Weekly Conversation Sessions Help English Language Learners Gain Fluency

During a recent gathering, four Bowdoin students pulled up chairs in a circle with Christine Tsala and another new Mainer named Junior. They began peppering the two with questions.

"What do you like to do for fun?" Grace Madden '25 asked, starting the conversation. "For example, I like walking."

Tsala answered that she also likes walking, and that she walks to her job at Mid Coast Hospital where she works as a cleaner.

Tsala has been in Maine for two years, arriving here after moving to Pennsylvania from Congo-Brazzaville in 2020. She said she is trying to improve her English to get a better job, ideally in social services, which was what she once did for work. In Congo-Brazzaville, she was a social worker who assisted people with disabilities.

As often as she can, Tsala said she meets with volunteers at the Welcome Center to gain greater fluency in the language. Her English reading and writing skills are stronger than her speaking skills, she added.

In the past two years, the nonprofit Immigrant Resource Center of Maine, which runs the Welcome Center in Brunswick, has boosted its language offerings for new arrivals to the state. The Center's mission is to help families and individuals become independent and integrated into the community, and English acquisition is a critical stepping-stone to this goal, its staff says.

This summer, Bowdoin partnered with the Immigrants Resource Center and the United Way of Mid Coast Maine to host a two-week English course taught by a Dartmouth University instructor who specializes in the Rassias method.

Two Bowdoin students-Avery Leisle '25 and Carolyne Sauda '27-assisted with the course, becoming familiar with the method. They now use the technique in their tutoring sessions at the Welcome Center, as well as teach it to other Bowdoin student volunteers.

Sauda first started working at the Welcome Center this summer, when she had a Maine Community Fellowship from the McKeen Center to intern with the Immigrants Resource Center. As a lifelong Mainer, she said she was curious about its immigrant population. "I hadn't interacted with them much, and I wanted to get to know my neighbors," she said.

Over the summer, she taught English lessons and aided people with their résumés and job applications. "I helped with a lot of Walmart and Hannaford [grocery] applications," she said. "The biggest reason they would get rejected is because of their English skills."

Leisle started volunteering at the Welcome Center last spring and continued working there over this summer. In addition to teaching English and supporting immigrants with job applications, she also pursued a research project. An anthropology major, she had a Riley Research Award from the department to conduct a study on how effectively the Immigrants Resource Center and its partner agencies are empowering immigrants.

Ultimately, she found that, while nonprofits and employers committed to helping and hiring immigrants do provide essential services, there are cultural and institutional obstacles preventing them from obtaining independence and stability within the two-year period when they are supported by government programs. "This is something that has to change at the policy level," she said. "Of course, grassroots work is important, but those efforts are Band-Aids. The real change has to come from the structure itself."

Going forward, Leisle will continue to volunteer at the Welcome Center, and she is interested in a career focused on immigration policy or human rights. "It is important to me to continue to be face-to-face with these people, because it fuels my desire to change things. If I ever go into legislation and politics, I want to continue to talk with and interact with migrants. Their voices should be heard."

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