New partnership brings English as a Second Language program to Clemson University Graduate Students. This partnership will draw more international students to continue their studies as Tigers.
Published with permission from Clemson University: December 21, 2009 | Clemson.edu
When a university has a diverse culture, it opens the door for discussion, collaboration and great ideas. Students’ college experiences — and their lives — are enhanced by a diverse atmosphere.
Clemson University wants nothing less. One of the University’s 10-year goals is to increase its diversity while also strengthening the campus’ sense of community.
To help cultivate this culture and bring more great international students onto campus, Clemson has partnered with ELS Language Centers, an English as a Second Language program with a strong academic focus. By attending this new ELS center, students will come to Clemson to study and learn English, and many of them will finish and move into many of the University’s graduate programs.
Because ELS has global reach, Clemson will be able to expand its recruiting efforts to more students.
“This partnership allows us to get the world’s best students,” said Sean Williams, Graduate School associate dean. The Graduate School was integral in setting up this partnership.
To help pursue the vision to be a top-20 school, the University needed the language program as a resource for its international students, Williams said. More than 25 percent of the Graduate School’s 3,750 students are from another country. But cost and the amount of work it would take to build a program from the ground up were just too much.
Partnering with ELS allows the University not only to retain international students on campus but also to recruit more students from more countries than before.
“Our curriculum is academically focused,” said Tara Kelley, director of the Clemson ELS center. “We really focus on getting students ready to use English in an academic setting. Our goal is to get them ready for college or graduate school and get them to a university.”
Learning English specifically to be used in an academic setting appeals to universities and can be accepted in place of a TOEFL English competency exam, which international students take.
Increasing the diversity of students, and reaching the University’s 10-year goal, will enhance everyone’s knowledge by creating an atmosphere of question and discovery.
“When everybody looks the same, has been brought up the same, has had similar experiences, they are likely to approach problems in the same ways,” Williams said. “When you have students from different educational and cultural backgrounds working together, they look at problems in different ways because they literally see things differently and value things differently. The differences that people see create a climate where individuals begin to question each other and build understandings about the complexity of problems.”
One of the best ways to do this is to bring students in from other countries. Many of these students live on campus while others live with community and University staff members. All have the chance to participate in campus organizations, and many take advantage of the opportunity.
“It’s a tribute to the vision of Clemson University that they are looking for international scholars to enrich their experience here,” said Mark Harris, president and CEO of ELS Language Centers, during the center’s grand opening in November.
Clemson’s ELS Language Center began with 16 students this fall. Next school year there will be 50 to 65 students enrolled. That number could double by 2011, Kelley said.
Many students in Clemson’s ELS center have ties to the Clemson area, which is why they chose to come here. Several students also have conditional admittance into the University’s graduate programs; they will be fully accepted as soon as they can speak English. There are also two visiting scholars studying with ELS while working under professors and researchers on campus, Kelley said.
The ELS program is intensive. Students come in at all levels of English knowledge, Kelley said. Classes run four weeks at a time with 13 sessions a year. On students’ first day, they are tested and placed in the appropriate level. As they pass each level, they move up until they graduate.
Core classes are taken in the mornings, and intensive students take additional skill enhancement classes in the afternoon. For example, an afternoon class might be power reading, listening and note taking, American culture, and idioms or vocabulary.
“I know my students and what they need,” Kelley said. “I choose the enhancement classes by looking at who my students are and what their goals are.”
Having the center on campus allows the teachers more opportunities to get the students out into an environment where they can interact with other people and improve their conversational English, Kelley said. Teachers have taken students to the campus dairy farm, conducted learning activities in downtown Clemson and more.
Experiences like these are priceless for everyone. Being on campus is a great advantage to ELS students and is just part of what this partnership brings to the table.
“We want the world's best students,” Williams said. “In order to attract and retain them, we have to have an environment that supports them. Having a robust English as a Second Language presence is one of the key services for ensuring that international students both feel welcome here and succeed.”
Contact Tara Kelley at clm@els.edu for more information.