UMKC Students Share Stories about their Homes: ALI Service Learning

Since fall of 2021, the Applied Language Institute has been encouraging students to go out into the Kansas City community and practice their English through service. Collectively, among staff, students and faculty, the ALI has completed over 600 hours of community service at various organizations.  Some of those organizations are Harvesters, Pet Resource Center of Kansas City, Nourish KC, and many others. You can read about several of these organizations on our website.

Last semester, we took a different approach to our service learning. This spring, students first took a “fieldtrip” to the public library nearest Volker campus, where they were introduced to community resources we hope they take advantage of, including library cards. We encouraged them to look for stories and nonfiction picture books about their home countries from the children’s book section. They were then instructed to check out their materials to practice their reading comprehension and speaking skills both in and out of the classroom as the semester went on.

This trip was planned with the intention of our students volunteering their time to present and read books on their home countries. Our students spent time in class, with the help of their instructors, preparing PowerPoints and practicing reading out-loud. In April, they were ready to read to grade-school level children at Académie Lafayette and to families at UMKC’s during Take Your Child to Work Day. 

Last semester our students represented 15 different countries, so all of their presentations were vastly different and extremely informative on their cuisine, traditions, and lives at home. Our staff and faculty chaperoned the visits to Académie Lafayette, where students read to classrooms of various ages. Académie Lafayette is a French-immersive charter school in Kansas City, that focuses on educating children to be globally minded. Thus, organizing this opportunity was beneficial to both the elementary students’ educations, and the English language education of our international Roos.

The children at Académie Lafayette were all very excited and mesmerized by the presentations our students delivered, and very eager to thrust their small arms in the air to ask a question, many of them squirming in anticipation.

One of our students, Jira, presented on Thailand, telling the children about Songkran (Thailand’s water festival marking the traditional Thai new year), elephants, and short phrases in Thai that the children happily repeated back!

By the end of her presentation and readings, the children could not stay in their seats anymore, enamored with the stories she was sharing and wanting to demonstrate their affections to her. Jira, and all our other students, were enthusiastically received by these classrooms and educators.

It was very refreshing to see our students so warmly welcomed into these classrooms, and we look forward to future opportunities this fall for our students to practice their English language skills, but also share their stories with children and open up their worlds just a bit more.

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Service-learning last semester clearly looked very unique, and we realized another opportunity to read to children takes place on our very own campus—UMKC’s Take Your Child to Work Day. Staff and faculty of the university bring their children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, etc. to explore UMKC and immerse them in a university environment on this fun day. Departments all across the university host various activities and presentations, often supported by the students enrolled in programs of these departments. It is a day full of learning experiences. 

So, accordingly, we signed our department up to host a reading room during the day. Our staff brought in hordes of children’s books—borrowed from libraries and from their own collections—on many countries, cultures, and global topics. We created a quiet and cozy space for families with children to escape from the chaos of a busy day of activities, and read with their kids. We also kept to a brief schedule of read-alouds for more of our students to give the presentations they worked diligently on. 

During Take Your Child to Work Day, our Intensive English Program students presented on Venezuela, France, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and Mali. Again, they shared their cultural cuisine and traditions with children and their guardians, and happily replied to the curious questions kids had for them. We hope to participate in UMKC’s next Take Your Child to Work Day, as it is a great opportunity for families to learn about worlds outside of Kansas City, and connect our students to the community they live in for a short time.

Stay tuned to see what community events we participate in this fall in Kansas City. Our semester begins August 25^th!