Central Coast Citizenship Project
In the fall of 2013, I took SPAN 301S. In this class, I had to choose an organization that was involved with the Spanish community for me to do my Service Learning. The one that I chose was the Central Coast Citizenship Project. Within this organization, there was one part which was dedicated to help U.S. residents obtain their U.S. citizenship. This took place at Liberty School in Salinas, CA. When I would go on Monday and Wednesday (2 hours a day), I would usually tutor a group of 6-8 students (mostly in their late thirties to early sixties and the majority were Mexican; three were Muslim). I would tutor them on the interview for their U.S. citizenship, dictate a couple of English sentences for them to write down, and correct their mistakes as they would write them on a whiteboard that was in the classroom. I mostly talked to them in Spanish, but when I tested them on the questions (the documents are down below) or dictated sentences, I would talk in English. For the most part, the majority of the students knew English, but once in a while a student could not pronounce a word or needed the translation of a word to Spanish. In those situation, I would help them out by repeating the word over and over again or find the translation of the word. I found it interesting how the students were so nice with me and understanding whenever I made a mistake. Also, whenever they would make a mistake, I would encourage them to not give up and to try again. Overall, I had a good experience and plan on volunteering there once again when I graduate.
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