Scott Patnode: "I am both excited and proud to join the AUCA community for the next four months!"

September 12, 2017

This semester, the American University of Central Asia's Writing and Academic Resource Center (WARC) is lucky to have a student from the United States, Scott Patnode, volunteering to lend English language help to students in the AUCA learning community. Scott is experienced helping ESL (English as a Second Language) students in the United States. We asked Scott a few questions to help us all get to know him a little better:

Could you please tell us about yourself? Where are you from? Where do you go to school?

My name is Scott Patnode, and I am a 20-year- old Senior studying at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee in the state of Wisconsin in the United States. I am majoring in Economics and International Studies there, and I am specializing both majors in international economic development. I have lived in the Milwaukee area my entire life.

 Why brought you to AUCA? What has been your impression of Kyrgyzstan and the AUCA community so far?

As someone who wants to work in international development, Central Asia is an extremely interesting and beautiful area. It is rich in history and has an unprecedentedly promising future.
I needed somewhere where I could both improve my Russian while also having classes in English since my Russian is not great (yet). Those two desires led me to AUCA today. Now residing here, it is obvious why Kyrgyzstan is developing at such an astonishing pace. The government is open, the landscape is gorgeous, and the people are absolutely and unbelievably amazing. Despite a huge language barrier, people here have welcomed me with open arms, and they are proud of their country’s past and hopeful for their country’s future.

You sought a volunteer position with the WARC almost immediately upon your arrival at AUCA. What prompted you to do that?

As noted before, the language barrier I have faced here is also faced by students here (except vice versa). However, while I have four months to get to a level of Russian proficiency I am happy with, students’ grades here depend on their understanding of English.
After all, many of the difficulties that students here face is because English is not their first language, so students have difficulty articulating their thoughts into English even if they could say it in their native language. Consequently, I feel sympathetically forced to help my fellow students. In the same way that Kyrgyzstan has been so kind to me, I feel I need to give back to Kyrgyzstan with something I can. Therefore, I applied to join the WARC as soon as possible so I could secure a position as an ESL tutor.

What sort of background do you have in tutoring?

Back home in Milwaukee, we often receive many refugees trying to integrate into American society. Despite what it may look like in the movies, it is not easy whatsoever. America is different, especially for the places where these refugees first resided such as Syria, Eritrea, Sudan, Burma, and Afghanistan. Consequently, I worked with helping them integrating into American culture. The hardest part, however, is the language barrier. With little to no English background, I mostly helped the refugees learn English. Perhaps the most complex dynamic of this was the age differences. Many of these refugees are kids coming to Milwaukee during the summer. Consequently, we need to put them through intensive English training so that they can attend (English-speaking) public schools when the school year starts in September.
This is especially difficult to the older kids who are expected to know academic level English 3-4 months after they started learning English. For the adults, they often find themselves unable to get jobs due to the language barrier. For the time I taught these refugees, I really started to notice how essential it is to know the local language, and how I’d like to continue to do ESL work in the future.

How do you hope to contribute to the AUCA community through your role as a volunteer ESL tutor?

I’ve noticed that both the students and myself are guilty of one main action that is really hurting our goals in studying; we both speak in our native language. It’s easier. Its more convenient. I understand why students as well as myself do this. However, this hurts both of our abilities to gain a better understanding in our second language. Consequently, I have made pushes to speak only Russian with my peers, and I suggest and advise that AUCA students push to only speak English with their peers. This strategy was very successful for the refugees I worked with, and I believe that it will work well for the AUCA community as well.

Any closing remarks to the AUCA students and in particular, to your potential tutees?

Despite my previous remarks, students here seem to have a great understanding of English, and everyone is committed as well. If someone doesn’t know a word, they have peers and teachers to help them. Obviously, the synergy between the students, teachers, and tutors is working well at AUCA. I am both excited and proud to join the AUCA community for the next four months! Thank you!

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