Language classes offered by international students

Jorge Flores, 21, will be teaching Spanish on Mondays and Wednesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. beginning Sept. 4.

He is a math major from Tegucigalpa, Honduras who has been at CSC since 2011. The language class will be his first experience teaching.

He has spent the past two summers as a translator on Baptist Medical & Dental Mission International trips helping doctors and dentists. In addition to their professional services, the doctors and dentisits delivered food, supplies and clothes to those they were helping.

“We went to really poor areas and set up stations to help the local people. It was a lot of heavy lifting unloading the trucks,” he said.

Sophia Zhang, 18, will be teaching Chinese on Mondays and Thursdays from 6 to 7 p.m. beginning Sept. 5.

This summer Zhang taught English in Taiyuan, China and also went to Shanghai to direct a short Christian drama there. China. Although she is new to Chadron State College, she has been in Central City, Neb. since she graduated from high school in May. She came to Nebraska because she knew a U.S. pastor in China and when he returned home to America she traveled to the U.S. with him.

Her future goals include improving or enhancing teaching methods in her country. She says there is too much emphasis on tests and students don’t get to truly explore their creativity or develop their individual personalities in the current system.

Arby Ghemari, 25, is native French speaker from Tunisia who will be teaching French on Sunday nights from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. beginning Sept. 8.

Like Flores, he first arrived at CSC in the fall of 2011. He will be graduating in December with a Interdisciplinary degree with an emphasis in Family and Consumer Science.

He has been to India for six months teaching French and he spent a semester-long internship in Spain as a linguistic consultant. He studied how to use the environment to teach a language to non-native speakers - for example walking into a kitchen and showing students the objects in the kitchen as they learn the word for each object in the new language.

Ghemari already holds two bachelor's degrees, one in English, Spanish and Hebrew proficiency for business and translation and another in Tourism and Hospitality with an emphasis in food.

“I’m looking forward to teaching the class. I like talking to people and interacting. Knowing another language multiplies your career opportunities. Over 20 countries use French, so I’m excited to help my students learn it and in doing so to remove a barrier from travel or employment,” he said.