Learning through volunteer services

Ashley Han, a 10th grade student of Chadwick International in Songdo, Incheon, decorates snacks with a child as part of a volunteer program at Dongshimwon, a rehabilitation facility for disabled children in the western port city in February. The "Service Learning" program encourages Chadwick students to get involved in community services so that they can "learn beyond the classroom." / Courtesy of Chadwick International

Chadwick International students go beyond classroom

By Bahk Eun-ji

Students of Chadwick International, a K-12 school in the Songdo International Business District located 50 kilometers from Seoul, have been participating in community services as a way of complementing what they learn inside the classroom, through a special program called Service Learning.

"The program Service Learning encourages the students to get involved in their communities through volunteer work and community services that extend the students' learning beyond the classroom and into the community," said Cha Min-joo, the director of service learning at Chadwick International.

The program has eleven activities including health care training, tideland cleaning and English dramas.

As part of the English reading and mentoring activity, the students act as mentors for elementary school children in Yeonsu-gu, Incheon by teaching reading skills. It is by far the most popular activity for Chadwick's students.

The school collaborates with the Songdo International Children's Library and Dongchoon Community Centers 1, 2 and 3 in Incheon for the program, which is open to all elementary school children in Incheon in the first to fourth grades.

"In the reading and mentoring activity, Chadwick students in grades 9 to 10 serve as mentors and elementary school pupils as mentees," Cha said.

In addition to reading English books to the elementary school children, the Chadwick students also act as big brothers or sisters to them.

"Of course, there are foreign teachers who can do this work out there, but the children feel more comfortable with our students because they are just like older siblings. In addition to reading books with the correct pronunciation of words, our students also nurture the children's social skills by communicating with them."

Since the program started in September 2012, the children have been reading books on different subjects every week. For example, they read stories about Valentines' Day on Feb. 12 and made greeting cards together. The activity also encourages the children to discuss what they read.

"We do various activities related to the subjects of the books we're reading, but they have to be fun. You know, it is not an obligatory type of studying such as tutoring or ‘hagwon,' but rather one where children are learning and having fun at the same time," the director added.

Chadwick's students are also enjoying the helping the younger children and say the mentoring activity helps them develop both personally and academically.

"Academically, it allowed me to reflect and change how I communicate and deal with children. As a debater, I am always concerned about whether I conveyed my arguments effectively to the audience or if I helped them understand my logic," said Chae Su-weon, a 10th grader at Chadwick International one of the program's mentors.

Chae thinks children are the hardest audience for debaters since they sometimes cannot understand even simple English sentences. The English reading and mentoring activity, in that sense, helped improve her own speaking skills because he tries to speak in a way that's clear and easy to understand for the young listeners.

"Personally, it gave me a chance to look back on my own behavior as a child. This activity gave me a good understanding of how teachers feel when they teach students," he said.

Chae, who has been a mentor for six months, said his experience with learning the English language when she was young motivated him to join the activity.

"When I was in the second grade, I couldn't even memorize the alphabet, so people always thought I was not going to learn even basic English," Chae said.

The difficulties he experienced in learning English motivated him to help younger children see it as something achievable rather than intimidating. To this end, Chae tries to read and explain the books to the children until they fully understand the topics while having fun at the same time.

He considers the children's interests above other factors when choosing what books to read to them.

"I found that no one can force children to read if they don't like the topic. My colleagues and I try to find the most interesting books or subjects to make the children focus," Chae said.

One day, he and his fellow mentors picked books about Martin Luther King, Jr., a leader of the African-American civil rights movement, and posed the following question to the younger children: "Do you think there is superior ethnic group?" The mentors were surprised that the children thought white people are superior to others for many reasons.

By choosing books about Martin Luther King, Jr., they offered the children an opportunity to think about and discuss racism.

"After the session ended, the children admitted that they changed their minds about racism and overcame the bias," the director added.

Through his mentoring experience, Chae learned something about mastering English as well.

"Studying abroad is not the only way to improve one's English proficiency. I think there are two kinds of English — conversational and academic. Conversational English cannot be learned by studying. It needs to be observed, heard and followed," Chae said.

He thinks this is where every parent disagrees, but he found that watching movies and following the characters' pronunciation can have the same profound effect on the children as any other experience abroad.

"For academic English, there is only one way to learn: read a large number of novels that match each child's reading level. However, if the child is not interested in the topic, this method would be time consuming and inefficient." he said.