Bolivian student returns to Knoxville roots

By Kassie Barker
UT Student Writer

Denise Duran’s parents met in the Sunsphere during the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville. This spring the Bolivian student came to the city where her parents fell in love to study English.

Duran arrived at the University of Tennessee’s English Language Institute (ELI) in January with limited English skills. With her parents’ encouragement and the support of an uncle in nearby Kingsport and a cousin already studying at UT, she found it to be a perfect learning environment.

Duran’s father took the same journey 26 years ago and met her mother, a Mexico native who was attending the World’s Fair. Her father manages a large company in Bolivia.

“The University of Tennessee is a special place for our family,” says Duran, whose family lives in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. “I wanted to study where my parents met, and learn from the same program my father did.”

The English Language Institute is a full-time intensive English language program. Consisting of three proficiency levels from beginning to advanced, students learn English structure, writing and composition, reading and vocabulary, and listening and conversation. Many students enroll without knowing any English at all.

Learning English was difficult, but Duran also had to overcome a much bigger obstacle. She was born with a hearing disability that limits her reception of sound.
 
“I was born very prematurely,” Duran recalls. “I didn’t speak for two years, and I didn’t begin talking until I was about 5 years old. My mom worked very hard to teach me Spanish. Learning English has been a big change, but my teachers have supported me so well.”

At an early age, Denise learned to match the sounds of her mother’s voice to the movement of her lips. Denise recalls her mother pointing to objects and pronouncing her words very clearly; she learned to read her mother’s lips with the sounds of the words.

Today, she uses the same lip-reading techniques to study and speak English.

Duran likes to keep herself busy, and she loved living on campus at UT because there was always something to do. She enjoys photography and exploring her creativity, working on the computer and reading books.

Duran spent her weekends visiting her uncle nearby or keeping busy with friends. “For spring break some of us went to Cleveland, Ohio!” she says. “We had a lot of fun. We also plan to go to the Smoky Mountains for a weekend.”

After completing the ELI program in mid-May, Duran returned to Bolivia to start work on an undergraduate degree in communications or business.

“I am so happy to have spent time here,” Duran says. “I’ve gotten to know so many people from different countries and languages. I am very thankful for my teachers and all their support.”