When Marcos Garcia immigrated to the Unites States, he was a member of a very small population of new Salvadorian immigrants. Garcia experienced firsthand that new immigrants have limited resources available to them to help ease the transition.
As a result, Garcia set to work founding the Committee of Refugees from El Salvador (CORES) to help immigrants like himself with the challenges of acclimating to a new country, language, and culture.
The Somerville-based non-profit organization helps immigrants attain visas and complete related paperwork, in addition to offering English-as-a-second-language (ESL) classes. To date, CORES has come to the aid of tens of thousands of immigrants from El Salvador and other Latin American countries.
Tufts sophomores Bridget Kearney and Matt Malinowski became involved with Teach-in-CORES - the language class component of CORES - last year, in its first semester of development. When the then-sophomore coordinator was preparing to go abroad during this school year, Kearney and Malinowski stepped up to recruit other Tufts students to serve as teachers.
This semester, about 25 Tufts students are teachers. Working in pairs, the students are responsible for designing a presentation of the curriculum, coming up with homework assignments, and creating activities for the classes, which meet for two hours per week.
For freshman Laura Bannet, who volunteered as a teacher last semester, the most challenging part of the program was teaching students who spoke a different language. "[Sometimes] I could tell that [the students] had no idea what we were trying to say, no matter how many ways we tried to act it out, draw it, or explain it," she said.
"We're so used to being students, and being on the receiving end of things, [being] at the mercy of the teacher, who can make the class so wonderful and entertaining or so dry and dull," Bannet said. "We're always complaining [about] or praising our teachers. But now we are teachers."
CORES, Malinowski said, is an opportunity to put those critiques to good use.
Kearney agrees that her experiences as a student have helped shape her success as a teacher: "Because we are students right now, going through the same thing, we can understand the problems they have with [acquiring] all that knowledge," she said.
Though Malinowski tutored informally during high school, CORES was his first sustained teaching experience. "I always looked forward to [class each week]," he said. "Because the classes are small, we became really close to our students. It's really fun to watch [them] learn. With each passing week, they become more and more relaxed. Their confidence grows."
Bannett also enjoyed her time as a teacher, mentioning the students' "appreciation of our help" and their "self-motivation to learn."
A primary goal of the program is to "promote integration - mixing culture from the immigrants' homeland with the culture they find here," Malinowski said, adding that CORES helps immigrants to "meet and interact with Americans and get used to the culture in a [comfortable] environment."
This year, CORES has been revamped with the goal of introducing a more structured curriculum. An entrance exam has been added, and the students will be tested at the end of the semester to determine progress. But "the teachers still have a lot of room for creativity in their teaching," said Kearney, who added that students often come to class with questions about culture, as well as language.
In the future, Kearney would like to see the program move toward accreditation. "At some point, I'd like it to become more of a certification program; something that the students can write on a resume and have something that's a little more viable for being more professionally trained," she said.
Malinowski would like to explore the possibility of "bringing [CORES] students to campus, for perhaps an informal chat or discussion with Tufts students who may not even be part of the CORES program so that interaction isn't limited to the teachers."
He believes Tufts students would benefit from a greater "awareness about the country of El Salvador - its history, its culture, and also about issues facing the immigrants while they're coming to the Boston area and the greater New England area."
Kearney and Malinowski show no signs of slowing down. "There's still a lot we can do with [the program]," Kearney said.
After their involvement with CORES, Tufts students have found themselves prepared to take on new opportunities.
"The demand in East Asia for native English speakers to come teach English is huge - companies in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are all [seeking to] connect native English speakers with schools," said Malinowski, who spent several weeks in China teaching English this past summer. He said that CORES led him to that experience: "CORES inspired me to want to teach more."
Kearney has been equally satisfied with CORES. "We receive no monetary compensation," she said. "It's for self-satisfaction - that you can contribute, give back, and not just take."
"You have one-on-one communication [with the students you teach], and you are just watching these people take in everything that you give them, watching them grow," Kearney said. "As far as service projects go, this is the most rewarding and fun."
