Wiles

David Wiles Professor Farnsworth HLTH 1110 3/25/2014 Personal Service Reflection Draft The need for more willing hands to serve those who are learning English in the United States has become a growing necessity. As a student of Salt Lake Community College in Utah, I am currently attending a social health and justice class that is allowing me to find an opportunity to serve individuals who come from a different country, and have decided to learn English in order to enhance his or her ability to communicate. In my opinion, this has become more of a requirement in the eyes of native English speakers in America. While serving English language learners in Utah, I have come to believe that these individuals are struggling with the language for more than one reason. The original opinion I had was that most of these individuals are having struggles with learning simply because he or she had an unfortunately small amount of education in his or her home country. However, with much observation and thought, I have come to believe that this is only a small part of a larger issue that is currently at hand. I have also noticed that there are some people who have decided to become angry while learning the English language due to a feeling of being forced to do so by Americans. As a white male, I was raised within an environment of expectation, which caused me to immediately expect an individual from another country to learn English because he needed to, or because he is in America now. The service I am currently providing has caused me to recognize that these so called, expectations do not provide the correct way of thinking towards an individual who is new to the English language. The more correct reasoning for

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learning English, in my opinion, should be that these new dwellers in America should learn English simply out of desire, and because it appears to be the dominant language in most parts of America and would prove most useful in the pursuit of certain careers such as business, the medical field, and even transportation. One of the challenging parts of serving the English language learning group in Utah would be trying to teach the language with hardly any materials such as scrap paper, flash cards, and pencils. This is apparently due to lack of educational funding. I have come to understanding that giving a learner certain visuals while teaching, for example, showing the individual a picture of a dinner table while pronouncing the word aloud, would increase the effectiveness of knowledge retention, as well as memory storage quality. I now believe that the lack of educational funds is one of the primary causes for the newer Americans not being able to more fully comprehend the English language. The other challenge was having a lot of the learners ask me to do certain things for them because I speak fluent English, for example, calling an airline to purchase tickets over the phone, go to the bank and help someone apply for a mortgage, and call multiple universities in another state to ask questions about the curriculums. My first reaction was to help all of these people, but I believe that it would be a disservice to them if I were to do all of these things for them. The struggle was finding balance with when to help, and when to let these individuals learn from daily tasks. The rewarding aspect of teaching English has been learning the different cultures, while teaching about my own. My desire is to show English language learners that not all Americans are expecting them to learn the language, but there will be much help for them if they do wish to learn. I have also become good friends with some of the learners from South America, China, and Korea.

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The question that I have had most difficulty with answering is, how did my service affect my community? I feel that my service to others in this English language learning program has helped these learning groups to feel more comfortable being in the United States. Most of the people I would converse with in the class informed me that they are alone her in the U.S. Most, if not all of their family members are still residing in another country. To be more specific on the matter, I feel that this particular group of English language learners currently attending courses in Salt Lake Community College is in great need of help due to the majority of these individuals being at a very young age. Some of the learners are 18 years of age, which means they are already being mistreated due to hardly being considered adults. The learners have really opened up to me because I treat them with respect and like any other normal person, which has allowed my new friends to feel as though they can enjoy being around the American culture. During the final hours of this project, I did learn the importance of having local volunteers to help these wonderful people. I live in Springville, Utah, which is about one hour away from Salt Community College campus, which has made it very difficult for me to attend the classes. However, I do strongly believe that what I did during my service was well worth the driving, as well as the effort. Every day when I walk into the building where the English classes are held, I am greeted as a friend and as an equal. I believe that my service provided in this project may have helped to plant a seed in these learners to serve others as well.