Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

Last summer Thomas had the opportunity to utilize his foreign language skills by teaching English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), and he has continued this experience at college through involvement in Georgetown’s D.C. Schools Project. (Photo: Roland Dimaya)

By Kara Burritt

"Language is just something that really interests me," said Justin Thomas, a freshman at Georgetown University.

Thomas selected Professor Andrews' class, "Language Around Us, Language Inside Us," from among the diverse Ignatius Seminar offerings last semester, hoping to gain insight into his own use of language. With a background in foreign languages, Thomas did indeed develop a new perspective from studying sociolinguistics in the seminar.

Growing up in Foxboro, Massachusetts, Thomas became fluent in Spanish as a high school student, in part thanks to conversing with friends who were native speakers. He also traveled to Mexico, Ecuador, and Spain with groups through his school. Now, with a dual major in Spanish and Chinese, Thomas hopes to study abroad in Spain again, as well as spend time in China developing his language skills.

Last summer Thomas had the opportunity to utilize his foreign language skills by teaching English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), and he has continued this experience at college through involvement in Georgetown's D.C. Schools Project. Through the organization's One-to-One Program, he taught English to local immigrants by leading twice-weekly tutoring sessions in the tutees' homes last semester. This semester, Thomas plans to participate in the Parent Program, which would pair him with a small group of Georgetown employees as tutees of English.

Given Thomas' experience teaching English as a second language, he has developed an interest in language instruction. One of the themes that most resonated with him in the Ignatius Seminar was Professor Andrews' discussion of the often negative attitudes towards non-standard speech forms in traditional language instruction.

"A non-standard language does not mean it is substandard," Thomas said.

Thomas acknowledges the importance of teaching a standard language in the school system—for professional advancement, for example. Yet he appreciates the notion that a nonstandard speech form, like Black United States English, is not incorrect English as compared to Standard English. Thomas feels strongly about respecting cultural differences that are mirrored in nonstandard speech forms, and he notes that using words like "incorrect" to describe Black English is misleading.

He explained, "It is just a different linguistic system in its own right."

Thomas' experience in Professor Andrews' Ignatius Seminar will likely inform the rest of his career at Georgetown, and beyond. Whether it was his insight from writing a paper on his own bilingualism, or his capstone project on Spanish-language rap music, the seminar stirred in Thomas an overwhelming impression that explains his vested interest in multilingualism.

“I better understand the real life value of learning a language,” he said.

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