A unique program for New American high school students takes root on campus
By Buff Lindau
On a warm August morning, a small cluster of local high school students hurried across campus, heading to class in St. Edmunds Hall to join approximately 40 of their classmates, all New Americans (immigrants or children of immigrants), for a full day of instruction in academic English.
Burlington and Winooski schools, like many others across the country, have seen a huge increase in the number of New American students who lack the English language skills necessary to succeed in pre-college academic subjects like physics and geometry. Victoria Orner, associate director of admission/multicultural student enrollment, felt these students could benefit from the language training offered for more than 50 years by Saint Michael’s English as a Second Language (ESL) programs. Together with Dan Evans, director of English language programs in the Applied Linguistics department, they teamed up with the Burlington School 
District to create a program to improve academic English combined with a College Awareness segment to show students that they could realistically aspire to college.
The program served 44 carefully selected high school students, mostly from Burlington High School, although others came from Rice High School, as well as the high schools in Essex and Colchester, Vermont. They focused on learning to read academic texts, thinking critically about the reading, handling new vocabulary and developing techniques for note-taking, test preparation and writing academic papers.
“There’s a certain English you need to get around,” Orner said, “but there’s another English you need to understand the Periodic Table, or algebraic or geometric concepts.”
Dan Evans directed the language skills portion of the program using a content-based teaching method focusing on American studies. “The professors love working with these kids and we all realize what a great opportunity we have to make a positive contribution to the local 
community in accordance to Saint Michael’s mission,” he said.
Most of the students in the program were born abroad; some are refugees from war-torn countries like Somalia and the Sudan. “They did not have college on their radar screens at all,” Orner said. Her weekly College Awareness sessions focused on the college application process and how to find funding for their education, and they spoke with alumni including Thato Ratsebe ’05 M’08, originally from Uganda and now an international services consultant, and Jerome Allen ’09, an IT professional at Saint Michael’s.
Many of these high school students serve as interpreters for their parents at the bank or with their landlord, and some provide childcare to other families in their community. Seven of the boys work 30 hours a week at Twincraft, a soap company in Winooski. “When I see a young man working that much and getting a B- average, I know he’s outstanding,” said Orner. She emphasized that these experiences should count on their college applications. I told them, “Life isn’t necessarily fair, but opportunities will come to you.”
