Intercultural Communications

This semester is almost over. This has been an amazing class. Comm 2150 Intercultural Communications covers so many fascinating things, like the fact that we all belong to several co-cultures. Our families each have a culture of their own, our religion is a culture, our work has it's own culture, as women we have our own culture, etc. One major assignment for the class was to complete a 15 hour Service Learning Project that involved another culture. I chose to work with the ESL students at my kids' elementary school. For about an hour a week I have been able to interact with children who were adopted from an orphanage in Ukraine, a boy who moved here with his family from Iraq, and two boys (cousins) from Mexico. Most of the children understand English pretty well, but struggle to speak, read, and write it. It has been a great experience. It has been interesting to participate in their efforts to overcome the language barrier and how quickly they can learn and adapt. It’s been insightful to see how valuable the earlier grades are for learning how to read and write. The younger the child, the easier it is to learn another language. Fourth grade teachers can’t take the time to teach these boys how to sound out words and how to form their letters. It was also interesting to see how much harder writing is for the Iraqi boy because his native language doesn’t use letters like ours. Letters are new to him. Having learned another language in a foreign country I know how difficult it is to not understand and to long to be able to communicate with those around you. It can be a very lonely process while you slowly learn, and anyone who would try to talk to me or understand my broken spanish was a welcome friend. It nearly broke my heart when one of their classmates callously said to me (us), "Good. Teach him some English."

I appreciate the opportunity I have had to work with these kids. I plan to continue that work through the end of the school year. I am especially interested in working more with the boy from Iraq who seems to have the greatest needs at this time.