By Alexandra Rodriguez | Observer Contributor
Mount Wachusett Community College, a place where students from all over the world can learn and grow with the help of ESL Courses, Clubs and Student support services.
The Language Café, home for ESL students of MWCC has brought life to students from all over the world to interact and have fun, with the help of Jose Mangual, leader ambassador of Language Café and Professor Madhu Sharma who feels empathy for her ESL students. The Language Café, English as a Second Language club, offered for beginners in the English Language is a place for students all over the world practice conversational English at an informal setting. It takes place six to seven times per semester at noon in room 104 of the Leominster Campus.
Darrege Marie Dorval Bruny, a 23 year old Haitian lady, who is in the Intermediate level of the ESL Course at the Leominster Campus and has resided in Massachusetts for a year and 5 months, came to the Mount to study level two of the ESL course. She said that she has learned the most because they make you speak up and interact with each other.
The Language Café is a place where Bruny shares her ideas and opinions with other lady’s just like her. “You learn a lot about other countries and make friends,” said Bruny.
In the other hand, Juliana Lucena, also an ESL student at the MWCC Leominster campus, came from Brazil and has resided in Clinton for over a year. She has a 1 years old son and she has come to the U.S with the purpose to learn English. Lucena sees herself speaking very clear and correct English. She explained that it is very different speaking street English and speaking correct English, using the right words and grammar, but thanks to Language Café, she will be able to do so.
Maduh Sharma, who’s been teaching at the Mount for over 25 years, has a master’s degree in Intercultural education and a Doctorate in Foreign Languages, expresses how her experience from learning languages and the professional preparation gives her an advantage for being a better teacher.
“I became more sensitive with students,” expressed Sharma, with her own experience of learning Spanish as a foreign language when she lived in Mexico, preparing her to teach English as a second language to Spanish speaking students.
The most difficult part of teaching English as a second language according to Madhu, is patience! Very often, students lack patience and teachers have to be very patient with them. Madhu expresses how students need to practice outside of class because the college is small and there are not many activities.
TRIO Student Support Services that assist students from first generation, low-income backgrounds, and students with disabilities to graduate and transfer, is a federally funded program, one of roughly 1,900 TRIO programs throughout the United States. TRIO programs grew out of our nation’s commitment to the ideal of providing equal access to higher education to all Americans, regardless of their backgrounds or economic circumstances.
According to Director, Gaurav Khanna, the Visions Program at the Mount emphasizes how the TRIO program doesn’t specifically focus on ESL students but works with students who are first generation, with limited income background and students with disabilities of any kind. According to Khanna, just by virtue of the population that they work with have an overlap of students who come with ESL backgrounds, and tend to be first generation students and occasionally limited income as well.
“So, while we don’t have a specific focus on students from ESL background, those students are certainly eligible to be part of the program,” stated Khanna.
According to Khanna there are limitations for students from ESL backgrounds. Students are required to be U.S citizens, the program is limited to 420 students a year, and most of the ESL classes tend to take place primarily at the Leominster Campus, a campus that unfortunately is not covered by the program but offers service by the Gardner and Devens campus.
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