Each semester, anywhere from six to 15 students participate in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program at Hopkins. ESL at Hopkins is a non-credit program and is targeted at students with intermediate or advanced proficiency in English looking to communicate more effectively.
The program is held during the academic year as well as over the summer. The number of participants in the summer program ranges from 40 to 50 students — much larger than during the fall and spring semesters.
The courses offered include classes in oral communication, academic and professional writing, public speaking and building fluency through film. The program focuses not only on undergraduate and graduate students but also on all Hopkins affiliates, including staff.
In fact, the majority of the ESL participants are other persons affiliated with Hopkins. This is due in part to the fact that there are no “true” ESL undergraduate students here. Acceptance to the University’s undergraduate program requires applicants who speak English as a second language to demonstrate their proficiency through testing. According to Professor Yuki Johnson, the director of the Center for Language Education at Hopkins, this requirement ensures that all undergraduate students are able to communicate relatively well in English.
“There are no undergraduate students at Hopkins that can be categorized as ESL. This is due to the fact that the students’ TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) scores have to be high enough to even be initially accepted to JHU,” Johnson wrote in an email to The News-Letter.
Because of the lack of students who can technically be defined as ESL students, the ESL program seeks to recruit beyond the pool of undergraduates on the Homewood Campus.
“In the future, we hope to attract more students to our program that are professional people and graduate students,” Johnson wrote.
While there are no undergraduates at Hopkins who can truly be considered ESL, many students are foreign and not entirely fluent in English. According to the University’s website, international students make up 11 percent of the Class of 2013. Beyond that, a full quarter of the senior class reports speaking a language other than English at home.
Despite this potential language barrier, many students who are not fluent in English or who do not speak it at home find the University community to be a supportive environment. According to freshman Songnan Wang, an international student from China, the transition into the Hopkins community has been an easy one.
“As an ESL student, I would say it’s fairly easy for me to fit into the Hopkins community,” Wang wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “I think this is mostly because everyone comes from such diverse backgrounds, so people are open-minded enough to meet others who are different from them.”
Freshman Agni Bhattacharya agreed. Bhattacharya feels that not only is it easy to find acceptance on campus as a foreign student, but also that it can sometimes aid in the process.
“Hopkins is generally a friendly environment for ESL students. . .students with accents are actually looked upon favorably in most cases at Hopkins, which is an interested trend that I’ve noticed,” Bhattacharya said.
Bhattacharya, whose first language was Bengali, looked to improve her American accent before arriving in the United States.
“I do not have an accent because I worked hard to develop an American accent in 11th and 12th grade. I now feel this wasn’t truly necessary, and that I would’ve been treated the same had I kept my same accent from before,” Bhattacharya said.
Even so, students who are not entirely fluent English-speakers do encounter certain difficulties here. Freshman Ceki Papo, an international student from Turkey, found that although Hopkins is for the most part a sympathetic environment there are still times when not being fluent in English is problematic.
“Actually I have found that sometimes it can be a problem. . .for example, in one of my Chemistry exams I knew the method of problem-solving that was being tested, but I misread the question and understood it incorrectly, which made me give the wrong answer,” Papo said.
Both Wang and Papo agree that, as their English improves with time, problems such as these will become fewer.
“To begin with, having English as a second language did give me a hard time both academically and socially. But as time goes by and as my English gets better, I would say that it has become much better,” Wang wrote. “Academically, I may still feel my language skills are limited when it comes to writing — I take extra time to write an essay but it’s really not that bad.”
Wang feels that the Hopkins community is especially open-minded with regards to other cultures.
“Hopkins students are genuinely interested in other cultures, and the language barrier isn’t really a barrier anymore when it comes to true friendship,” Wang wrote.
