Personal Services to Students From the time a student comes in our door, we want him to feel that he is a member of our family with all of a family's loving care enveloping him. His problems are usually many. Often he has registered at a hotel and is anxious to move as soon as possible into a cheaper, more convenient place. We have a list of boarding houses where we know our students are welcome and will be well treated. We have already “oriented” the landladies in ways in which they can help students feel at home and get acquainted with others in the house. Sometimes the members of a group coming in together from one country have the idea that they want to live together in the same house. Not yet knowing the cost of living here, they sometimes expect quarters more luxurious than they can afford. We feel that there is a great advantage in separating national groups. Consequently we must persuade them: First, to agree to live in different houses; second, to live in a double room with a North American roommate; and third, to live in a house where they can also take their meals, as the total cost is much less than living in rooming houses and eating in restaurants. These steps are not always taken all at once. Gently and gradually we have to wean the student away from his dependence on his own countrymen. Sometimes students are ill when they arrive. Perhaps the airplane trip has caused ears to ache, or perhaps abscessed teeth have suddenly become active. In such cases we take students to the doctor or the dentist, or to the college nurse. Several times we have had to take the place of their own families in seeing them through severe illnesses and operations, sometimes sitting by their bedsides to help them struggle out of ether. We arranged for one of our students to have free medical care in a hospital clinic, because he was ill and had no money. If the weather is cold or stormy, we look carefully to see that the students are properly dressed. Those who come from warm countries usually need help in getting winter clothes. We accompany them on shopping trips and try to find clothes at a price which fits their budget. For example, the Army-Navy War Surplus Store outfitted one of our students in an officer's good, practical, waterproofed, topcoat with but tined-in wool lining, overshoes, and wool gloves, at a total cost far less than even a moderate-priced department store would have charged. We steer the young women students away from the expensive specialty shops to the misses and junior departments in the medium-priced stores and try to give them practical, sound advice on what they need to be warmly and suitably dressed in our climate and environment. When students do not have any form of health insurance, we tell them about the insurance open to them through the Institute of International Education and help them realize the importance of this protection. We learned to take this precaution through an unhappy experience in which one of our uninsured trainees developed typhoid fever a few days after arriving. Before he was well and discharged by his doctor, he was in debt $600. On the other hand, one of our insured students had an emergency appendix operation with every dollar of the expense paid by the insurance company. If families accompany students, we must find comfortable places for them to live. With a stipend of $170 a month, for example, one of our trainees, an official of his own government, has his wife and baby to take care of. His distress was great at finding how little his income was here in relation to its value in his own country. We helped settle the family very modestly, yet adequately, near the college in one room with a hot plate and some kitchen privileges. They are adjusting themselves, but the process has not been easy, and we have made an especial effort to arrange treats for them in the way of invitations to teas and the theater. The pretty young wife is very hard of hearing and had come to the United States with the hope that an operation would restore her hearing. We took her to a specialist. When she had to be told she could not be helped by treatment or operation, we softened the blow by making an appointment for her at the Washington Hearing Society. We went with her, took care of her baby while she was being tested for a hearing aid, and were gratified when she found the device was going to help her. We also arranged at the Children's Hospital baby clinic for her baby to have the shots for diphtheria and tetanus at the minimum rate. These personal services are mentioned only to call attention to the problems which a newcomer has to face and which he needs help in solving before he can settle down to getting what he wants to get from his studies or training program. However, we also wish to emphasize that from these warm, human contacts our staff gets great pleasure and deep satisfaction. That the staffs of other institutes feel the same pleasure in their work with these adult foreign students is evident in many reports. It is well described in a pamphlet of the English Language Institute of Bucknell University. We quote: The staff members of the English Language Institute at Bucknell agree that nothing in their experience as teachers is more enjoyable and rewarding than this opportunity to teach students such as those who are enrolled in our classes. There is nothing more interesting to a teacher than a student who wants to learn, both because he has a practical reason for learning and because he obviously enjoys the process for its own sake. Furthermore, when, as in this experience, the whole question of academic grades and credits is reduced to comparative unimportance, the teacher can concentrate upon knowing his students and in discovering them to be thoroughly interesting and enjoyable people. (46) Qualifications of Teachers One conclusion which may be drawn from reading the preceding sections of this study is that the system in our Orientation Center depends upon the quality of the staff. It is desirable that a teacher have experience in teaching English from the point of view of a foreign language. She must be able to simplify her own speech to functional sentence structure and to under. stand how to explain the elements of grammar. It is also an aid to the teacher if she herself has learned at least one foreign language, as this background makes her more aware of the peculiarities of English and the difficulties which a learner of any language is likely to encounter. It is also helpful if a teacher herself has experienced living in a foreign land, where she has had to adjust to a different environment and psychology. She can then constantly remind herself of her frantic frustration when she could not understand or make herself understood and of her sense of inferiority when she stepped overnight from a life where she had her assured place to a world where she was no one. Even though a teacher has had the experience of living in a foreign land, her knowledge of the customs of some lands is usually limited. We were interested in reading in the pamphlet from Mills College of a two-way orientation program it has developed to prepare its staff for new groups of students. We quote: If our students are to come from countries outside Europe or Latin America we assemble all available information on the students' country of origin. This insures a two-way orientation, which makes it possible for us to prepare in ad vance for differences in customs and attitudes, as well as for misconceptions and prejudices hampering mutual relations. We have decided against a rigid course in orientation, but we endeavor to tailor our orientation material for each nationality. Our purpose is not to Americanize our students, but to induce reciprocal understanding, respect, and esteem. (44) A necessary qualification of a teacher under our system is that she be flexible, cheerfully altering her program to meet changes in class per sonnel as new students come and others leave for their professional work. A teacher with a warm, outgoing personality helps newcomers to feel welcome and relaxed in their new environment. Calmness, poise, good humor, dignity, sensitiveness to others' reactions, and willingness to serve are the personal qualities which make a teacher successful in a class of adult foreigners. |