Daphne Clyburn ’07 was immediately drawn to the WesESL table at the activities fair her freshman year.
“Teaching English was something I had been really interested in doing but had never done, so I jumped at the opportunity to get involved,” Clyburn said.
The Wesleyan English as a Second Language Program will give her that chance.
Since its inception four years ago, WesESL has served university campus workers who want to improve their English skills by pairing them with a student tutor. This year, organizers hope to make the program even more organized and effective.
“Tutors will have really thorough ESL training that will be good enough to put on a resume,” said Annie Fox ’07, a program coordinator.
Additionally, sessions will be more structured, with specific instructions given for how to allot time and what materials to use.
Along with providing tutoring, WesESL hopes to build the community and improve relationships between students and workers. There is both a daytime and nighttime option to accommodate staff members regardless of their work hours.
In the daytime program, pairs meet twice a week during the lunch hour, and time is split between individual meetings and group activities. Part of the session is spent as a collective group playing games, and last year there were several holiday parties. Because of difficulties in scheduling and the variety of work locations on campus, night students do not meet in groups, and spend only two hours a week with their tutors; day students spend three.
“The day sessions are really fun,” Fox said. “Students really feel like they become friends with their tutors.”
The night program, because it is a less social setting, has not developed the same feeling of camaraderie yet, but Fox said that is one of the goals for this year.
“The clay is more wet in the night program,” she said.
The six coordinators of the program spent time over the summer and the last few weeks working to develop a more solid curriculum.
“In the past, there has been no set curriculum, meaning that each tutor could decide how to teach their student English without any prior training in this field,” explained coordinator Mariana Brewer ’06.
This year tutors will go through special training and use a standardized curriculum. Coordinators hope that this consolidation of material will make it easier to use tutoring sessions more efficiently and to measure the progress students make throughout the year.
Benefits of the program are often mutual for tutor and student.
“It was a nice reality check to get outside the Wesleyan bubble,” Fox said.
Student tutors have the opportunity to develop unique and fulfilling relationships with campus workers. Organizers of the program hope that the changes being implemented this year will help further improve the experience for all involved.
Clyburn, now one of the program’s coordinators, claims WesESL is the most rewarding activity she has found so far at college.
“Last year I had a really great relationship with my student as I was a tutor the whole year,” she said. “Seeing her ability grow and seeing how excited she got as she improved was the biggest reward for me.”
For more information on Wes ESL, call Freya Riel at ext. 6449 or e-mail friel@wesleyan.edu
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