One recent Sunday morning in a classroom at SUNY New Paltz, a dozen people paired off facing each other and planned a picnic. “If you bring the apples, I’ll bring the bruschetta.” “If you bring the bruschetta, I’ll bring the carrots.” “If you bring the carrots, I’ll bring the donuts.”
And that’s when the menu fell apart. The next guy could not think of a food that begins with the letter e, so he announced he’d bring an elephant. Then came a fox, grapes, hot dogs.
It was going to be a strange picnic. By the end of the alphabet, they’d added roses, scissors, uniforms, wine, and a “young guy” – that took care of the letter y – and everyone was laughing. ESL teacher Kim Wojehowski had these adult learners repeat the whole list together, and then moved into the next exercise before anyone could remember to feel foolish or embarrassed. And why should they?
Working hard to get their mouths around the American English pronunciation of words they had just learned the day before is dignified work – even when their efforts dissolve into self-deprecating comedy.
The Language Immersion Institute (LII) at SUNY New Paltz, now in its 27th year teaching foreign languages to adult learners, has just initiated English as a Second Language into their program. The ESL weekend classes are offered free of charge to the migrant and immigrant residents of Dutchess and Ulster counties.
“We’re very grateful to the Dyson Foundation for making the funds available for this program,” says LII director Annie Gallin. “Some of our students have been here for 10 or 15 years and are just now learning the language. Many live in communities where they just don’t need English. So this is a very big opportunity for them.”
Aileen Hanel and Pam Knittel started generating the outreach communications in January, contacting organizations that serve this population. The response has been gratifying. “We have had no problem getting students,” reports Hanel, who heads this arm of LII. “We provide free transportation, free lunch in the campus cafeteria, and free childcare for children aged two to kindergarten.” Older children, who often have a command of English already, can participate in enrichment activities geared for their needs.
ESL classes are scheduled concurrent with other LII classes – Friday evening, all day Saturday, and Sunday until mid-afternoon. Hanel hopes adult learners will take full advantage of the program by returning for subsequent weekends.
All LII instructors are native or native-fluent speakers, rigorously trained in language education and chosen specifically for their personal energy and enthusiasm for the program’s “communicative approach.” Gallin explains how an instructor engages students with topics and themes instead of rote memorization of words and grammar. Classes focus on the practical skills that lend proficiency in a short-but-intense number of hours. Class sizes are small and intimate, populated by people from all walks of life intent on gaining skills in any of 20 different languages, from Arabic to Yiddish.
Energy on display
Just down the hall from the ESL class, veteran Spanish instructor Marilynn Garzione prompts her group of five in comparative conversations. She has props – newspapers, candy – and, dancing around the tiny room, she exhorts, “¡Comprendo la differencia!” Her students grope for Spanish terms to compare The New York Times and the New York Daily News. They explain why they prefer one candy or the other.
No English is spoken in this class. Garzione writes new phrases on a white board but covers them while students are repeating after her. She enunciates dramatically, gestures actively, and cracks jokes continuously. And she keeps up this pace for hours at a time.
In another, quieter classroom, Angeles Onis coaxes beginning Spanish learners to describe what they had for dinner the night before and tell where they ate. Again, no English, but for an occasional word inserted for explanation — like when one guy admits he’d eaten nothing but junk food, and Onis says she knows of no Spanish translation for “jellybeans.”
Every instructor has his or her personal style of delivery, but they all seem to keep the pace quick and the mood light. Gallin insists when people pay to learn a language, they deserve a truly immersed experience; and her team is dedicated to providing just that. In July, two-week-long sessions are being offered – that’s 50 hours over 10 days, with classroom instruction in the mornings and cultural activities in the afternoons. Typically, classmates have lunch together and “stay in the language,” using their new skills to interact and practice.
Speaking in tongues around the campfire
When Gallin came on as director two years ago, she saw the opportunity to develop a program for teenagers. Last summer LII held summer day camp for a group of 30 younger teens. Its success prompted an expansion of the program, and this August a full two-week residential camp is being offered to kids in seventh through 10th grades. Frost Valley YMCA, located outside Claryville on 6,000 acres of pristine Catskill Mountain terrain, is a teen camper’s dream destination. .
The acquisition of primary language happens so organically at such an early age that few of us give it any thought later in life. But just imagine – we celebrate a baby’s first clear utterance of “mama” and “dada,” and then stand by astonished at how rapidly whole sentences follow. The capacity for learning is never again as explosive as it is in a fresh, young mind.
For further tuition and scheduling information about the courses offered at the school – including details about how to participate in the free ESL classes, call 257-3500, e-mail lii@newpaltz.edu or see www.newpaltz.edu/lii.