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Asian Students
Experience Their Roots Through ELTAP
by Tom Laventure - from the Asian American Press
The University of Minnesota - Morris has developed a travel study experience that is something more than a tourist visit, and just short of Peace Corp commitment. The English Language Teaching Assistant Program (ELTAP) offers undergraduates, graduate students, and other adults, whose language is English, the opportunity to assist teachers of English in high schools and post-secondary institutions in other countries.
ELTAP is a low cost international experience that offers all participants the opportunity to work together, expand their ability to communicate with each other, and increase their understanding of each other's culture. In fact, for less cost than the traditional two-week academic trips, a student can actually live and teach in a community for up to eleven weeks.
"Your getting the education and your getting the self-fulfilling elements too," said Lue Her, UM-Morris graduate and past ELTAP-Laos participant. "I have heard of many folks my age (early 20s) wanting to go back and trying to find an opportunity where they won't just be buying plane tickets, going over there by themselves, getting off the plane and not knowing anyone. With ELTAP we have folks who will meet you, are going to take care of you and going to see to it that your going to be OK over here, and get you back.
Most importantly, there is purpose to the visit. There is more to a real teaching experience with youth, a local family living arrangement, than would be gained from the whirlwind tour of local monuments and a class session or two with the local university.
"I spent 12 weeks in Thailand four years ago and I returned to Thailand and Laos with a group last summer," said Her. "People still remembered my presence there, and went out of there way to take care of me because of the relationships that we have over there. It is a different culture and they take life a little differently than we do in the U.S."
The Lao and Thai people remembered Her four years after his first brief visit. On his second visit he was taken to the remote mountain area where his parents were raised. He was moved when all of the area Hmong came to see him, each wanted to spend time with him as a house guest.
Her was able to visit the places his parents told him about while teaching. He grew up hearing about Vang Vien, Laos and Ko Samui and Khon Kaen, Thailand, where people emigrated to America.
"It was much more open than I thought it would be," he said. "I thought the presence of the military would be greater but it really wasn't."
ELTAP is offered by the College of Continuing Education at the University of Minnesota, Morris, Placements are available from June 1 to Sept 30 for countries in the Northern Hemisphere, and from Nov 1 to March 1, for countries in the Southern Hemisphere. Placements are for a minimum of four and maximum of eleven weeks.
ELTAP participants share their knowledge of English with teachers of English and students three to four class sessions each school day in exchange for the opportunity to live in a national and cultural setting that is different from their own.
Craig Kissock, professor and chair, UM-Morris Dept of Education, and Study Abroad Program Director, said that fulltime students and special adult students often spend several thousand dollars to seek a rewarding overseas college experience through a university. The study tours may be preferable to a vacation visit, however, ELTAP can offer something very enriching.
Kissock said that for approximately $4,000., ELTAP can be an experience to live and work with people in their home town for a month to eleven weeks. ELTAP students choose from several locations, including the most remote areas of Laos and Vietnam.
"The goal is to expand the students ability to communicate with diverse peoples and increase cultural understanding through assisting teachers of English in another country, through the English Language Assistant Program (ELTAP)," said Kissock. "ELTAP is open to students or graduates of any university. It is offered by the College of Continuing Education at the University of Minnesota - Morris."
A goal of ELTAP is to help people travel to places they would not normally get to. For college students in the U.S.A. it is easy to think of going to Europe, but travel to Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe (including Russia), and South America is often considered too difficult. We encourage students to travel to places that are less familiar and to find, through our network of friends and colleagues, that there is much to see and learn in every area of the world. The premise, that once you have been to a place you will want to return, applies to all of the locations we use.
Her was always hearing about Laos and only dreamed that he would ever see the country of his ancestors. He was aware that some people disapprove of such a visit, but jumped at the chance to with an academic program that is not connected to the political tensions that exist.
As an American who grew up in Minnesota, Her only heard the stories of the lush green hills and mountains.
"That was to me the most spiritual experience that I have ever had in my life," he said. "You remember those things, you go and you see those things, and you connect the stories that your folks talked about with an actual place, an actual experience, and an actual feeling."
He said regardless of the argument of not going there, young people need to have the opportunity to see what it was all about, connecting with their roots, and not going over to teach ideology and become caught up in politics.
"I grew up hearing about the morning market at the center of Yin Chen," he said. "Finally I was there meeting and talking to folks and we didn't talk about politics or economics, we talked about how people were, what they were up to and how things worked for them there."
I want to see where my folks lived and where my relatives live now. I had never seen my relatives and to be able to say to the driver we need to go there, though the mud and to the huts, was an eye opener and an experience worth a thousand stories.
Her said that kids have an identity crisis here, partly from growing up in immigrant families where they do not understand the parents experience, and a cultural separation from the American culture that has not yet fully incorporated the Asian values and experience.
Her encourages Hmong, Lao and Thai people who
are too young to recall their homeland vividly, to travel their
using the ELTAP experience. He said the one way to appreciate how
their parents lived and worked, what they do not miss, and more
importantly, what they do long for, the closeness of the village
life they knew for generations. To spend a month performing the
labor intensive agrarian work and living in agrarian communities,
will fill the void that is missing in peoples lives.
Hmong American youth and adults may visit the Lao Capitol of Vientiane,
for a first hand opportunity to stand in the places of the stories
their parents told them about.
To really get the feel of Hmong culture, students are placed in Chang Mai Thailand, a near two hour flight from Bankgkok, (and much longer by road), to live the Hmong village community life and learn Hmong-Thai culture.
Students work with a small hilltribe community through Doi Doi, the village primary school, set among the mountains overlooking modern Chang Mai. Work with kids who have nothing, and the luxury is a bottle of soda pop that comes around now and then.
When Her traveled to the remote areas off of the main road, he saw the rugged nature of going without. He was always given dinner, even by people with no electricity and running water. He said the familial nature and sense of responsibility to people extends to strangers who are offered a place to sleep, eat and socialize.
"My aunt looked probably twice here age
just because of the ruthless lifestyle of working the fields and
living off of every harvest that they have," he said. "...My
parents told me how life was in Laos and we had to work hard for
what we had.
The Hmong that he met were afraid that they would not be able to
communicate because their perception was that American Hmong were
long removed from their culture. It is a "reality boost"
for both native and American Hmong.
"The community is tighter there," he said. "...It is much stronger there because it has to be to survive. A hundred acres requires a whole families labor, there is not combine."
"My first experience in Thailand was that they had a sense of responsibility towards me as they would toward a family member," he said. "They went out of their way to make sure our needs were taken care of, and that we didn't eat the wrong foods, and other very genuine efforts that show how they depend on each other much more than we do here."
He understood how the children (12 and 13) were following the model of their parents, as they were the only role models. They grow up fast, marry and start families young, life is different.
"Indirectly you build a relationship that is not very high profile, or a political relationship," he said. "You build relationships that are very down to earth, and relationships that regardless of how the world changes will always be there."
Contact ELTAP at 320-589-6400, or visit them online.
Last modified on August 14, 2009 |