Service learning is a core requirement of the class this semester.

LEWISTON – Once a week 25-year-old Lewiston-Auburn College senior Leslie Brann shares a math book with a Somali teenager. The two pore over the text in the busy study hall at Lewiston High School, where the new immigrant is an English-as-a-Second-Language student. Brann tries to help her grasp basic math concepts, filtered through their substantial differences of culture and language.

Brann’s tutoring is part of a course in literacy studies taught by Associate Professor Eve Raimon. The course examines literacy theories – with an emphasis on cross-cultural issues – and includes related volunteer work in the community. Raimon is using service learning as a core requirement for her upper level literacy studies class this fall.

Along with studying theories of literacy and literacy practice, students are expected to spend a minimum of 90 minutes a week throughout the semester tutoring ESL students at Lewiston High School, most of whom are Somali teens.

While applying classroom theory and concepts to the real world, college students get a chance for practical application of language acquisition as well as cross-cultural approaches to literacy.

“The course asks students to negotiate the differences between the idealized conditions for literacy acquisition described in the theory and the everyday realities they face in the classroom,” Raimon said.

College student Mike Tardy of Sabattus is no stranger to the classroom. A non-traditional student, Tardy taught in Aroostook County schools about 25 years ago. He’s thinking about teaching again someday, and found the service learning requirement for Raimon’s literacy course a real draw.

“It’s an interesting concept,” he said. “It’s better than just reading books and writing papers, although we still have to do a lot of that, too.” He works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which allows him the time he needs for the service learning requirement.

ESL high school teacher Diane Malinski observed that, although there have been few new immigrant or refugee students this year, she “relies a lot on volunteers” to help her in class.

This is the second time professor Raimon has offered this class in partnership with Malinski, who said that most of the ESL students are now mainstreamed and speak conversational English well. She also noted that younger siblings who enter her classroom have already picked up some English and progress nicely through her program.

Brann, who lives in Lewiston, said she may never use her newfound tutoring skills after graduation. She plans to go into marketing. Still, she said, it is worth the extra work and patience to try something that may help others. “This would be good for anybody going into any career,” said Brann. “This has to do with being a human being.”