ND-BG seniors mentor immigrant children

On most Tuesday afternoons, Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons senior Sean Baldwin can be found hanging out in the cafeteria with a friend - but not at his own Schenectady school.

Rather, Sean is at Paige Elementary School in the Schenectady City School District. Sean's friend is also not a teen, but a five-year-old boy named Haha who is enrolled in Kindergarten at Paige.

Sean is one of 18 seniors from ND-BG who mentors English as a Second Language students at Paige. Once a week, the high-school students spend an hour with the elementary school students. The mentors help the younger children with classwork provided by their teacher; once the work is finished, the pairs can read or play educational games.

Crossing boundaries
Sean said that Haha speaks some English, but his native language is Hindi. "We work on a lot of vocabulary," Sean said.

He found his experience mentoring Haha to be beneficial.

"I've learned how to communicate across a language barrier," Sean told The Evangelist. "I also like that I get to help nurture minds that might not have as good educational opportunities because they don't speak English."

Susan Cromer, an English as a Second Language teacher at Paige, said the relationship between ND-BG and the Schenectady City Schools' ESL program began 17 years ago. A parishioner of St. Helen's Church in Niskayuna, Mrs. Cromer was friends with Melanie Anchukaitis, a Spanish teacher at ND-BG.

At the time, Mrs. Cromer was working at Pleasant Valley School and the ESL students mainly spoke Spanish. The mentoring relationship allowed Mrs. Anchukaitis' students the opportunity to practice speaking Spanish while helping Mrs. Cromer's students practice English.

Barriers broken
The relationship continued even after Mrs. Cromer moved to Paige. She said the ESL students speak a variety of Middle Eastern languages and some speak Spanish at home.

Monika Drzymalski, also a senior at ND-BG, said she is able to share her own experience of speaking English as a second language with a younger person.

Monika's native language is Polish. She said she didn't begin speaking English until she was in first grade.

"I used to come home from school and be upset," she remembered. "I didn't want to go back to school. Teachers can talk so fast and it can be frustrating."

Monika is mentoring third-grader Hasina, who speaks Pashto at home.

"She is really very smart," Monika said of the little girl. "Once I explain a formula, she gets it perfectly. She just needs extra time."

One of the biggest challenges Monika faces as a mentor is explaining the English language. At times, Hasina asks Monika to explain grammatical rules.

"It's really hard to explain some of the rules in English," Monika said.

Monika has found the mentoring experience to be rewarding. She even wrote about it for some of her college application essays.

"The experience has been great," she said. "I hope I'm having a positive effect on her."

Timothy Driscoll, a ND-BG senior, enjoys his time with Brandon. Brandon is a second-grader who speaks Spanish at home. Brandon is not yet comfortable speaking English at school, so communication can be challenging.

Timothy enjoys the small successes he's had with Brandon, like playing a game of "Guess Who" and being able to communicate despite the language barrier.

Timothy said the mentor role is an important one.

"Kids are comfortable around people our age," he said. "They're comfortable with us because we're mentors, not teachers. We can make them laugh and give them one-on-one attention."

Almost peers
Mrs. Cromer agreed with Timothy's assessment. She said her students relate to the mentors because the mentors are teens. She has also found that her students who have mentors improve their oral language skills.

"They get to talk to a person one-on-one in English," she noted.

The elementary students also enjoy having mentors. One of the challenges is that it's hard to give each child a mentor because of class schedule conflicts. A child might have a mentor in first grade, but, because of the timing of special subjects in the classroom, they might not have a mentor in second grade.

"The kids who have had mentors are very disappointed if they don't have a mentor the next year," she Mrs. Cromer remarked. "They all want mentors."

(Editor's note: Sean Baldwin is the author's nephew.)

(12-24-09) [[In-content Ad]]