Southeast to offer new international student teaching program

Students in Southeast Missouri State University's College of Education will have a chance to practice what they've learned in the spring semester through a six-week program at a private English-immersion school in Chile.

Program plans were finalized by Diana Rogers-Adkinson, dean and professor in the College of Education, and Brandy Hepler, coordinator for clinical and field experiences. Earlier this month, the two made a weeklong visit to Eagles College, a campus in Iquique, Chile, that serves preschool students up to high school.

"We were most impressed just with the rigor of the curriculum of the school," Rogers-Adkinson said. "When you're setting up a partnership, you want to know that your students will be held to high expectations in their teaching while they're there, and they definitely will be."

She said Chile has a national curriculum similar to Common Core, and Spanish national exams in all subjects they have to pass. All classes except art, music and PE are taught in English until the students' junior and senior years.

"Then they flip back to teaching in Spanish, because the kids have to get ready to pass their graduation tests, and those are very hard," Rogers-Adkinson said.

Southeast students will do 12 weeks of student teaching in Missouri and then spend six weeks at Eagles, staying with families of children who attend the school. Prospective participants will be interviewed by the Eagles College director, Rosa María Retamales, and the teachers Southeast students could teach with. Rogers-Adkinson said participants will be screened by GPA "and they will have to get through that interview."

Rogers-Adkins said she and Hepler also met with officials at Universidad Arturo Prat, which has a teacher education program, to arrange for Southeast student teachers to attend seminars at the university to talk about how their experience is going.

"They really want native English speakers in their building, because that's a good diversity experience for their teachers and their students who are learning English ...," Rogers-Adkinson said.

"For our students, it's an amazing opportunity to experience a different culture and be able to have the opportunity to collaborate with teachers who have totally different training, different experiences, and with a different view of how schools should run and operate," said Rogers-Adkinson, who knew about the school through a family friend who teaches there.

The school features a strong anti-bullying culture, and hygiene is important. After lunch, everyone brushes their teeth and washes their face and hands, and showers after gym. Students and teachers wear uniforms, and the school likes women with long hair wear it pulled back, Rogers-Adkinson said.

"... They have some different cultural values about how you should look serious in school, and it's really pretty neat to watch the kids," Rogers-Adkinson said.

Southeast has other international student teaching programs, but they're offered through third-party vendors, which involves fees for students.

"So we wanted to create something that was unique for us and also that wouldn't come with all those extra costs," she said.

Because school here would be out of session in June but still going on in Iquique, Rogers-Adkins said teacher travel tours also could be arranged with teachers from here visiting instructors in Iquique for a cultural exchange.

"It's a very beautiful city," she said. "You've got mountains on one side and ocean on the other."

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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