By Grace Barker, Quill Writer
As the second quarter comes in full throttle, River Hill’s many new clubs are beginning to make names for themselves. Among them is the Multilingual Student Leaders, a club created to cultivate multilingualism in the community, already establishing their reputation.
“The whole mission of MSL is to bring in a bunch of bilingual people or multilingual students and use their skills to help the community. That could be through the act of translating [or] bringing more cultural diversity [to the community], because people who speak more than one language often come from very beautiful ethnic backgrounds,” explained Vice President Rebekah Belete.
Belete continued by stating why she wanted to become an officer: “I myself am multilingual and I love learning languages a lot. I love the music that comes with it, the culture that comes with it. I’m happy to use my skills to help others, but I also learn just for like self-fulfillment of these different language.”
When asked about why they joined the club, Sophomore Charlie Broderick stated, “I thought it had a really good mission of having people who are either trying to enhance their language skills or trying to learn a different language. I think a lot of people just resort to Spanish in high school. If they already have a language they speak at home or they’re interested in something else, I think that’s a really good idea to [to join and] just have a group of people who want to endorse that between each other.” Many secondary students take Spanish, a Newsdele data states that 75% of students take Spanish and only 15% take French, so there are very few other languages being taught. This club will endorse the ability to speak a small known language or students who already speak the languages to be able to come together and learn about each other’s cultures.
As a student taking a language that is not as widely taken at River Hill, Broderick stated “Being part of this club, I really hope that I can get better at talking to people in German because I’m learning German right now, but I really want to get better at my conversational skills and not just writing down the answers and submitting work. I want to be able to actually understand the language and communicate with it.” Sophomore Sara Saha had a similar opinion as she stated, “[In the club] I can find other people [who speak] the same language as me.”
The club’s goal of fostering community-building was further articulated by Secretary Zena Kishek, “I think that this club will help bring people together and talk about their culture more. I also think that it brings people together [in a way] that isn’t academic stemming.” Most schools around the country only require two years of languages, and as culture and languages are intertwined, most of the time, students are only introduced to different cultures through language classes. This club would allow for students to interact with different cultures without having any academics involved.
As it grows over the 2025-2026 school year, the club envisions bringing awareness to multilingualism and helping with the community’s multilingual needs. “We definitely want to give out a bunch of scholarship opportunities that people wouldn’t otherwise look for, specifically in Howard County to bilingual students and multilingual students,” Belete explains. “Maybe language specific opportunities as well. Our team is more than qualified to look into different opportunities for us…There’s a lot of niche stuff that people don’t know about that you can use your multilingualism to the advantage.” At the most recent club meeting, the officer team talked about the ability to work with a woman and her children who had just moved from China, an opportunity for Chinese-language students to use their language skills in the community, which is something that most students do not have the opportunity or do not know about.
When asked about what she thought was important for the club to do, sophomore and club member Asiya Shah stated, “Knowing more than one language is especially important in the U.S.” The importance was explained by Amelia Tseng, American University Linguistics Coordinator, who stated language is a human right and is important in allowing for cultural diversity. In a country with many different cultures, it is important in maintaining cultural diversity to allow for a better understanding of cultures.
Shah then continued with: “I hope to spread awareness about different languages and diversity because we have, especially in River Hill, we have a lot of people who know a second language.” Throughout Howard County and River Hill, there are many different cultures, some more well known and some more niche. However, English is the top language in the United States, so many people do not use their second language. This club would grant students the opportunity to introduce their language and culture to other peers in their own community.
Multilingual Student Leaders hope to be able to allow people of all different backgrounds and languages together to help the community and the students. As Belete says, Multilingual Student Leaders provides “gateways into new worlds, into different ways of thinking and perspectives. It makes me feel so much more enriched when I learn these languages. I’m in the process right now, but I’m happy to use my hobbies and my really deep love to help the community”