|
WESL Institute offers a unique program called Conversation Mentors, designed to help connect its students with faculty, staff, and other students at Western Illinois University.
The Mentors program, organized by a WESL faculty member and facilitated by graduate assistants, promotes communication among WESL students and University and community members.
Conversation Mentors meets weekly and focuses on a variety of topics and themes. For example, WESL students often take field trips to Springfield, Illinois to visit the Abraham Lincoln (16th President of the United States) sites as well as both the new and old State Capitols. Springfield is located approximately 90 minutes from Western Illinois University.
Among the places students visit include the Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Library & Museum, the Lincoln home, Lincoln tomb, as
well as New Salem, a small town outside Springfield where Lincoln spent
much of his youth after his family moved from their native Kentucky to
Illinois.
Students would use what they experienced and learned from the field trip and combine that with information included from a guest lecturer on the Lincoln presidency, from textbooks and/or other handouts from teachers, as well as multimedia sources to discuss these topics with mentors.
The Conversation Mentors program is among the most popular programs offered to WESL students outside class as it not only helps them improve their English and social skills, but also allows them the opportunity to network - meet leaders and employees and fellow students and to discuss topics related to the curriculum in their courses.
|
