A Language Art
Written By Asia Howe
“The limits of your language are the limits of your world.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein
“I am a volunteer assistant in the language arts portion of the class,” senior Robert Lee states.
“I am helping monitor the students’ reading fluencies and [am] assisting in other language arts activities.” The Psychology and English double major and Education minor is not discussing a University of Hawaii at Hilo class, but a Waiakea Elementary School one. Although his packed schedule prevents him from donating copious amounts of his time, the active student manages to volunteer with a fourth grade class every Wednesday for an hour and a half.
When asked what his volunteer work consists of, Lee asserts, “I am mostly in charge of progress monitoring a class of students. This is basically listening to [a] student read for a minute and marking any mistakes that qualify ([i.e.] saying the wrong word or skipping a word). After they are done reading, I count the words they read minus the mistakes and record the number. I also help in group activities that pertain to language arts, such as reading a passage and asking
text-dependent questions to see what [was] actually comprehended.”
In regard to supervision, while the senior is overseen by Ms. Silva most of the time, overall, he is expected to be independent and self-directed. “This is the “lab” portion of an education class, [so] really [there] is no supervision other than Ms. Silva, but that is done occasionally, since she is busy teaching a class. It [Lee’s work] is more about self-monitoring and regulation, but we did have training about the dos and don’ts inside the classroom,” said Lee. In regard to the education class Lee mentioned, he maintains, “I decided to take the class because I knew it would help me better understand how children learn, comprehend language and develop literacy.”
UH Hilo Senior and volunteer, Robert Lee. Photo courtesy of Robert Lee.
Even though the senior primarily applies what he learned from education courses he has attended and is currently attending, he has drawn on knowledge from other courses as well. “I [have] used a little bit of developmental psychology from two semesters ago,” Lee admits, “along with a little bit of psychology I learned from a few classes.” As for the knowledge he has gained though his work, he states, “It [Lee’s work] is about gaining a better understanding of the topics that we are learning in [the education] class. It is one thing to read about techniques to improve fluency, but actually using the technique and seeing how effective it really is actually helps me understand the concepts a lot better.”
“I always knew I wanted to be a teacher since middle school,” Lee replies when asked how his work has impacted his thoughts about his future. “The problem was which area. I had my heart set on middle school, where the kids are slightly more mature and I can focus on one area not the whole gauntlet of major subjects. After a few volunteer experiences with elementary school children, my heart still seems geared more towards high school and middle school. After this experience, [however], I think that I may be interested in teaching elementary school.”
Students looking to volunteer may browse the Campus and Community Services Division of Student Affairs webpage on service learning.
