Adventures in ESL

For the past few months, I've been teaching an adult ESL class twice a week with Literacy Volunteers of the Lowcountry to get some much needed experience with English language learners. I had 9 adults from Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador and Nicaragua in my class. I have never seen people so eager to learn in my life. We worked on things like filling out job applications, role playing parent-teacher conferences and talking to doctors. I helped Adriana study for her citizenship test and it was so neat to see her come in the next week with her certificate saying she passed. She was SO excited about becoming a US citizen. (Now we just need to get her registered to vote!)

I think the best classes we had though were the ones where I threw out the "plans" and just let them talk. I quickly learned that nothing was off limits for conversation, as they discussed everything from stomach ailments (who would have thought that I would need to teach the world "constipation") to my lack of a husband and children. It was during these chats that I realized just how ridiculous the English language is.

There are looks of confusion as I invite them to "have a seat." I have to explain that I am not giving them the chairs but just want them to sit down. "Teacher, why you no just say that?" I don't know, Horacio.

We read an easy article about the presidential election that mentions John McCain as the underdog of the campaign. They all start to laugh and I'm completely clueless as to why. Lara manages to ask what McCain was doing underneath a dog.

Then there's the word "up." Only two letters but about 30 definitions. Just to give you an idea of why this word was so confusing for my students, here's a piece written by a Spanish teacher at a local high school:

It's easy to understand up, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake up? At a meeting, why does a topic come up? Why do we speak up and why are the officers up for election and why is it up to the secretary to write up a report?

We call up our friends. And we use it to brighten up a room, polish up silver, we warm up old leftovers and clean up the kitchen. We lock up the house and fix up the car. We stir up trouble, line up for tickets, work up an appetite, and think up excuses.

We seem to be pretty mixed up about up!

I'm just glad I'll be teaching English and learning Spanish...and not the other way around.