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By Corrina M. Jackson

Moving is never easy for a student. Moving to a place where few speak their language is harder. For some students in the Tri-Cities, this is an everyday challenge. Not only are these students attending classes to learn English, a foreign language to them, but all their classes are taught in English.

To ease the transition, several students from East Tennessee State University volunteer to tutor English language learners and help them achieve their academic goals. These students participate in a program called Hola! Tutoring, offered through the Language and Culture Resource Center at ETSU since 2004.

 Jorja Cummings is the service learning coordinator for the program. She is responsible for recruiting volunteers and assigning them to tutor one or sometimes two students.

The program serves school districts from Elizabethton to Kingsport to Greenville, working as a partner with the English as a Second Language programs in public schools to help students keep up with class work.     

“We try to give priority to older students,” Cummings said, “as they have more difficult work and less time to get it all done.”

Most volunteers are Spanish majors at ETSU, but others volunteer to complete the service-learning hours they need to graduate. All volunteers for Hola! must complete at least 10 hours of service.

Jimmy Graybeal, a senior Spanish major at ETSU, has been involved in service learning since he was a freshman. His first assignment was with a fourth-grade student named Moses. Graybeal said it was hard to understand some of the Spanish at first, but luckily, Moses was fairly fluent in English. 

“From the time when I first started until now, there has been a big improvement,” Graybeal said. “My Spanish is not perfect. Its needs a lot of work, but I am getting there.”

Graybeal currently works with a student in the Carter County School System. His pupil, Kevin, is a seventh-grader who moved back to the United States last year. Graybeal says they work on many subjects together, but mostly focus on English and math.

“Kevin is has really been improving over the past few weeks,” he said. 

This tutoring program not only helps the student receiving the tutoring, but also the volunteer tutor. 

When he talks to me, I am able to adjust my listening skills to better understand [him]. Plus I get to practice my Spanish by actually speaking,” Graybeal said. “So it helps me and it helps him.”

Taylor Hartley, a junior public relations major at ETSU, has volunteered for the program since January 2008. The first student she tutored was a second-grade boy from Mexico. Hartley said the boy could speak English and read it well, but he couldn’t comprehend what he was reading. He really missed his family and had not connected with anyone here. 

“Children are really out of their element here and like bonding with someone who can understand them,” Hartley said. “We read together and made up vocabulary lists for him to study. After a few sessions, he shared stories of his family and back home. We really got to know each other.”

The Hola! program as a whole has improved the progress of many students in the community who are not native English-speakers. Both the volunteers from ETSU and those who work directly with the students say they appreciate the hard work that goes into the program.

Dr. Chele Dugger, the English as a Second Language coordinator and teacher for Carter County, said that she is very pleased with the Hola! program. 

“It’s really a win-win situation. . . .We feel that when our students become proficient, they become proficient because it’s a team effort,” she said.

Volunteers agree. 

“It’s great just how the community comes together in different service learning projects like Hola! Tutoring" where volunteers actually come to the schools to help,” Graybeal said. “When it’s just English and no Spanish it’s difficult.”

“I think it is a worthwhile program,” Hartley said. “I get to interact with kids and put my knowledge to use instead of translating a paper on the computer.”