Vocational English Language Training Intern

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Refugee & Immigrant Community Services

Vocational English Language Training Intern

Reports to: Manager, IVEST

Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights helps people living in poverty or in danger to improve their lives and realize their human rights. For more than 120 years, Heartland Alliance has provided hope, opportunity, and solutions--through both services and advocacy. Our work spans across four key areas [housing, health care, legal protections, and economic opportunity], creating paths from crisis to stability and on to success.

Heartland’s Refugee & Immigrant Community Services provides on-site English language training and vocational classes for refugees and asylees. RICS annually resettles more than 150 individuals in Chicago from places like Burma, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Cuba, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, & Uzbekistan. RICS serves an additional 500 refugees through a variety of services, including cultural orientation, adjustment counseling, employment, job-readiness and placement services, medical case management, family literacy, prevention education services, and after-school tutoring for children.

We are looking for an unpaid intern to serve in our Vocational English Language Training (VELT) Program.

Responsibilities of this position include:

• Assisting teachers in ELT and Vocational English classes, including tutoring and/or teaching students.
• Creating and implementing programs and activities for ELT and Vocational English students.
• Mentoring ELT and Vocational English students.
• Assisting with job-readiness training and employer outreach for ELT and Vocational English students.
• Helping with other projects, reports, and administrative tasks as necessary.
• Minimum of 16 hours per week availability, minimum three-month commitment.

Qualifications:

• Excellent communication and organizational skills.
• Interest in working with refugees in a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and multi-ethnic environment.
• Patience and flexibility.
• Computer proficiency.
• Some knowledge of ESL and teaching or tutoring experience is helpful.
• Language proficiency in one or more: Amharic, Arabic, Burmese, French, Kirundi, Kinyarwanda, Polish, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Turkish, and Uzbek is preferred, but not required.