Meet…
Paul Carbonaro, the ESL coordinator at Sinclair. His job as an ESL services coordinator is to help any students who have English as a Second Language (ESL). He’s an advisor, counselor, financial assistant and so much more to these students. He also helps out any staff or faculty that need help with an ESL student.
What makes him interesting…
When he came to Sinclair, the ESL program was very small, but he and his colleagues along with Sinclair and it’s growing community, helped the ESL program to blossom. His job is to help ESL students on the non-academic side of their time at Sinclair—not all of the students are U.S citizens.
Carbonaro received his Masters degree in teaching English as a second language from Wright State.
“I already had years of experience of teaching English as a second language before that in Santa Monica, California, my American hometown,” Carbonaro said.
He used to teach in Santa Monica and Malta, his father’s country in the Mediterranean. The first time he ever helped someone who had English as a second language was before he had finished high school; he was hired to help a German man learn English in Malta.
After Carbonaro got his Master’s degree, he worked for several local high schools in the Dayton area.
“When I first came, [to his current job at Sinclair] somebody asked me something about the job I was stepping into and I always remember, I said, ‘as long as I do a good job for the students, faculty, and staff, then I’ll be happy and that’s my only concern,’” Carbonaro said.
In his spare time, he said he steps away from work as much as possible. One of his hobbies is to coach and officiate soccer games in the local community—work and his life outside of work, both keep him very busy. He said it’s just like switching hats—one is for his job and one for soccer.
When he was a child, he traveled around often, which he said that experience helped him find compassion for Sinclair students who are looking for a place to fit in.
“[I moved] enough to the point it affected me a lot,” said Carbonaro.
When he was eight, his family moved from East London to North London. There he had to learn a new “type” of English because East Londoners used a lot of slang and improper English, but North Londoners used a more proper English, very different from the East.
“If you want to be accepted in your new community, you have to speak like everybody else… or you’ll stand out,” Carbonaro said.
He said helping out those in our Sinclair community, who don’t speak English well or as their first language is important so that they find it easy to transition into our language and community.
Carbonaro speaks of his observations throughout the years of teaching, and he came to the realization that since he has been at Sinclair he gets the opportunity to meet people from all over the world.
“I think that it’s a great benefit to me to always meet people from around the world. It’s a very cheap way of traveling,” Carbonaro said. “It’s a great benefit because I get to learn about human beings from around the world, all of their different experiences, all of their different cultures, and I realize after so many years that people absolutely, one-hundred percent are the same no matter the country. People always say ‘what do you mean?’ ‘Look at all the differences.’ But strip all that stuff away, what do you have? You have a human being and everybody’s the same.”
Laura O’Ney
Reporter