Teachers at the Auburn University Summer English School use a variety of games to help non-native speakers develop language proficiency.

 

Having studied a foreign language for five years, Holleigh Patterson figured she would be well suited to serve as a volunteer instructor at the Auburn University Summer English School, a College of Education outreach initiative aimed at improving the proficiency of adult non-native speakers and students in grades K-12.

There was one potential obstacle that briefly surprised Patterson on the first day of class at Richland Elementary School  . Patterson, a junior English education major from Vestavia Hills, Ala., possesses a strong grasp of Spanish. Upon walking into her classroom for the first time, however, Patterson couldn't help but notice all of her students happened to be Korean.

College of Education students receive valuable classroom experience as volunteers.

"I had no idea,'' Patterson said during a break at the camp, held in partnership with Auburn City Schools   and Opelika City Schools  .

Of course, Patterson recognized certain fundamentals apply to teaching students a new language, whether it happens to be English, Spanish or Korean.

"I know how hard it is to want to say something and to not be able to spit it out,'' Patterson said, drawing on her own experience in learning a foreign language. "I know what they're going through in trying to speak English. It helped me to have more of an understanding and to be more sympathetic toward them while they're learning.''

Now in its second year, the Auburn University Summer English School represents a valuable educational resource for international students making the transition to a new culture. The region's economic growth, which includes a Kia automobile plant in West Point, Ga., suppliers and other related business along the Interstate 85 corridor, has resulted in demographic change as well.

Dr. Jung Won Hur

Dr. Jung Won Hur, an assistant professor of educational media in the Department of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Technology and director of the camp, said the vast majority of the students attending this year's camp have already studied English. The goal of the camp, which will host graduation ceremonies Friday at 10:30 a.m., is to improve reading and writing proficiency, to help them overcome trepidation over learning the unfamiliar and acquire confidence. Of the 100 students enrolled this summer, 98 are Korean and two are Chinese.

Students enrolled in Auburn University's Summer English School receive 60 hours of instruction over four weeks.

"These kids are competitive and they like to win,'' said Brenda Coleman, a camp volunteer and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Technology. "They are eager to learn and they ask some wonderfully probing questions about why our language works the way it does.''

Coleman said the program has been as valuable to the participating educators as it has been to the students. The camp's staff includes 20 College of Education student volunteers, as well as Dr. Suhyn Suh, associate professor in the Department of Special Education, Rehabilitation, Counseling/School Psychology, and assistant administrators JulieAnna Whiting and Yokyung Kim.

"It has definitely been enlightening,'' Coleman said. "I've always been interested in cultures and languages. We've developed some really wonderful relationships. It's about learning, but it's about relationships too.''

Hur expressed hope that the summer English school would succeed in building relationships with more students in the near future.

"We wanted to expand this to all of the international students in the Opelika-Auburn area,'' Hur said.