Griselle Zeno Achieves Her Dream at Bilingual Preschool

"I just love children. When I was in Puerto Rico, that was something I wanted to do every day, work with children." Griselle Zeno, a second year doctoral student in the University of Cincinnati psychology program, is living her dream. The 25-year-old student, wife and mother is working with Spanish speaking children to help them build their language development in both Spanish and English, as part of a new partnership including the College of Education. Griselle is one of two UC graduate students teaching for the bilingual preschool program that opened this fall at the Hearing Speech & Deaf Center of Greater Cincinnati.

A native of Puerto Rico, Griselle's first learned language is Spanish. Although she says English is part of the school curriculum in Puerto Rico, it would have been unusual to hear an English conversation. "We don't speak English, so basically, I started speaking English about a year and a half ago when I moved here."

So Griselle is all too familiar with the challenges of learning a new language, something her preschoolers will learn much younger. "The first thing I want to do is make them feel comfortable speaking English, and then build on that confidence and support. Once they get the pace of English, it gets much easier."

Griselle adds that not only are English and Spanish different languages, but they also have different sentence structures. "For example, in Spanish, if we are talking about the past, it would literally be like, 'I no went,' and in English, it's 'I didn't go.' In Spanish, both the auxiliary and the verb are in past tense and in English, the auxiliary is in the past and the verb is in the present."

Griselle earned a bachelor's of arts degree in psychology from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus, and her master's degree in school psychology from the InterAmerican University of Puerto Rico, San German campus, before coming to UC to do her graduate work. She says it was not only the different language and culture that turned out to be an adjustment, but also the weather, since she grew up on an island where the lowest temperature was 80 degrees. She discovered quickly she needed to buy some coats and sweaters. "My first winter was last year. At the beginning it was a little hard not only because of the cold, but also because of the dressing and driving. I guess I got used to it very fast, because I had to come to school from Dayton, so I was always on the highway." Griselle commutes to UC from Dayton, Ohio, where her husband is a mechanical engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Another adjustment, she says, was being so far from her family. They talk long-distance every week. "I have encountered a lot of nice and friendly people here, so I have not felt alone at all. However, it is true that I miss my family and friends because we used to spend a lot of time together.

"For every single holiday or special celebration, the family gets together - parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins." Griselle is in the middle of the birth order in her family and has a sister and brother.

Griselle works at the bilingual preschool on Wednesdays and Thursdays and packs her class schedule into those days as well. It can make for a long day, running as late as 6:30 on campus and then a drive back to Dayton that can run longer than an hour. However she is also working her schedule around her 11-month old baby, Danny. Griselle says the UC education faculty have given her unconditional support as she explores a new language and culture as well as her academic program. "They have supported me in every way. They have been great."

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