Getting school lunch is simple enough for T-wolves who’ve known their cafeteria ID since elementary school. But for English Learners, punching in long IDs isn’t necessarily intuitive. What if there was someone speaking their native language to explain such foreign systems, like a guide? Perhaps, like an ambassador?
Class of 2024 EL graduate Jiajian Wen and history teacher Emily Rhodarmer started the Language Ambassador program in 2023 to help EL students confidently transition to both Northwood and the United States. The program is returning this fall to the upper 1300s pod after temporarily pausing last year, having replaced history teacher Brendan Geck’s 2017 iteration aimed at helping elementary students.
“I had a future vision where when I graduated from college, I went back to Northwood. I can still see people from this program helping newcoming students who don’t understand English,” Wen said. “It’s like a family business. It keeps from generation to generation.”
Through the Language Ambassador program, EL students will be matched with a Northwood student ambassador who speaks their native language and can offer academic support, accompany them on school orientations and bond with them over outings like basketball games. This year, the supported languages are Mandarin, Korean, Arabic, Farsi, Cantonese, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese and Turkish.
Wen himself hadn’t always received such help. Before moving to Irvine from China in 2021, he attended a Malaysian international school to learn English through immersion. But due to COVID-19 and online schooling, Wen stayed in his shell.
“I don’t have the environment. I can’t interact with people in person, so I just played my games,” Wen said. “That’s two years just gone.”
Upon entering Northwood as a sophomore in fall 2021, Wen was enrolled in a slower-paced humanities class taught by Rhodarmer to help develop his English skills. Tutoring for this period was fellow EL student and Class of 2022 senior Scott Xue.
Xue, like Wen, had entered Northwood as a sophomore. Having immigrated only two years earlier in fall 2019, he had experienced what felt like a life reset.
“Imagine a 14-year-old kid just moved to a random place, which has totally different living styles or even everything: the language, the way of living, and the food, friends, relationships. Everything changed suddenly for the kid,” Xue said. “At the time, I was so broken.”
While in Rhodarmer’s class, Xue had initially spent study time scrolling on his phone. But Rhodarmer encouraged Xue as he memorized daily vocabulary lists, building confidence that made him less hesitant reaching out to peers.
Xue became one of Wen’s mentors and close friends. Wen wished that people would continue taking on the same role that Xue and Rhodarmer had taken.
“A lot of the upperclassmen were really willing to help the freshmen or the newly enrolled students navigate campus,” Rhodarmer said. “We thought, ‘Well, we should give them titles.”
After assembling a board of bilingual students as mentors, the program was formalized in the 2023-2024 school year with Rhodarmer advising. Upon graduating in 2024, Wen created a group chat with Xue and three other EL peers to keep in touch. It was named “Northwood Family Forever.”
“Even though we are all graduated from Northwood, we are still connected because we were in Northwood forever,” Wen said. “We are going to each other’s weddings in the future. That’s why it’s Northwood Family Forever.”
Language Ambassador applications for 2025 are available until Oct. 10.