Located in the MacKechnie building on campus is the ELS (English as a Second Language) center. Students from around the world come to this center to learn and practice the English language. This past week at 2:00 p.m. I stopped by the language center to be a part of their Easter egg coloring event.
The room was filled with foreign students stumbling on their words with the English native speakers. Topics of discussion included favorite movies and the Easter bunny, a concept many of them did not understand. Valentina Hernandez, 17, has been at the ELS center since January. Already she is able to speak a great deal of English. She laughed at the eggs being colored in the classroom. “We don’t do this in Venezuela,” she said. “We go to the beach.” She said she didn’t know what the Easter bunny had to do with the holiday. It was a bit of a culture shock for her.
Rashed Almannaei, 21, has been at the ELS center for one month. He said he’s attending the language center because he wants to study finance and economics for his graduate degree and in order to that he needs to improve his English. “My favorite class is vocabulary with Julie,” he said. “It’s fun; we do a lot of activities.” He said he plans to open his own business in his home country Bahrain.
Ayse Gokce, 24, from Turkey was talking with the other students about their favorite films. They asked her what her favorite film was and she announced a foreign title that made everyone at her table turn their heads sideways. She laughed, looked around and finally said, “Okay my favorite movie is Forrest Gump, is that good?”
They all have unique accents, some strong, some not so much, but they all share the desire to learn a new language in a new country so they can attend the University of Tampa. Once they make it past the advanced level courses, they are admitted to UT (if they apply). The egg coloring event was one more way for them to use English outside of the classroom, so they can get one step closer to that end goal of a college degree.
Kelly St.Onge can be reached at kelly.st.onge@theminaretonline.com.
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