Service Learning Paper

Comm 2150

Cade Roemmich

My Community Partner:

For my Project I worked with The English as a second language department at Salt

Lake Community College. I worked with Teresa Stillo Ramirez. She is a professor and I

worked with her class.

Contact Information:

Phone Number: 801-957-4327,

Address: 4600 South Redwood Road Salt Lake City, UT 84123

Technology Building 1st Floor Room 123

Project:

The English as a second language department at Salt Lake Community College is a

course for students who are from different backgrounds most of the time being

different countries. They come here for all types of reasons, but this allows them to

have a chance to learn English. My service to them was helping them with whatever

they were covering at that time in the class. Most of the time I was there during

reading time. During this we would practice vocabulary words, placing them where
they should go and learning new ones. This also included conjugating verbs correctly.

We would also work on a lot of comprehension so a lot of the time I would help them

write about and understand what we were reading. I also helped with spelling and

grammar as well. I worked with students from multiple different countries. They were

anywhere from 18-50 years old. They all had a basic understanding of English and

some spoke really well.

Culture Group:

All of the people that I worked with were College students. Male and Females. They

were anywhere from 18-50 years old and they were all from different countries,

including Cambodia, Colombia, Sudan,Tanzania, Brazil, and Mexico. A lot of these

students were refugees and some were here as immigrants. Most of the older group

came here to start better lives for their families. Some of these students are the

children of those who fled here to find better lives. The Students come from all

different religious backgrounds such as Catholic, Muslim and LDS. Some students

upon arrival here have converted to another religion. Some of these students are

married and have kids. Some of them are just married. One has even gone through a

tough divorce which led to the deportation of his ex-wife. All these students are

bilingual. Speaking multiple different languages such as; Spanish, Italian, Arabic,

French, Chinese, Portuguese, and Cambodian. Each of these students were very

different from the next making this a great learning experience.

Challenges:

I faced multiple challenges during this project. I just returned home from Russia and

there I studied Russian. Before I went to Russia I was never very confident in my

English abilities and after Russia I was sure they had only gotten worse, so I was

nervous to have the responsibility of teaching English. The hardest part of this project

was definitely the language barrier. I worked a lot with students on vocabulary and

trying to explain new words to them was very difficult. In order to explain the new word

I had to try to explain it using words that they already knew which was challenging to

find out. If that did not work the first few times we would have to use a translator

sometimes.

Another hard part was that one of the students I was working with was from Africa. He

was a very independent person and did not respond well to help. He would ask a

question and after I responded he would sit there for up to a couple minutes

sometimes thinking about it. This required a lot of patience and also required me to

really try hard to help him. After the first few encounters with him we became really

good friends. Another thing that was very challenging was the fact that these students

thought that I had the answer to every question. Sometimes they would ask me certain

things that I could not explain. This was very frustrating for them. Overall this project

was challenging, but it also really stretched me and I felt very rewarded from my

experiences by the end of it.

Theory:

One of the Theories that we learned about this semester is the face-negotiation. Face

negotiation was developed by Stella Ting-Toomey. Ting-Toomey sees face as

symbolic and as a claimed sense of self-respect in a relational situation. Face is a

universal phenomenon because everyone would like to be respected; everyone needs

a sense of self-respect. But how we manage the strategies in maintaining, saving, or

honoring ones face differs across cultures.(Phillips, 2017, p.95).

There are four ways that people in a culture use this theory (Phillips, 2017, p.96):

1. Face-saving: This is the practice of protecting someone elses face first.

2. Face-giving: This is the practice of protecting anothers need for inclusion.

3. Face-restoration: Protecting your own face first.

4. Face-assertion: Protecting your own need for inclusion.

The way people use these strategies is based upon their culture being individualistic or

collectivist. Individualistic cultures focus on the I aspect while collectivist cultures

focus on the we aspect of life. (Phillips, 2017, p.95). The face negotiation theory also

covers conflict. Ting Toomey also applied High context cultures to low context cultures

to this theory.
There are five different types of negotiating styles for this as well given to us in our

course packet: (Phillips, 2017, p.46).

1. Obliging Style: This is a lose/win situation where a person gives in to the

demands of others.

2. Avoiding Style: A lose/lose situation where the conflict is never confronted, but

rather stepped around or withdrew from.

3. Compromising Style: A lose/lose- win/win situation where each individual gives

up something to find a common ground to agree upon.

4. Dominating Style: A win/lose situation where someone achieves their goal at

the expense of anothers needs.

5. Integrating Style: A win/win situation where both individuals discuss a solution

that is agreeable to both.

Analysis:

As I applied this theory to my project I remembered specific examples of me using or

seeing these concepts in action. First there was one class where I was helping a

student correct her sentences. After I helped her correct them, she had the teacher

check them off and one was still wrong. One question that we had spent quite a bit of

time on and I was certain I was right. When she came back and told me they were

wrong, I definitely applied face-restoration and quickly tried to fix my mistake and told

her that I forgot a specific rule with spelling. I was quick to save my own face instead
of letting the student think I did not know what I was talking about. Another time I

applied this theory is when I saw an argument break out between two female students.

One being from Sudan and one being from Brazil. The Brazilian lady kept trying to

argue and confront the women from Sudan. The women from Sudan however, kept

asking her to keep to herself and to stop talking to her. I saw that the lady from Brazil

seemed like she was from a high context culture trying to dominate the conflict, while

the lady from Sudan was from a low context culture and was trying to avoid the

conflict. The last example I saw in this class was a lot of face-saving. Students were

constantly sticking up for each other when they got something wrong. Especially when

a student was explaining an idea correctly, but their English was poor and the teacher

did not understand the message. For example; One day a student from Colombia was

trying to say what he thought about a certain passage we read. His answer was

correct but the way he worded it made it seem incorrect. Quickly as the teacher began

to say that he was wrong his friend from Mexico jumped in and explained it better than

he could. It was very interesting to see that happen as I learned more about this

theory. I try to apply it everyday to every situation because it is very interesting to me.

Reflection:

At the beginning of the semester I was not very excited for this project. I did not want

to find the time to do it and it just sounded like a lot of work to me. I even put it off for

the first couple weeks. I loved learning about other cultures and that is what made me
the most interested and kind of gave me the desire to start my project. I learned a lot

about the Students who come from other countries and study English. They are very

dedicated to learning the language and very motivated as well. As I applied the theory

to my project as well it helped me to understand their upbringing and culture better as

well. It really helped me break it down and think about them. My definition of civic

engagement at the beginning of the semester was being involved in the society you

live in and helping when you can. I would say that it has changed in the fact of how I

want to apply being engaged now. I want to try to be more patient for those learning

English and make sure to compliment them when I do speak to them throughout the

day to help them feel better and learn quicker. It was a very rewarding experience for

me. Even though I do not feel like I made a huge change in anyones life I do feel like I

used my time very well and for the sake of helping other people. It feels good to know

that I was able to do something very productive this semester that allowed me to meet

new people and help them as well.

 References:

Phillips, T. K. (n.d.). Intercultural Communications Course Packet. P. 46, 95-96