Building bridges with words

Published April 11, 2013
By Staff Sgt. David Dobrydney
455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- Communication is one of the keys to understanding, and the key to communication is understanding language.

As part of courses at the Korean Vocational Training Center here, Airmen and Soldiers are giving lessons in conversational English to Afghan students.

More than 300 Afghans apply for each nine-month course of study, and only 130 are selected each time. The competition for class seats and the effort required to reach the KVTC means the students are highly motivated.

"They're friendly and outgoing, and they want to learn," said Lt. Col. Sheila Tibbs, 455th Expedtionary Medical Operations Squadron operating room officer in charge.

Master Sgt. Dean Regazzi, 455th Expeditionary Medical Group first sergeant, coordinated the 51 American servicemembers who volunteered to teach.

"It originated out of the [Craig Joint Theater Hospital] because of the relationship we have with the Korean hospital," Regazzi said.

The instructors themselves, mostly medical personnel, hadn't taught an English class before. One thing the instructors quickly learned was how to present the material most effectively. Regazzi said the instructors were put in teams, to show students the variety of accents and dialects English is spoken in.

"We're used to one instructor, and here we are four instructors at one time," Regazzi said. Additionally, the vocational instructors, who are fluent in the students' native language, sit in with the classes too.

"It helped to prevent things getting lost in translation," Maj. Fernando Santana, 455th Expeditionary Medical Support Squadron pharmacy flight commander.

When the current course began a month ago, classes would break up into small groups. This meant the vocational instructor would end up repeating information. Now the classes stick together for the first part of the lesson, with recitations out of a textbook on subjects ranging from explaining where one lives to nicknames.

"It helped us to learn as well," said Senior Airman Nicholas Drake, 455th EMDSS medical logistics technician, "we developed a better way to encompass the whole class rather than splitting off into different groups.

The last part of class, however, consists of the instructors simply speaking naturally to each other or asking the students questions about where they come from or the local area, which they must answer in English.

"The cultural exchange is what drew me in," said Maj. Fernando Santana, 455th Expeditionary Medical Support Squadron pharmacy flight commander. "Not only do they learn from us, but we learn from them."

"They tell me about where they live...their families and their reasons for wanting to learn English and the vocational skills they're receiving," Santana said. He added that the students aren't different from people of similar age in America.

"They want to make a life for themselves," he said. "They see what they have here as a tremendous opportunity."

Santana added there is even sometimes a reversal where the students will teach the instructors bits of their language.

"Every time I walk in they'll speak to me in Dari, and just like when we ask them to repeat in English, I'll repeat what they said in Dari!"

The ultimate goal is to enable the students to speak English in a conversational manner which, combined with the technical skills they are learning, will improve their chances of finding a job when they go home, said Abdul Karimi, who teaches computer technology at the KVTC.

"It's an international language, and many of students are going to be working with foreigners," Karimi said.

Regazzi is impressed at the lengths students go to get to classes, citing examples of students carpooling or even riding bikes for more than an hour just to get to the base. He considers the classes a way to build positive impressions of the international coaltion.

"In a way it's fighting from the inside," Regazzi said. "We're showing that we're here to help them."