A St. Thomian voice is going to be heard in The People's Republic of China this summer as Patricia Rogers spends six weeks teaching English via calypso to Chinese teachers of the language who have never heard it spoken before.
What is a former V.I. Carnival queen with a degree in hotel management who works as a legislative assistant doing teaching English? And in Beijing?
Rogers is still pondering that, herself. Actually, she was approached about doing it. "I was more than surprised. I was shocked!" she recalled, seemingly still registering the adjustment to her new role.
"I take paralegal courses at UVI," she explained, "and I have been helping a blind woman in my class, tutoring, which I love to do – I'm her eyes, and she does all the work."
Dr. Thelma Walters, another of Rogers' classmates, noticed her enthusiasm and her natural talent for teaching, and she decided to enlist her in an adventure teaching far from home.
Walters, a sixth grade teacher at J. Antonio Jarvis Elementary School for more than 20 years, will also be going to China to teach English this summer. But she is an old hand at representing the Caribbean in the People's Republic. In fact, this will be her sixth trip.
Now, as to who is sponsoring the teaching project and a training class in California that will precede it, there is a bit of a mystery. Walters said she is not allowed to give the name of the organization, but she provided a toll-free 800 number in California where she said identification might be given.
This did not turn out to be the case, however. The California organization representative who answered the telephone explained it this way: "We are a nonprofit organization that sends teachers to Asia." He added, "You could say we have a counterpart in China." He then said he could not be any more forthcoming because of ticklish political relations with the Chinese government, which, he said, wants no publicity.
Walters said the teaching experience is fun. "The Chinese are so ambitious to learn English," she said. "They just want to talk and talk with you." She added that, despite her multiple visits, there has been little opportunity for her to learn Chinese in return, as "they will speak only a few words, then it's right back to English."
Fun though it may be, getting there is work, as Rogers found out. The catch to participating in the summer program is that she has had to raise $5,000 to cover airfare, books and sundry expenses. The "organization" takes care of room and board, but that's it.
She said she sought advice from "my mentors Ann Abramson and Joanne Bozzuto." Bozzuto has worked in Japan, she noted. Both women encouraged her and suggested people to contact. But before she did that, Rogers said, she approached her V.I. Christian Ministries morning prayer group for grounding and support.
As special assistant to Sen. Donald "Ducks" Cole, she had an "in" at the Legislature, but she didn't stop there. She took her mission to the judicial branch, too, where retired Judge Verne Hodge directed her to new Chief Judge Maria Cabret, who provided her assistance through the V.I. Academic and Cultural Awards Endowment, which she heads.
While Rogers wasn't prepared to give specifics as to how she plans to go about her teaching task, she showed great enthusiasm for the overall summer experience that she anticipates. "We also are on a cultural mission," she said. "I have been working with Tourism and the various branches of government putting together a five-minute slide presentation." That presentation will give her audience some notion of Virgin Islands culture and the workings of the local government, she said.
Rogers said she will be teaching Chinese instructors who have never heard English spoken in person before how to teach it as a non-native language to their students. At the same time, using English, she will explain and illustrate V.I. culture, she said.
The Chinese teachers have learned to read, write and speak English, but they have never actually heard it spoken, she said. "It's like ‘I say patahto and you say potato,' sort of," she said. And this where she can have fun with calypso lyrics, as well, she said.
Her knowledge of any Chinese language is nil at the moment, but she said that when she and Walters go for the week of training in California, she will learn the basic necessities for making herself understood "so I can say ‘hello' and order something to eat."
At the training session, she will also get an introductory glimpse of Chinese culture and learn what is expected of her, she said. Then it will be on to Beijing. She is scheduled to leave St. Thomas on June 25 and return in mid-August.
