Top high school performers with minimum grade point averages of 3.5 sound like ideal candidates for higher education. But in Rhode Island and other states, many non-native students who fit this profile do not apply to college because they lack the necessary high school English language and literature courses on their transcripts. Why? As non-native speakers, they took English as a Second Language (ESL) classes in high school instead.
Now in its third year at RIC, Project ExCEL (Excellence in College for English Learners) was designed specifically for motivated, high-achieving students who need extra assistance with their language skills in order to be successful in a college environment.
Shélynn Riel-Osorio, Project ExCEL coordinator/director, described her students this way: “These students have proven themselves time and time again. They already know what they want to do. They don’t need to eat up their financial aid on remedial English courses.”
This is where Project ExCEL steps in. A two-semester commitment, Project ExCEL begins in the fall with a four-credit class, followed up in the second semester with a one-credit expanded seminar. The second semester class is a recent addition to the program and provides continuity of supports for Project ExCEL students.
The fall course is rigorous and addresses the composition skills, reading strategies and research foundations that some students may lack. “We do a lot of preparation with academic writing – summary, cause and effect, compare and contrast,” she said, adding that Project ExCEL freshmen often arrive at RIC “having no idea how to do certain research in a college setting.”
Project ExCEL student Ruth Feliz Lima, a native of the Dominican Republic, is grateful for the preparation, saying, “Studying in English is really hard for me because English is not my native language, but I am learning more material and going deeper.” She added that the course has introduced her to the MLA, APA and Chicago-style writing rules so critical to academic research and writing.
Another current Project ExCEL student Jennipher Belliard has found this assistance invaluable, saying that Riel-Osorio taught her where to find the resources she needed for academic papers, even helping her with assignments in other classes where she was struggling. “I could bring her a research paper from my First Year Writing class and she would tell me if my structures were correct," she said.
Belliard came to the United States at the age of 12. “When I got here, I spoke English a little bit, but not properly.” She took ESL classes in high school to catch up with her classmates, but, like many of her Project ExCEL peers, she did not have all the language tools she needed for college success. She recalled that at the start of the semester, many of her fellow RIC students in the Project ExCEL program were worried about their pronunciation: “The first day of class, no one wanted to talk.”
But that changed when the students realized they shared many of the same struggles. “We can relate when someone makes a mistake,” she said. “If someone doesn’t know a definition, we can help each other.”
Characterizing her class as more of a privilege than a punishment, Riel-Osorio explained that Project ExCEL is not the typical ESL class. “If a student comes from another country and already knows she wants to be a doctor, a program that teaches her to say ‘Hi’ or ‘How are you’ may not be what the student needs,” Riel-Osorio said. “The student may already be an effective communicator on that level, but she may not be able to guess the meaning of a vocabulary word that she has never seen before.”
The experience of RIC student Caroline Gayrey Salas reinforces Riel-Osorio’s explanation. Salas spent half her childhood in the United States and half in Ecuador. “Coming back to school in the U.S., I didn’t really have enough English language and literature credits to apply for college,” she said. “During my senior year [in high school], I was in ESL.”
Salas was enrolled in Project ExCEL for two semesters before transitioning to a regular college schedule. Project ExCEL, she said, “made me feel like I had some support in college.” In a regular RIC classroom, she said she often “felt stupid” asking questions. “There were times when I had no idea what the professor meant,” she said, and wished he would use simpler words to provide instruction.
Her experience in the Project ExCEL classroom was very different. “She [Riel-Osorio] made us do a lot of group work and talk to each other,” Salas said, adding that although many students were worried that they might be hard to understand, “even shy people learned to talk in class.”
Riel-Osorio explained that there is a significant difference between a student who can manage everyday expression and one who is prepared for academic communication. Advanced grammar, she said, is key, although not in isolation. “Even if a student gets the message across in class, how she expresses herself may indicate to a professor that the student does not have the concrete ability to navigate the English language at a college level,” she said. Typical problems for non-native speakers include the use of run-on sentences and fragments or the overuse or absence of articles such as “a,” “an” and “the.” At the start of each semester, Riel-Osorio pays close attention to the writing patterns of her individual students and often tailors her class content to specific student needs as they emerge. “I like to go through their writing and notice the trends that are happening,” she said.
In addition, Project ExCEL prepares students for U.S. culture in general and college culture in particular. “If a student has just arrived from another country, there are so many sociocultural cues that he or she may miss,” said Riel-Osorio. She added that American university systems can differ greatly from those of the students’ home countries.
Ming You, a native of China who completed the Project ExCEL program last year, stressed the value of this aspect of the program. “It’s really helpful, especially for freshmen,” he said. “We didn’t know anything at first about the culture of college or scheduling classes for future semesters.”
Riel-Osorio is quick to compliment the student body Project ExCEL is designed to serve. “These are amazing, emergent bilinguals (even multilinguals!) who can and will flourish in the State of Rhode Island,” she predicted, provided they get the support they need.
Salas, a radiologic technology student, summed up the program’s benefits this way: “A lot of ESL students don’t feel smart enough to go to college, so they go straight to work. They think, ‘My English isn’t that good. What am I going to do in college?’ Project ExCEL is there for people like us.” She offered this heartfelt reflection on her own Project ExCEL experience, saying, “I feel supported. I don’t feel like I’m alone.”
Belliard offered this advice to other non-native speakers considering college: take the class. “Project ExCEL is a base support for all of your other English classes,” she explained. She advised, “Don’t worry, everything will be okay. It will become easier over time.”
