speaking the language

During my junior and senior year of undergrad, I worked as a tutor at the USD Writing Center. While we offered services to all students and faculty on campus, a large portion of our business was from the international students on campus.

I always found tutoring the international students to be more challenging and rewarding than tutoring students from the US. Most of them were from various countries in Asia and Africa. Many of them had already earned college (or at least high school) degrees in their native countries and had come to the US to work on another degree but just needed a little help with their English.

Where I live now, we don't have a ton of international students on campus, but there are at least 26 languages spoken by families in the county and sizable Hispanic, Kurdish, and Russian communities. Needless to say, there is a huge need for tutoring in basic reading skills and English as a Second Language (ESL).

I've tried to imagine what it would be like to move to a different country where I didn't know the language or the culture. What would I do if I had to go to the doctor and couldn't understand a word he or she was saying? How would I ask for directions? How would I be able to find a job and keep that job once I had it? Even in my wildest imagination, I don't think I can really comprehend what it would be like. I have tremendous respect for anyone who moves to this country (or another for that matter) without having full command of the language. I think that must take incredible courage.

So in light of all this, I've decided to volunteer to be an ESL tutor for one of the organizations in town. I'll go through the training after I get back from vacation and will know more then about how many students I'll be working with and what it all entails. As I know more, I'll keep you posted...

Oh, and in case I hadn't mentioned it before, I'm really excited about this :) I think it's going to be an amazing (and most likely challenging) experience.