Chihuahua students get taste of West Texas through exchange program

The 25 students, one of whom is from Caracas, Venezuela, are part of an exchange program with the Chihuahua school where students from there come to University of Texas of the Permian Basin and a batch of UTPB students spend a month in Mexico.

The students will be in Odessa through July 27, Director of Continuing Education Rey Lascano said.

The course prepares students planning to stay in Mexico for the English proficiency exam they need to graduate there and the Test of Official English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) test for people who plan to stay in the United States, Lascano said.

Passing TOEFL is the "biggest hurdle" to applying to any U.S. university, he added.

The class also includes daily mentoring so students can get immediate feedback on how they're doing, he added.

"We want to learn English in a place where almost all the people speak English. It's easier," medical student Zaira Dennis Chavez Lopez said.

Valentina Jacome, a 16-year-old from Caracas with relatives in Midland, said none of them understood the language when they first arrived, but they can now comprehend just about everything said.

Yoquita Barreras, 25, who works at University of Chihuahua, said the UTPB course is intensive. "We are learning a lot and losing the fear to start a conservation with people," she said.

"The teachers have so much patience with us," Chavez Lopez said.

She said people in Chihuahua take English, but don't necessarily study it intensely.

"It's important to us to learn English and it's important to Americans to learn Spanish because we are neighbors," she said.

Along with their peers, Jacome and Chavez Lopez said they have enjoyed meeting new people, including fellow students, and seeing new places. The students have found West Texas relaxing and quiet and the people nice and hospitable.

There are cultural differences, however. Chavez Lopez said people in Mexico routinely hug and kiss each other as a greeting. Here, people are more distant.

Jacome said Latin American people also talk a lot.

Despite the differences, "The people we have met are really nice," Chavez Lopez said.

Students at University of Chihuahua go to the same school, but the attend different colleges within the school. The trip north has given them a chance to get to know each other.

"Now we are all friends," Chavez Lopez said.

Lascano said successful completion of the course will receive a certificate. "As long as they can maintain this level of English, they'll be one step ahead," he said.

He noted this will also help promote economic opportunity with Chihuahua. More than 40 countries doing business with the Mexican state and more than 400 assembly-for-export plants. University of Chihuahua also does business with nine other foreign countries.

Advantages to doing business with Chihuahua are its location, richness, infrastructure and receptiveness to UTPB officials. "The name UTPB carries favor with Chihuahua. It's a name that's synonymous with partnerships," Lascano said.

see mywesttexas.com article here