Volunteers keep ESL class going without funding
Program teaches practical English
HATFIELD TWP. >> One of the participants in Sue Barrow’s Family English as a Second Language class might know the grammar but have a strong accent, while another might have less of the technical grasp of the language.
“They both want the same thing,” Barrow said. “They want to work on their pronunciation and conversation skills and learn more about the practical part of English.”
To help do that, learning exercises in the class include students reading scripts of routine encounters in everyday life. A visit to a local restaurant is planned on another day, Barrow said.
It can be frightening for the students to try to speak in their new language, said Barrow, a Souderton resident who is in her 18th year as a family literacy and ESL-related teacher.
“Be brave, just get out there and try,” she encouraged the students during a recent class.
The family literacy program she was director of didn’t win the competition for state funding in the current cycle, but a modified version of the program was funded by and held for a year at Souderton Mennonite Church, Barrow said.
That, too, has now come to an end, she said, but the class is still
meeting.
“Now there’s no funding, so I’m just volunteering because I think it’s important,” Barrow said. “I just think it’s a great class. I love teaching it.”
Along with herself, there are other volunteers who help with the classes now held three mornings a week at the St. Maria Goretti campus in Hatfield, she said.
Two of the volunteers, Gwen Diamond and Denise Conway, who do children’s programs while their parents are in the class taught by Barrow, volunteer every day, Barrow said.
Along with babysitting the children while their parents are in class, the children also start to learn English by being spoken to in English and through things such as singing songs, learning nursery rhymes and learning about shapes and colors, Barrow and Diamond said.
“I feel it’s important for the children to also be taught English, even a little bit at a time, so that they can have a conversation with their parents and encourage the parents to also speak English,” Conway said.
The focus in the class is on English as it’s really spoken, Barrow said.
During a recent class, she advised students that instead of asking someone, “How are you doing?” they should use the more common, “How ya doin’?”
“Not ‘doing’ — ‘doin,’ — no ‘g’ sound,” Barrow instructed the class.
Pronunciation tips while reading aloud included, “When you see a ‘w,’ think about kissing your lips out.”
“I love this class so much because this class help me so much,” said Hortense Tumbonyo, who came from the Congo two years ago.
“Now I can talk a little bit, I can understand a little bit of English,” as well as being able to read English, Tumbonyo, who started the class in January, said.
“I like it very much here. It’s very good for me in my daily life,” said Shwetali Borkar, from India, who came to the United States five years ago.
Borkar said she recently got her driver’s license.
“I can do more of everything” after being part of the class, she said.
Alain Kabena, who came from the Congo in August and started the class the beginning of October, said he knew a small amount of English before starting the class but had difficulty understanding when people spoke to him in English.
“Now I’m beginning to hear, to understand,” he said.
The current class has had 36 people take part, although not all are there every day, Barrow said.
“There’s always between 20 and 25 students every day,” she said.
A “Starfish Studies — Family ESL” GoFundMe page, which has been used to pay for student textbooks, has been started to help pay for costs associated with the program.
“The beauty of not being funded through the state is I don’t have to jump through a lot of hoops,” Barrow said.
Two of the women in the class recently got their driver’s license, she said. Another is now able to take her sons to a movie and buy the tickets, she said.
Those are the types of things that don’t show up on state standards, she said.
“You can’t really measure that, although it was a goal that they wanted to attain,” Barrow said.
In another case, a class member and her husband recently went to the post office but weren’t able to make themselves understood, so they went back home and again practiced what they were trying to communicate, then returned and were successful, she said.
Students in the class run the gamut educationally from those with a master’s degree to some who had no formal education in their native country, she said.
She said she’s had some discussions with a nonprofit organization about the possibility of the class being put under the organization’s umbrella of programs, which could help with future funding, but nothing has been finalized.
“What I really would like to do is I’d like to teach another class, maybe in the evenings, which would be practical English for the workplace,” Barrow said.
The current class is geared more toward families and everyday conversation, she said.
“I’d really like to help people that are at work,” she said.
Anyone interested in contacting Barrow may do so by emailing her at suebarrow.starfishstudies@gmail.com.
“The name Starfish Studies comes from one of Ms. Barrow’s favorite stories,” a release about the class said.
“A young man is walking along a beach strewn with starfish. As he walks along, he occasionally picks one up and throws it back into the water. Watching him, an older man says, ‘Why bother? It’s not going to matter — you can’t save them all.’
“With that the young man picks up another starfish and, as he throws it into the water, says, ‘It matters to this one.’”
Barrow said she feels the same way.
“I’m not going to be able to help everybody, but if I can help somebody with one thing, I feel I’ve done something well,” she said.