-Wright
During this past winter break from November 29 to December 17, Mikaela Buryj ’20 and Mayte Martinez ’18 participated in a collaboration between the Rassias Center at Dartmouth College and Union College where they taught English as International Assistant Teachers to students in both elementary and high schools in Beijing, China.
The Rassias Center describes itself as utilizing the Rassias Method which is “a unique approach that speeds language learning, increases language retention and has you speaking and understanding” the chosen language within ten days of intensive focus.
Dartmouth College William R. Kenan Professor of French and Italian John Rassias (1925-2015) developed this method for teaching languages while working with the Peace Corps in the 1960s and the program has since been adopted and utilized by Dartmouth and many other universities, colleges and schools across the world.
The Rassias Center selected Union College for this collaboration because of Union’s trimester schedule which allowed for students to travel to China during this specific time.
Buryj and Martinez were the only two accepted out of 22 applicants from Union. The group total that travelled to China included five undergraduates from Dartmouth, 11 Dartmouth post-graduates, Buryj and Martinez and two advisors of the group from Dartmouth, Donna Hill and Nando Ausin.
Buryj and Martinez arrived to Beijing on November 29, 2017 with selected Dartmouth students and were housed in both international dorms at Beijing University and in a nearby hotel during the time of their trip.
The group of 20 split into two groups of six Assistant Teachers (AT) and three Master Teachers (MT). Dartmouth post-graduates were named Master Teachers because of their more extensive expertise.
Every member of the group came from a different background but all successfully worked as a team to improve the ability of Chinese students to speak English.
These English teachers woke up around six a.m. every day and immediately went to the school that started around seven a.m. During the school day, members of the group would spend time with Chinese students in both elementary school and high school and would have three language intensive sessions for 40 minutes each during the day where the native English speaker would say a sentence in English and the Chinese students would repeat that sentence until it was without error.
The groups of students were rotated between the English teachers between each session. Buryj described how the the drills were the fundamental part of the teaching method and how “you could just see how fast the kids were learning.”
She emphasized how the process was “very intimate and fast” and how the students were very attentive, competitive to learn and driven. Buryj stated how a “little kid would get so excited that he would burst out crying.”
Many of these English teachers had no background in speaking Chinese but a translator was present to provide ease and fluidity to their experience.
Buryj described how “learning to work with so many people” was the most valuable lesson she gained from this experience. Buryj and Martinez intend to continue keeping in touch with their friends from Dartmouth who also took part in this program.
The Rassias Center holds Summer and Winter programs and plans to continue recruiting students from Union. The program is searching for 24 ATs for their coming Summer program and the deadline to apply is in late February. Thursday, February 22, 2018.
