Inter-cultural teaching: How Laurier students are fostering their skills

Our Laurier students and assistants have developed an amazing camp for children aged 5-15 in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. The camp includes different stations such as science, cooperative games, music, and English as a Second Language. It is being hosted at the same school that the Educator and Leadership Institute (ELI) is being housed at. The camp is held in the mornings and then the children participate in a practicum with the teachers from ELI in the afternoon. This practicum is a unique aspect of our professional learning model and is only able to be facilitated by the morning camp.

There are five Laurier teacher candidates as well as four Canadian high school students involved this year. These students are serving as assistants to the Laurier teacher candidates. There are also Haitian student leaders and assistants who are all university and high school students. It is indeed a team effort!

Two of the Canadian students are twins and were asked the following questions in the “Ask the Canadian teenager” ESL session:

• Do you feel each other’s emotional brain?
• Do you like Haiti?
• Do you have a boyfriend? Are you married (the twins are 15 years old!)?
• Who is your parents’ favourite twin?
• How are twins made?
• Do you have the same habits and mannerisms?

I thought that these questions provided some interesting insight into the kinds of issues that Haitian young people might be curious about. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if these questions would mirror the kinds of questions that Canadian children might ask of twins!

I have been SO PROUD of our Laurier teacher candidates. They have been preparing for the camp for a long time and have developed amazing activities. The kids are clearly loving it! From what I have observed, the Laurier students are going to be fantastic teachers. This experience has also provided lots of inter-cultural experiences such as communicating in a second language (French – for both the Laurier and Haiti participants) and developing understanding of cultural nuances (time has very different meanings for Canadians and Haitians!). The opportunity to develop these inter-cultural skills in Haiti will only serve to further solidify their teaching strengths.