8,351 miles away from his home, family and culture, Jethro Mukuna embarked on a journey at the English Learning Center (ELC) in Provo, Utah.
Mukuna traveled from his home in Kinshasa, Africa to study English at the same place his family had studied before him and where his younger sisters will hopefully study after him.
“Before my brothers and I, we had some aunts and uncles who came before us and they all went through the ELC,” Mukuna said.
The main purpose of the ELC is to provide “high quality English language instruction,” but it also provides international students a community and home away from home during the challenging time of living in a foreign country.
“They’re all alone and they're working so hard to achieve their dreams and you kind of just become each other's community,” Lauren Smith, a teacher at the ELC, explained.
Mukuna, with encouragement from his father, has been learning English since he was 11.
“My father wanted my brothers and I to learn English, because he wanted us to study in the U.S.,” Mukuna explained.
But even though he has been learning English from a young age, a couple of hours of study a day is not the same as being fully immersed in a new language.
“During 1 hour and 15 minutes, you were supposed to speak English. But what about the rest? You go back to your world in French and you start speaking French again,” Mukuna said.
Smith said she loves seeing her students progress through the classes.
“It’s cool to see them get excited, especially at a lower level, like the first time they read a book in English,” she said.
While Smith gets to make an impact on her students and help them grow, her students also impact her.
“My perspective of the world has changed,” Smith said, reflecting on her time teaching at the ELC.
The ELC is not only a place for teachers to teach, but it is also where they learn how to teach.
“So that’s our primary thing, to train teachers. And most of our teachers are current [BYU] students or recent graduates,” Ben McMurry, the ELC program coordinator, said.
BYU offers a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) minor where students are required to complete a teaching practicum at the ELC.
Classes at the ELC include reading, writing, speaking and grammar and are split into different levels — from Foundation A to University Prep.
“The average student is here for two and a half semesters and they start at different proficiency levels,” McMurry said.
Mukuna has been studying at the University Prep level at the ELC, the highest that BYU offers.
Once Mukuna finishes his last semester at the ELC, he plans to attend Ensign College and study civic engineering.
His career goal is to move back to his home in Africa and work in the mining industry where he will be able to put both his English skills and engineering skills to good use.
“English has a big influence on the world today … You can have diplomas, you can be very intelligent and have good skills required for the job, but if you don’t know English, you may lose the job,” Mukuna said.