Global Ambassadors open world view to kids
International students take lessons in culture, language to WNY classrooms

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Services Editor

The World Languages Institute (WLI) at UB has an outreach program that brings students from many cultures into productive contact with elementary and high-school students from throughout Western New York.

The program, called "Global Ambassadors," was developed by the WLI in collaboration with the Office of International Education. It offers interested K-12 students and their teachers a firsthand introduction to international cultures and language studies with the assistance of UB students from many nations.

At the request of a teacher, international students enrolled at UB visit area classrooms to discuss the history, economy, geography, politics and/or cultural life of their countries. The visitors also help students to sample the speaker's language and answer their questions, such as what's the meaning of the bindi, the red dot that East Indian women often paint on their foreheads?

Mark Ashwill, director of the WLI, points out that in order to successfully navigate in the 21st century, today's elementary and high-school students will have to develop an understanding of life beyond the United States. This is something that, for the most part, has previously not been required of Americans.

"Young Americans need to realize that 'human nature' is not synonymous with 'the American character,'" Ashwill said. "Our global ambassadors have been very successful in helping to prompt this awareness, even in young children. The program also helps spark student interest in the vast possibilities of the changing world.

"It benefits both the youngsters and their international guests," he said. "It gives the international students their first experience of an American school and presents an opportunity for them to offer information about their language and culture to an eager and interested audience.

"In turn," Ashwill said, "the visitors offer American school kids a firsthand view of the world beyond the U.S. For many of the school children, the visit has marked their first meeting with a person from another country."

Global Ambassadors have made numerous presentations in area schools, each of which reflected the age and comprehension level of the audience. Among them:

- Rosi Garcia-Castelan, a Mexican student, spoke to 80 fifth-graders at St. Gregory the Great school, where she discussed cultural events and lifestyle in Mexico City; shared many cultural artifacts, like maps, coins, religious icons and postcards with the students, and encouraged them to attend college.

- Gouranga Saha, a student from India, spoke to freshmen social-science students at Williamsville South High School about political and economic issues in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

- Luis Cabrera, a student from Colombia, visited St. Vincent DePaul School in Elma.

- Three Japanese students made a language-and-culture presentation to a Houghton College class studying how language is learned. Houghton's small student population limits the number of international students attending school there.

- At Tonawanda High School, Indonesian and Vietnamese students made presentations to an international business class.

- A French student studying pharmacy at UB participated for eight weeks in a full-fledged language/culture program at Kenmore's Lindbergh Elementary School.

"When the Lindbergh program finished," said Ashwill, "the children had not only learned quite a bit about France, but wanted to study French. Now the Kenmore Middle School has new recruits for its French-language program.

"The international students have told me that they found the American students very enthusiastic, attentive, well-behaved and curious," he said. "They seem genuinely interested in other countries and cultures and ask many questions."

For information, call the World Languages Institute, part of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, at 645-2292, or visit the Global Ambassador homepage at http://wings.buffalo.edu/globalambassadors.