CENTER FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS
Theodore Allen Jenkins

A student from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut who was majoring in international relations and modern languages, Theodore Jenkins had traveled to Nepal, China, and Thailand through two college academic programs. He participated in Himalayan Trekking Excursion, was a member of Trinity’s Varsity Crew Team and its Chapel Singers, he was co-director of the Interfaith Council on campus, and he  studied  basic Japanese and Nepali language skills, which contributed to his understanding of linguistics. Ted applied to the Washington Internship Program in late March and requested an internship in international relations, public relations, linguistics, global business, or trade. A month later WIP placed him in a paid internship at the Center for Applied Linguistics from June through August, after which a masters-level linguistics major from the Washington Internship Program – Pawel Szudarski from Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozan, Poland – started an internship at the same organization lasting up to eighteen months.
The Center for Applied Linguistics paid $12 an hour for undergraduates and $14 an hour for graduate students. Theodore lived in an apartment with four other guys at Alumni Square on the campus of Georgetown University, where he met for WIP’s class in the evening, and Pawel resided at WIP’s Logan House in the historic U-Street district of Washington, D.C. Below are parts of Ted’s colorful paper about this internship.     

“I first applied to the Washington Internship Program with the intention of immersing myself in the field of international business. The application form asked me to indicate some professional areas of interest, and I jotted down the first things that came to my mind: international economics, business, and trade. My thoughts then turned to other academic areas. Since my major is in international studies with background in Asian languages, I thought I might try something with the U.S. State Department. However, I still had some room left on the form, so I added something fun. I had taken an introductory course in linguistics in the spring semester of 2006 and had found it fascinating. My teacher was an eccentric Russian professor, and she piqued my interest in syntactical, semantic, and sinological constituent relationships among sentences. Since this topic was a last-minute addition, I didn’t think much about its potential. However, when Dr. Bayer reviewed my application, she recommended an internship at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL). I was strangely captivated by this organization, so I applied along with the more pragmatic positions. After my applications were sent, CAL was one of the first job offers I received. The staff members there were enthusiastic about my resume, despite my relative inexperience in the field. I entered the office on June 5.”
 
“The oddest thing about my first day at CAL was the relaxed tone of its professional atmosphere. One of my supervisors was a fastidiously outspoken Democrat, as were many of my coworkers, and she was quite verbal about her dislike for the Bush administration. This attitude surfaced when I was waiting for our first contact and reached for a copy of the Washington Post in the lobby. Being more conservative myself, I was put off by her first words to me: “Don’t read that Republican rag.” I always obsess about first impressions, and immediately I had second thoughts about interning at CAL. I was led to my office and told to settle in and take a couple hours to meet everyone on my floor. My officemate kindly gave me an in-depth tour of every branch of CAL. However, I still had not met my other supervisor and was warned not to be intimidated. I braced myself for the worst only to encounter a tall, smiling, barefoot woman skipping down the hall. She took me into her office and spent a half-hour inquiring about my hometown, academic interests, and hobbies. I had prepared myself for an intense lecture by a crazed and aged linguist. Instead, I encountered an inquisitive, cheerful woman whose immediate concern was for my personal well-being. I was instantly captivated by her charm and wit. We then took the next hour to go over my responsibilities for the next two months.”
 
“This supervisor was part of the leadership team at the Alliance for the Advancement of Heritage Speakers – a small, under-funded, and understaffed organization with big aspirations. Members were concerned with the lack of attention paid to nourishing bilingualism in the United States. A heritage speaker is someone who comes from a non-English-speaking household and speaks that language a majority of the time at home. Many of these people are proficient in a second language but have major deficiencies in grammar and written skills. Furthermore, their unique skills cannot be addressed in regular foreign-language classes that concentrate on students who have no formal background in these languages. This organization is concerned with pooling resources for schools and programs that concentrate on teaching such speakers and developing curriculum. The Alliance developed a resource website for heritage-language programs. My job involved collecting profiles on these programs and posting them on the Internet according to a format I created. The website started small but would hopefully grow to incorporate hundreds of schools from all over the country. This website is the first step in building a national community for heritage-speakers.”
 
“I was awestruck – not simply by the magnitude of this project but by the responsibilities I was given.  Would I have to sort through thousands of schools, scholars, program heads, and obscure languages? However, I was told to work at my own pace and do what I could. Another project at CAL involved a federally funded program to attract heritage speakers to develop English on a professional level so they can work for the government. These opposite approaches (developing native tongues versus second-language proficiency in English) coincided in the office like a linguistic yin and yang. Often, I contacted programs at universities and community schools about teaching both English and other foreign-language classes to heritage speakers.”
 
“This internship marked a great amount of personal growth for me. The projects improved my confidence as I learned to call complete strangers and ask them to complete a profile of their programs. My writing skills also developed by editing the profiles. I enjoyed the work, but my focus was primarily on myself. I used the time to research and build connections for the following year when I would be applying to graduate school. I focused more on the person I would become rather than the people I was assisting. At a Leadership Team Meeting for the advisory board of the Alliance, my efforts were scrutinized. At first, I thought this kind of anal attention to detail was unnecessarily caustic. However, as the meeting persisted, the positive impact of my work became abundantly clear. Before I started, the Alliance’s website had not been updated in four years. Only thirteen profiles existed on heritage programs and a few links to other projects. After I was done, the Alliance had collected over fifty profiles, and efforts were underway to revamp the entire website according to new research and information I helped collect over two months. The work I did was a great help to a field that was still struggling to be recognized in a regular learning environment. I had performed an invaluable service. Naturally, I left the meeting beaming. I was part of a pioneering effort to establish the needs of particular language learners and develop a trend of bilingualism in the U.S.”
 

“Many world leaders and scholars have forecasted that the world is rapidly diversifying. As the burgeoning Eastern economies enter the global marketplace, the influence and dominance of the English language has begun to wane. As one of the world’s leading economic and political leaders, America needs to develop a new generation of bilingual leaders to stay competitive and communicative. However, the natural abilities and resources of heritage speakers are still being ignored. The United States needs to enlarge bilingualism and bring such speakers to a level of proficiency that can compete internationally. As a result of working at CAL, I joined a growing movement of bilingualism and developed a strong academic interest in pursuing further study in linguistics. Leadership, social change, and economic growth need not begin with politics. I found that the work one does on a daily basis can have a greater impact than we normally realize.”

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