ACE club members volunteer to tutor students across four different countries

Photo by Beverly Xu

Senior ACE club president Carolyn Wang presents the next group discussion to more than 15 student tutors.

After trips to Yunnan, China in the summers of 2018 and 2019, Class of ‘21 alumnus Anthony Qin was inspired to start the school’s Aspiring to Create English (ACE) club, where students tutor foreign students learning English. Qin found that students in China were in need of English help, so when he got back to Saratoga, he started to hold online tutoring sessions through WeChat with them. 

By setting up social media accounts, such as Instagram and Facebook, and gaining students through their website and word-of-mouth, Qin’s program soon spread to English learners in Japan, India and France. After becoming an official ASB club, they began to meet every Red Day Friday in room 410. This effort attracted new members like junior Anais Sobrier, who is now the outreach manager for ACE. 

At first, Sobrier tutored a Japanese student, whom she set up meetings, prepared presentations and taught common conversational phrases for. For other students, Sobrier and other tutors ask their students questions, read books with them, practice reading comprehension and even go over their essays to edit grammar and spelling. 

“It really helps our students to use English that they usually wouldn’t in the classroom, especially since some countries have a very reading- and writing-based classroom rather than a speaking-based one,” Sobrier said.

Once a month, all the students and tutors meet over Zoom to have English discussions. ACE officers — seniors Carolyn Wang, Nithya Krishna, Jenny Chan and Jason Liu; juniors Sobrier and Tara Natarajan; and sophomore Grace Li — come up with questions, which range from the role of technology in daily life to whether scientists should have more power in government. Afterward, participants separate into breakout rooms, discuss for a few minutes and then reconvene in the main room for an all-group discussion. 

“The discussions help us gain more insight on different perspectives, and really help us to get to know other students and tutors,” Sobrier said.

For this upcoming year, Sobrier and other officers hope to establish 10 new tutoring pairs and promote communication amongst club members through club meetings and more all-group discussions. By having officers check in on club members, she hopes to encourage more students to take the initiative to ask their officers for help.

Through her experience volunteering with ACE, Sobrier said she has gained both emotional intelligence and insight into her plans for the future. 

“Learning when to just stay silent and let them try to find the word they’re looking for, and knowing when to chime in with that word has taught me how to gauge someone’s personality, despite limited English knowledge,” Sobrier said. “ACE has also allowed me to realize how much I like to tutor English, so I would love to go to China or Taiwan to tutor English at a school.”