MINJU KIM
Staff Writer
With 205 international students currently attending Fredonia, there is a greater opportunity for those who look forward to becoming a full-time student also at Fredonia. As of Fall 2014, Fredonia offers an EC English Program to international students who seek to enroll. The program is an intensive English course in which students learn the language while living on campus. It’s designed for students who meet all the requirements to be admitted to Fredonia but lack proficiency in English.
Daniel Heckmyer, the campus manager of Fredonia’s EC English, introduced the program.
“EC is an English school, and we recruit students from all over the world to study English,” he said. “We have 19 centers worldwide right now. We are bringing another center in Washington D.C. and another college-based center at SUNY Oswego in January. We have schools in Canada, United States, United Kingdom and South Africa. We are possibly going to expand in Australia and New Zealand. We only open schools in English speaking countries. That is our business model.”
Heckmyer also explained the unique feature that EC has, which is a full-immersion program for students.
“We think that students [who] live, breath, work and study in an English speaking environment, their English is going to improve faster. Especially on this college-based program that we are doing now here at SUNY Fredonia and Oswego, the goal is to get the students into university. My personal goal is to get the students into university as fast as possible. So, the full-immersion program works much better than if they were studying language in their own country or if they went to another destination that’s not an English speaking country,” said Heckmyer.
Regarding its recent opening at Fredonia, EC represents itself as an “agent.”
“Pretty much every country in the world has what they are called ‘agents.’ They usually have a storefront similar to travel agent. Some agents do both travel and study abroad programs,” he said. “Students usually go in there with their parents and they send students to different types of schools either vocational schools, language immersion programs, colleges, and universities all over the world.
“We have our own sales admissions team,” he continued. “Once the booking is made, it goes to admissions team. SUNY Fredonia also have the admissions; issues the visa and helps them with the paperwork to get through immigration.”
The process of how an international student can apply at Fredonia State goes as follows: Jessica Gatto, assistant director for International Admissions, explains the procedure.
“A student fills out an application. They send us a copy of their transcripts translated in English. We ask for a standardized test score: TOEFL, IELT, SAT or ACT. They submit an autobiographical essay and something called a English Proficiency form; it’s a form filled out by an instructor of English to tell where their English level is at. Then they have to send in a financial form of supporting documentation to prove that they have enough money to pay for the first year of college. Traditionally that was what every international student needed,” Gatto said.
Now with EC on campus, there’s a different option; in the past, international students may have met all the requirements except their English level, and were denied admittance. Now, Fredonia State can accept students that have zero English language skills. If they have none to little, they can come as a conditional student. They will do all of their classes at EC English and really work hard on English proficiency to get to the level to come in. Or if they fall into the unique range that they have strong English language skills, but they still need some support in order to succeed, they can take a blend of courses hereat Fredonia and EC courses.
Once students come to campus, there are still things to be considered. One of them is their student status:
“It’s three different things,” Gatto said. “‘Direct’ into Fredonia is someone whose English is fantastic; they need no assistance. ‘Conditional admissions’ is somebody who is not ready to take a single course at all — only English language courses. Somebody who is ‘concurrent,’ they are going to take a blend of both classes on campus.”
Currently, all students taking EC English programs are conditional admit. This means that once their English levels get high enough, they have already fulfilled all other requirements to enter the university. So they have this one last part which is the English requirement that they are not high enough.
Students who are conditional admit have to take EC English program in order to become full-time students. It’s an intensive five days a week, four weeks minimum course. Students arrive on Monday, and EC tests the students. Then, they’re put into classes based on their scores from the placement test, which examines grammar, reading, writing, listening and speaking. Based on their scores, they are put into one of the eight levels in the program.
“If you are on a student visa, there is a minimum number of hours you need to study; so with us, we do 4.5 hours a day. [F-1 visa students] must take our EAP which is English for Academic Purposes,” Heckmyer said. “Here at this location, we are not so focused on grammar and pronunciation because to be successful in university, it’s really the listening skills, lecture skills, presentation skills, and reading skills. But, of course, grammar is interweaved in here and it does come up. As far as pronunciation and conversation skills, we do offer free classes after school. So students can attend extra classes. We do this twice a week,” said Heckmyer.
Once students start the program, the amount of time spent learning English depends on the improvement of the students.
“It really depends on the student. I’ve seen students with zero English in seven months time have acceptance to university and go on to complete their main goal. But I’ve also seen students take two years and still not quite be there. So it really depends on their attendance, their scores and how much they study outside classrooms,” said Heckmyer.
Also, EC English has open-enrollment, so it takes new students every two weeks and has no breaks. It’s based on a business year — not on a semester-year system. It operates most days a year, except for post-office holidays.
Meanwhile, students have the chance to become a concurrent student by taking tests that are offered at EC every six weeks.
“When students get into the high intermediate level, they have the option of concurrent enrollment. It takes on various forms: It could be 22.5 hours of class per week plus additional 1 to 3 credit class. The next level would be, they just do 1.5 hours of English intensive class and take between 6 to 9 credits on campus. The final one would be full SUNY student. So if they are in high intermediate, they could take a full day of EC English and additional class to be determined by admissions and the department they wish to study in,” said Heckmyer.
The price range of EC English program varies based on the student’s status and level of English. According to the EC Waiver form 2014, a student who is taking EAP course pays $447 per week if she is staying 1 to 7 weeks. She is required to pay $170 for Standard Admission Service and $60 for additional application. The cost for boarding is $395 per week within one to seven weeks of stay. The basic fee including registration, accommodation placement, student service fee, student insurance, I-20 document courier fee and airport transfer fee is total $483. A student pays about $1500 in total per week to continue the program.
