Like night and day

There are times when it is quiet in Room 217B. Students and mentors are in classes, the school is calm, and there are no disruptions. Moments like these are good opportunities to check e-mail, read a journal article, catch up on education news, or have some lunch.

Then we have lunch and after school. Like this afternoon, for instance. I spent it splitting my attention among at least half a dozen students while doing a dozen different things: editing an essay, giving suggestions on filling out a college application, reviewing a thesis statement, spelling words, giving out trip permission slips, distributing reminder notices, demonstrating the public library's Web site, explaining how to double-space, making introductions, admiring student artwork, etc. I did not stop the entire time. Mary and Steve and Amanda were all similarly occupied.

17 students signed in after school today. Lunch is even busier.

We are growing, and learning. Lately, we are learning how to balance increasing numbers of student requests with helping every student with whatever they need. We also strive to build relationships with new students while deepening our relationships with the ones we know best. It is hard to believe that only a few years ago, we were just a tiny volunteer program that spent several hours a week at the school. What will we be like in a few years' time?

Students: What are your opinions?

Last Monday, students received their report cards. On Wednesday, we decided to ask students to give us their report card on us.

During lunch, we invited any students who came in to join us in a group discussion about how they felt about Project Bridging Cultures. The conversation was centered around three questions:

What do you like about our program?
How can our program help you better?
What are your ideas for our program?

They could either tell us what their opinions were or write them down in an anonymous survey. I'll highlight some of them in a future post. We plan to review all the responses we got and use them to help guide the direction of our program as it evolves in the upcoming months.

Job workshops

As we continue to work with many students in applying to jobs, we have started our new job workshop series. Many students are currently working or looking for jobs, so we decided to focus on skills that are necessary to apply for and get a job.

Yesterday, we held a session on writing resumes. Ten students, including several who were new to Bridging Cultures, came to the computer lab after school to learn about the different parts of the resume. We will also be holding these afterschool workshops on the following Mondays in Room 217A:

November 26: Job Applications
December 3: Interviews
December 10: More Interview Skills

English Other Languages for Speakers of Other Languages

Among the many languages we hear in the Bridging Cultures classroom, English is by far the most common. This makes sense, since 1) we try to encourage students to speak English, 2) many students are themselves eager to practice, and 3) English is the only language everyone has in common, so 4) students who come from different linguistic backgrounds use English to communicate.

Lately, however, I've noticed some interesting moments. Like a Haitian student showing off some new greetings a Vietnamese friend taught him. Or a student looking up words in an online Indonesian-Spanish dictionary. Or an emergent English learner hanging on eagerly to Steve's explanation of the pun in the title of the German band Rammstein's song "Du Hast."

So we might start seeing this more and more: students learning not only English, but their friends' languages as well. Students teaching each other their languages using the lingua franca of English. English speakers becoming bilingual, bilingual students becoming polyglots. Common languages can be the best bridges of all.

Some statistics on Project Bridging Cultures

In addition to working with students, one of our major responsibilities is keeping accurate records of the program's activities. We use this information both to work more effectively with students and to explain what we do to anyone who is interested. Therefore, part of what I do each day is make sure we have the data that we need, such as student intake forms and an attendance log.

After an initial analysis, we've uncovered some interesting information about our students. The 130 students we have intake information on so far come from all grades and backgrounds. They include students who have been in the United States for a month and students who have lived in this city their entire lives. While most students live nearby, a significant number travel from neighborhoods across the city. And after seeing increasing numbers of students in our classroom, it is not unusual to have close to 100 student sign-ins per day.

That said, most of my time is spent in our classroom, while mentors spend much of their time in classes, averaging a dozen periods a day in all. One of our core principles is that we reach students wherever they are. By going into students' classes, we see many of those students who might not otherwise come into our center and provide extra support to everyone.

Fun with words

I am a big fan of language, so when I visit Bridging Cultures, we often end up talking about words.

For example, in Pete’s English conversation group we discussed the word thwarted. Pete had prepared a “conversational Tic-Tac-Toe” game in which the participants could practice their English by answering questions. If they were able to answer correctly, using a complete sentence, their team was allowed to put an X or an O on the Tic-Tac-Toe board.

We were surprised when one team put their energy into blocking the other team’s victory, rather than trying to win themselves. This is what made me think of the word thwarted. We wrote it on the chalkboard and discussed the meaning. No one had heard of it before. Afterwards, I polled five native English speakers (adults) and only one of them had heard of the word. That surprised me.

Another time, it was 5 p.m. and two students were lingering in our classroom. Although it was growing dark outside, they were entranced by the magnetic poetry. They giggled and snickered as they chose different words to make silly sentences. Jennifer and I were cleaning up and getting ready to leave, but the students did not want to go.

Finally, I walked over and made my own sentence: Jumping home now. They laughed at my verb choice. Later, I saw them in the subway. I made three small hops (like a frog) as I passed them, but I didn’t say anything.

November

The college fair trip was a success! We went to the convention center, talked to representatives from many colleges, and picked up their materials. Afterwards, we had ice cream. We'll plan more trips throughout the year.

November is heavy on evaluation. Many seniors just took the SAT this past Saturday. On Wednesday and Thursday, there will be subject benchmark tests, and report cards for the first marking period will be distributed in a couple of weeks. It can be a stressful time for students, so we try to lighten the mood in different ways, such as making beads during Art Club, hosting student parties, and putting magnetic poetry on the walls.

Mary on helping students learn

"One of the most rewarding parts of this program is working with students over the weeks and getting to observe them grasp the material they are being taught. Subjects like World History and Physical Science contain concepts and vocabulary that are difficult for even native English speakers. It is easy for ESOL students to fall behind or skim through information without fully understanding it.

Sometimes it is a simple picture or the use of a different word that makes all of the difference. After one on one or group assistance, it is satisfying to recognize when a student makes the connection between the words they are writing and the ideas behind them. This is part of why Bridging Cultures is so important.

An example of this can be seen when I work one on one with a particular student in a science class. This student is an emerging English speaker and has trouble speaking and writing. He also is very tired and falls asleep in class due to his heavy work schedule outside of school. Over the past couple of weeks I have sat beside him in class, going through assignments and review worksheets.

By illustrating the information and giving simpler examples I am beginning to see the student acknowledging and processing the information being taught. It is just a matter of modifying the delivery of information in a way that benefits the individual student. "