English class offers adults chance at new beginnings
>>Print ViewPublication Date: 07/06/2007
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At first glance, the quiet room in Washington Elementary School seems to provide a glimpse into the past. With walls lined with inspirational posters and bulletin boards buried beneath brightly colored maps, it paints the picture of peaceful grade school days long past, but the students here are not children.
Instead, a group of adults with eyes attentively toward the white board sit hunched over textbooks, hoping to immerse themselves into the ways of an entirely different world. The room is one of four used by the Lafayette Adult Resource Academy which provides free English as a second language courses to the community.
"Americans have no idea how difficult it is for you to learn these," instructor Sheryl Singleton told her class in the midst of a lesson about infinitives and gerunds. "They have no idea how much work it takes."
Singleton spends her time with the higher level students teaching them things most Americans take for granted every day.
"One reason people come to LARA is because they know that the people here are in the same situation," she said. "They become self-supporting. They learn to feel safe here."
One of her students, Daniel Yoon, entered the country last July with big plans in mind. At the encouragement of his father-in-law, Yoon left his job as a currency trader, which he had held for 11 years, and came to America with his wife in order to fulfill his dream of opening a restaurant.
"I was a big decision," Yoon said. "But people here are very friendly and kind so I like it."
Yoon was forced not only to deal with cultural differences but economic and business related differences as well.
"The system is different here then where I lived before. The administrative procedure is different; it was difficult for me to do that."
It is not uncommon for people from across the globe to be transferred through their occupation and end up surrounded by a culture completely alien. Such is the case with Lenaick Trebouet who moved from Brittany, France to Lafayette after her husband was transferred by his employer.
"If you go to a foreign country, it is hard to make everything work," she said. "You have to make new friends and find new ways to manage daily life. Just going to the grocery or taking your kids to the doctor is different."
Adding to the everyday difficulties was the issue of dialect.
"In France, we learn British English so, at the beginning, it was very hard to understand American English. It was really challenging."
In Tokyo, Ryoko Kageyama found herself facing the same scenario as she packed her things in preparation to follow her husband after his job transfer to the US. With a three month old son, Kageyama could not afford the childcare costs that would allow her to attend ESL classes.
"I studied with a tutor," Kageyama said. "The classes offered were free but for me I still had to pay for childcare."
When the Lafayette academy added the resources for a childcare facility, Kageyama began regular attendance. Kageyama said the English lessons very greatly from traditional Japanese.
"Like I called customer service it was hard to talk to a real person," Kageyama said. "Even if you know the words, Americans still may not understand."
Those are just some of the obstacles facing ESL students and when the time comes for the students to overcome those obstacles, Singleton knows she has done her job.
"I do it for the satisfaction of their improvement," Singleton said. "When someone gets the job or gets accepted to Purdue. That is how it changes their lives."