Holly Camero
Jin Roe and Aviv Getz love learning new languages.
They began taking Spanish classes at Belmont Public Schools in sixth grade, so when they discovered their younger siblings — sixth graders at WL Chenery Upper Elementary School—would not be offered a world language until they reached seventh grade, they decided to take action.
So, in September 2023, the Belmont High School juniors founded World Language Education to teach younger students a new language.
The club pairs high school students fluent in a world language with younger students eager to learn. So far, they have 21 student-teachers, dubbed mentors by Jin and Aviv, and nine student learners, or mentees. Many mentors are native speakers of the language they teach and continue to speak that language at home, they said.
Mentees are paired with mentors for continuity and can choose to learn Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Korean, Italian, Armenian, Russian, and even English. Aviv and Jin say they are open to new languages.
They hold club meetings on Friday afternoons at the school; teaching sessions are held online, typically on Tuesday and Saturday evenings.
Mentors volunteer their time but can receive community service hours, and all classes are free.
“We want to make sure students of all ages are able to get free language learning opportunities,” said Jin.
Most mentees are beginning language learners, but Jin and Aviv said they will teach anyone who wants to learn.
“We are also open to people who are more advanced and are just looking to get practice or progress further,” said Aviv.
Taking the lead
As club administrators, Aviv and Jin have a hand in everything – from finding mentors and mentees to creating the curriculum and monitoring the tutoring sessions.
“We work with our mentors … to build curriculum in their language so they can use that curriculum to teach students,” Aviv said.
They have a basic template for beginning language learning, but they leave it up to mentors to tweak the curriculum to “make it easier for the learners to learn the language,” according to Jin.
Aviv and Jin will soon be heading into their last year at Belmont High, so they are encouraging mentors, particularly underclassmen, to take on leadership roles, ensuring the club continues.
Because teaching and learning occur online, they will likely remain club administrators.
“I don’t think we would be completely leaving,” Jin said. “I think we can still keep going. That’s my hope.”
As club adviser, Spanish teacher Leslie Macintosh has been an ardent supporter. She marvels at “the enthusiasm [of club members] and their appetite for wanting to dive in.”
“I think it’s been amazing to see the student engagement,” she said. “They are so passionate about sharing their love for a language and culture, learning with other students in Belmont. They themselves are students of language and they want to share other languages and cultures they come from.”
Beyond Belmont
Aviv and Jin said they want to grow the club beyond Belmont’s borders and plan to convert it to a registered nonprofit, so they can start similar clubs in other school districts and perhaps around the world.
“We hope [to become] less of a school-affiliated club and become something where we can design the organization and make our own guidelines that will work best with how we envision it going,” said Aviv.
High school clubs would be started for the purpose of gathering mentors, Jin said.
Their dream is “to have people [in other countries] teach their language to people here if they are interested — an outreach program [of sorts] where people around the world … can really teach each other,” said Aviv.
They envision a reciprocal relationship, in which an international student can learn English from a native speaker and in turn teach their native language “so there is a back and forth communication and back and forth learning,” said Jin.
They say their love of languages gives them a more global view of the world.
“I think learning new languages for me is having a glimpse into how other people around the world live in a very different way than I do,” Aviv said.
Jin agrees.
“It’s really fascinating to me how languages relate to each other, how they’re historically rooted in similar places,” she said. “It also helps you understand more cultures, understand people better.”
New mentors and mentees are welcome to join World Language Education. For information, email Jin and Aviv at worldlanguageeducation.wle@gmail.com.