Written By: Daphné Panié

One of the main programs organized by RCDS’s Public Purpose team is the Saturday Enrichment Program, also known as SET. It is a tuition-free student-led program for members of nearby communities (both adults and children) to learn English when it is not their first language. SET is a weekly program, taking place every Saturday, where students improve their reading, writing, and speaking skills. Camila Reyna ‘27, a 3rd-grade classroom leader, shared that she thinks “SET is a good opportunity for all students participating as it helps strengthen their grammar concepts and helps them feel more prepared when they are in the classroom during the week.”

There are 10 classes throughout the program, each lasting for about 2 hours with a break in the middle. Remarkably, the children who strengthen their reading and writing skills through this program often have their parents learning English next door. This program embodies RCDS’s mission: Not For Self but For Service. It allows students to share a skill that they have with the bigger community, giving them firsthand experience as community members and educators, and having them build meaningful relationships. 

At the beginning of the year, RCDS high school students have the opportunity to sign up to teach classes. There are multiple interest sessions where the student volunteers are assessed. When asked why she joined, Elaine Fong ‘27, one of the adult SET leaders, shared that she understands “the difficulty of learning a new language,” as she is currently taking Spanish at school, and wishes to make this process smoother for others in her community. They then go through a training phase before being put in classrooms to act as teachers. Students must learn to run the show by creating slideshows, preparing activities, and leading the classes themselves during the weekend. 

Fong describes her typical lesson plan: “We always start with a game, which could include watching videos, reading and questions, or class discussions. We then have our main lesson with more reading, and we usually watch a video too.” She says conversation is a key part of her advanced ELL class, as “the adults now need to normalize having conversations in English and be more fluid when thinking in English.” In Reyna’s classroom, “The kids will walk in and then have a little bit of downtime. Then they will get into the lesson, where they usually do a worksheet. At 10:20, they go to movement, when the kids get their energy out by playing activities such as freeze tag.”

Volunteers can decide their lesson focus and curriculum based on what their students want to learn, which can range from superlatives to pronunciation. At the beginning of the year, Fong’s class made a list of what they would be interested in learning for the following classes and the rest of the program. 

Reyna shared, “One of the kids last year did not want to leave the program because they liked it so much.” In the future, she wishes to “find new activities for the kids, such as reading to them to improve their comprehension skills.”

Overall, SET is a valuable program, open to all RCDS students to act as teachers, allowing them to experience firsthand classroom experiences and act as true community partners.