OXFORD, Miss. – Seven University of Mississippi students had the rare opportunity to travel to Greece this summer, but rather than a vacation from the grind of college, they spent two weeks teaching at a youth camp.
Katie Stedman of Brandon, a senior elementary education major, said the experience gave her a unique opportunity to combine her studies with her love for art and language.
“As a ceramics teaching assistant I was able to introduce my love for art to the students, but I was also able to introduce functional English words and phrases,” she said.
The students worked as teaching assistants at the Anatolia College Rainbow Camp in Thessaloniki. Since 1984, the camp has helped Greek students in language acquisition by partnering the elementary and junior high school students with U.S. university students from more than a dozen different institutions. Class topics ranged from robotics, language, ceramics and more. All the classes are taught in English so Greek students acquire the language more quickly.
Steadman said she introduced the children to phrases in English “such as ‘Good morning,’ ‘Soap please,’ ‘How are you?’ and ‘I’m fine, thanks.'”
“Greek children usually start learning English words in kindergarten, and our purpose was to reinforce that training, as well as enhance it,” she said, adding that she also got a chance to brush up on other training she has learned at Ole Miss, such as classroom management skills. But the greatest benefit was getting a “head start on working with children who speak English as a second language or who don’t speak English at all.”
“It is important to my career as a kindergarten teacher that I learn to figure out a child’s needs when I don’t understand his language,” Stedman said. “It was good experience to be thrown in there without knowing the language and trying to meet the needs of the children.”
Stedman was joined by fellow UM students Tracey Bell of Southaven, Lauren Nicole Beloate of Hernando, Shelley Clark of Florence, Eleni Katsiotis of Burke, Va., Kathryn Chloe Stock of Hollandale and Sally Ward Brewer of Franklin, Tenn.
Their trip was coordinated by UM’s Office of Study Abroad. “We sent some really talented students over there,” said Maury Breazeale, Study Abroad adviser. “We are proud that Ole Miss was so well represented. I couldn’t have asked for a better bunch.”
For more information on UM’s Office of Study Aboard, visit http://www.outreach.olemiss.edu/study?abroad/ .