination? I knew that whatever he put in his backpack and suitcase would not be enough, and whatever he had in his wallet, he would spend quickly. I became sadder the longer I watched him. My war memories came to life as well as my own refugee path which had been deeply engraved in my memory. In April 1992 I left Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. After four days of waiting for departures from Sarajevo airport, I managed to fly by military transport to Belgrade, Serbia. Then, for the first and only time in my life, I sat on the floor of an airplane while flying. The irony of my sitting in the bell, military transport to Belgrade [carrying] heavy artillery intended to destroy humans, amazed me. Perhaps, I was partly happier than this young man because I was able to leave war-torn Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina and return to my parents in Montenegro, which then remained in the alliance with Serbia and was still a safe zone. But I also separated in Sarajevo from my older sister, my aunts, uncles, grandpa and many relatives and friends who remained. I was a little older than this young man, as a second-year student, fourth semester of biology at the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at Sarajevo University.
My thoughts suddenly accelerated. I imagined him waiting in line in front of one of the state institutions in one of the European cities to register as a refugee, and to get a status on paper that will determine his stay, certain rights, and due to his age, further education perhaps, as well as financial assistance. The name of this refugee stay in foreign countries on paper often does not sound nice. On my refugee card in Germany, it said “Duldung” which means “suffering.” Nonetheless, the refugee is most grateful. There are exhausting and painful places where refugees must wait for the extension of their stay. I extended my stay every six months. I was surprised when I read that Ukrainians have been approved by European countries for a three-year stay including of course full health care, opportunities for schooling and work, which is huge. It was not like that for the Bosnian refugees.
Where will he be located, I thought. To quickly tame my imagination, I placed him with a relative or parental friend turning off the option of a refugee center. As I imagined, I saw him soon resuming his schooling, beginning to learn the language of the country he came [into], carrying the same backpack from the Ukrainian train station with new books in a new language, as well as carrying the burden of his heavy thoughts of his mother, father, and perhaps a brother, or sister, and all other loved ones left in the city. His days will be busy, but the nights in solitude will be difficult. Each time new thoughts will settle in his head, and this will start to shape him into a person he might not be otherwise. His clothes, food and shelter may be adequate, but his parents’ warm home, emotional, mental, and financial support will no longer be there. He will live for the day he can hug mom while praying day and night for her and the lives of his other loved ones! He will make friends and compare their lives with his life, which was until recently, not much different. Unfortunately, he will not have a clear picture of whether or not, he will be able to return to that life. The enemy has taken cruel care to prevent him from doing so. In short, he will grow up overnight, and his development as an adult male will be very different because it will be shaped by different experiences from those expected only a few months earlier.
This young and handsome boy is just one image of a thousand examples of the despair that war creates. Unfortunately, these days we are witnessing the horrors of the war as the world tries unsuccessfully to stop it with economic sanctions. This war in Ukraine, like any other, will cause enormous human suffering and pain, cause great human and material damage, disperse the population around the world. At this time, we do not know how it will end.
These stories were written by VEP students about their experiences as immigrants. To submit a student-written story, essay or poem for future editions of the newsletter, email volunteer.english@volunteerenglish.org.