Sitting in a circle, it seemed as though four edges of the world had come together for an intimate and enlightening conversation. At least this is how it felt for Alexandria Ricker, a Lecturer in the Intensive English Program here at Georgia State.
As she sat with three of her students, they discussed their experiences as foreign students in America, and Ricker discovered a side of them that she had never known before.
She learned that they were not just being taught a language—they were learning how to understand and make parallels between the culture that they grew up in, and the life that were learning to adjust to in America.
“Not only are they individuals, they each come with like this cultural package,” Ricker said.
Every week in a small room in Sparks Hall, Ricker works with 36 international students teaching them how to understand, speak and apply English as an American Student would.
“We’re an English for academic purposes program,” Ricker said. “So, it’s less functional and more academic to prepare these students to go to universities like [other students] do.”
However, each student has a different testimony of what their experience has been like.
The American Experience
For Christina Galati, an Italian student in the IEP program, the move to America has been a huge and sometimes frustrating adjustment. Back home in Italy, she was an established woman with a bachelors degree and ten years of physical therapy experience under her belt. However, in America none of that mattered. She had to start from scratch in an undergraduate program.
Adding to this, Galati used to experience difficulty with communication because people in America were not always patient with her.
“I go to a university and I can write a whole paper on the second amendment, but when I go to a restaurant they do not understand me,” Galati, recalling her first time in America, said. “It makes you angry… I came home and I started crying. It [was] very frustrating.”
The culture in America was also very shocking to Galati.
“From a psychological perspective it’s shocking. I know something about American culture, but to start at a university and to live in a different culture is completely different,” Galati said. “You can’t behave as you do in your country because we are strangers. So, you can’t understand me.”
Waleed Abdulnasser, a student from Saudi Arabia said he felt he was unprepared when he arrived to America.
“I started to learn English in my country [in] high school, but my high school didn’t teach very good English,” Abdulnasser said. “So when I came here, I felt like I didn’t learn anything in my country.”
Abdulnasser moved to America a year and a half ago, and there are still some things that he is adjusting to in American culture. In Saudi Arabia women had to be fully covered and the gender roles were different. So, he was very culture shocked when he first came here.
He has also learned to understand slang and the southern accent.
“I started to love the Georgia accent,” Abdulnasser said, “My first time coming here in the airport…[I told them] I wanted to go to ‘At-lan-ta’ and they said ‘oh you mean At-lanna’.”
He appreciated the relaxed manner of speech often used in America versus the more controlled and proper speech used overseas.
Isabel Fatima Conceicao Lei, a student from East Timor, also found American culture suprizing.
“One thing that I find shocking is that, in my country teachers want to see their students behave good. Here it is different. I can call teachers just their names.”
She referred to the different levels of respect that people show to their elders and professors here.
Lei moved to America two months ago and said that besides the language barrier, life in the city has been one of the biggest adjustments that she had to get used to.
“It’s quiet in my country, very quiet, and people know each other,” Lei said.
The fast paced and noisy characteristics of Atlanta were something that Lei learned to get accustomed to.
Life in the Classroom
According to Ricker, when students enter the IEP program, they are generally not ready to apply to a University in America because they do not completely understand the language yet.
“When you teach a language, you make sure that you try to teach reading skills, listening skills, writing skills, and speaking skills,” Ricker said. “We teach in a way that is communicative. So, we want [the students] to constantly be challenging themselves, constantly be working in pairs, coming up with their own ideas, thinking critically and doing this all in their second language, [English].”
Keeping a very open and community based environment in the classroom was important to Ricker because the program can be very intense and she wanted her students to have the maximum amount of support.
The program is broken up in to five levels that are completed in five semesters, and as each level increases so does the intensity, which is challenging for some students.
“There are times when I say, ‘Alex, I have problems with my writing. I cannot pass in level 3, please keep me in level 3,” Lei, said.
Christina Galati, a student from Italy, also opted to be placed in level three even though she tested into level four.
Nonetheless, they both ensured that the difficulty was a good thing because it helped them to grow and they were able to get past it.
The end reward
At the end of the IEP program, students either apply to a university in America, or they return home to their mother countries to utilize their skills there.
“Some people want to go back home, and some people are learning English for work. So, they take that back with them,” Ricker said.
Lei is one of those students.
“For me, my plan is to study, and then when I finish, I have to go back to my country and work with my government,” Lei said. “I want to contribute my experience and my learning in here to teach them.”
Other students, like Abdulnasser, intend to go to a university in America.
Beyond the adjustments and challenges that these students, as well as lecturers face, they all agree that the IEP program has been one of the best experiences that they have had.
“I get an international perspective and an international check on my perspective every day from a tiny classroom in Sparks [Hall],” Ricker said. “So, I’m really lucky to be exposed to 36 different cultures every week.”
Lei also expressed how much she loved and appreciated the IEP program.
“For me, it is my Nobel Prize to get to study English and learn more about the culture,” Lei said. “I meet a lot of people [from all over the world], and we communicate and we share together. It’s like my Nobel Prize.”
