ILP Service club reqaches out to children in Russia, China
Many students fantasize about traveling abroad. However, through the International Language Program (ILP), they have the opportunity to both travel to a foreign country and gain valuable experience teaching English as a second language.
ILP is headquartered in Provo and provides students the opportunity to teach English as a second language to children in both Russia and China.
Anyone can apply, said Autumn Flint, president of Utah State University’s ILP Service Club.
The program offers four- and five-month programs in Russia and China.
Once a volunteer arrives in the country, he or she lives with a host family and teaches English three to five days a week, three to five hours a day, Flint said.
“They really take good care of you. It was the most amazing experience of my life,” Flint said.
Flint returned Dec. 20 from Russia after spending Fall Semester teaching children English.
The program places teachers with students in one of two age-groups – 3- to 6-year-olds and 6- to 14-year-olds.
Volunteers are often concerned that they don’t know the language of the country they’ll be living in, but it’s not necessary, and teachers in the program have the opportunity to learn the language of the country Flint said.
“Probably 80 percent of the teachers do not know the language,” said Marianne Harris, who volunteered to teach in China in 1996 from July to December.
A few times a week, teachers can meet with a native speaker and learn the country’s language as a second language.
The rest of the time, they’re using a specific method to teach English to the children, Harris said.
Students are taught English through interaction, including various activities with the children and playing with the children. The children progress in English speaking through constant communication with the teachers.
The children become functionally fluent in the language, Harris said.
“There’s a difference between education and schooling. Education is born of experience, and schooling is born of books,” Harris said.
The teachers learn lessons of their own from the experience – more than any schooling could offer, Harris said.
“If you want an education, volunteer your time,” she said.
The program provides an experience tourists often don’t get. After participating in the program, Harris said, “I could never go to a country and be a tourist.”
USU’s ILP Service looks forward to some upcoming events. The club will help with a tutoring program. It wants to help Spanish children who speak English as a second language, Flint said.
The second event will be a fund raiser to help the Family Life department earn money to help buy books for children in South Africa.
About 100 people are signed up with the ILP Service Club. Anyone interested in participating can call Flint at 753-2443.