The qualifications of instructors at EC English is quite high: Qualifications for an adult Intensive English Program would be minimum bachelor’s degree, along with TESOL, TEFL, CELTA, DELTA certificate that involved practicum. So a certificate is generally 120 hours plus practicum. If a teacher has a MA TESOL or some sort of master’s degree related English plus one to three years of teaching abroad experience, she is considered as a best candidate.
Although there are classes offered to English-as-a-Second-Language students on campus. Fredonia State initiated opening a third party to provide English language course to international students. Dr.Terry Brown, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs explains how EC English came to campus:
“We[the provost counsel] knew about 2 years ago that we needed to provide support for international students who needed more intensive training in English than we were able to give them. So we considered several options; we considered working with some area universities and colleges- that didn’t work, we considered creating our own non-credit operation which would’ve taken a significant amount of resources that we can have and then we have considered – what many universities are doing – working with a third party. Brockport inspired us to consider third party. They were working with a group. That’s how we decided,”
Brown also mentioned how Fredonia State was not able to recruit great students from all over the country because they lacked English skills.
“There are many students who would like to study at Fredonia, but may not have the level of English skills that they need who are very good students. In the past, we would say ‘we can’t admit you.’ Now we have the ability of saying ‘we can admit you once you complete the training and get to a level of English proficiency that we expect for you to success here,’” said Brown.
What makes EC English work is that it offers a live environment for students to delve into English.
“Meeting several hours a day is different than meeting three hours a week. It’s a different level of intensity. Because before we had EC English, we could’ve just said ‘stay in your country and figure out what you are going to do.’ Would that be more effective than what we have? No. For me, I have the experience of being a dean at a school. A professor brought a Japanese student and said ‘she doesn’t understand me and I don’t understand her.’ We had no way of helping the student. If we had had something like EC English we could have kept her on our campus and given her intensive support and training. Isn’t that better than not having anything at all? I think so.
There are students out there who really want to come and study here but don’t yet have the proficiency in English. I would rather say, ‘come to our campus, immerse yourself in an American context, study English intensively.’ instead of saying ‘sorry, we can’t take you. Good luck.’ Major universities have intensive English language institutes all over the country. Universities like ours have don’t have means to resources to create institutes. EC English has been around for 100 years; it’s very well-respected. I feel very confident in our partnership.” said Brown.
As the program is continuing, about 5 to 7 students are expected to become a concurrent student in the spring semester.
“The students at EC English are tested every two weeks and that’s going to tell us a lot of what’s going to happen for the spring semester. Right now we are guess-timating between 5 to 7 [out of 30 to 30 students in total] are going to score a level they are going to be able to start taking courses while still taking some supplemental courses with EC,” said Gatto.
There is a cut-line for each admission option; it’s based on TOEFL scores. For a direct admit student, it’s having 79 or above [out of 120]. Somebody between 64 and 78, those are concurrent students. Anybody who is below 64 is somebody who needs to do all English language courses. For EC English testing, I believe the level is 1 through 13 and they are equivalent to TOEFL.
Students who are going to move from full English language courses to a blend of courses will be a conversation between the admissions office, EC English faculty that have been working with the students, and also the faculty of the program they are going to be enrolled.
Dilnigar Kahriman, a student who is taking EC English program tells how she got to land in small-town Fredonia.
“My friend told me about how she wants to go to America and study at an English language program. I was learning English in my hometown, Urumqi. She said “why do you learn English there? If you go to America and learn English there, you can practice and learn more here.” She came here and I followed her,”
Kahriman has also expressed both her excitement and concern to have become a part of the community.
“Every morning is busy. I come to school and take classes from 8:30 to 2. After class I always go to library or gym. Also, I heard there are lots of activities on campus, too. I’m just getting the information about school activities. I’m afraid if I go to an activity and don’t understand what people are talking about. I worry about my English,” said Kahriman.
Like Kahriman mentioned above, getting out of comfort zone and breaking the fear of English is international students’ step forward to successful college life. With that being said, Heckmyer encourages everyone to take initiative:
“I want to encourage all Fredonia faculty and students to interact with EC students. It’s going to help them feel more at home here. They want to interact, too. That’s the great thing about being on a college campus. The problem is we are still small and it’s hard to allocate resources to make those connections happen,”
One event Mr.Heckmyer holds for interaction between the community and international students is conversation activity on the first Wednesday of every month. All Fredonia State students are invited to come by the student lounge at the end of Jewett Hall. If any student is interested in meeting international student they can stop by 111 Jewett Hall and ask Mr. Heckmyer.
Since the students also pay the student services fee, they have access to facilities on campus; the health center, gym, meal plan etc.
“It really takes a strong initiative and a passion; you have to have a passion for some event , promote it and get them to come. Once they come and enjoy themselves they make friends and all that happens. But generally it’s hard for many international students to get out of their comfort zone and try new things. But once they do, they always tend to love them whether it’s volunteer or karaoke night at Tim Hortons. That’s why you need those connections; friends to say ‘hey come one, let’s do this!’”
With everyone’s effort, EC English wishes to give the students a feeling of a family.
“Fredonia State in general feels like a family atmosphere. The faculty and the staff, they are all nice, welcoming and accommodating. Amplifying and continuing that is very important to help the students succeed.” said Heckmyer.