Ledger

Rosalie F. Robinson points out one of many nuances in America's lexicon to English as a Second Language students - the difference between "may" and "can." Robinson has been teaching ESL classes for nine years at local community colleges.

Her slender hand bangs the table palm down—SMACK—as her guttural voice exclaims, “My English NO GOOD.” The slamming of her hand usually accompanies a smile and a chuckle, but there is an element of frustration also. Shuhua (pronounced Shoe-who-ah) does this every once in a while during her English as a Second Language class as if to punctuate her aggravation, albeit good-naturedly like a slap on someone’s back.

Shuhua arrived here from Taiwan a mere six months ago. She stands just a smidgen over 5 feet tall, her slight figure clad in fashionable but casual clothes. Her hair is done in a shag style, the wispy layers framing a soft face, in which her dark eyes usually twinkle mischievously behind no-rim glasses. The effect is that of someone much younger than her stated age of 48 years old; in truth saying she looks 30 would not be pushing it. She must get this compliment frequently because she is quick to reply, “Because I’m little.” Certainly she doesn’t look old enough to be a biological mother to a 21-year-old, but she is, and he (the 21-year-old) is still in Taipei since he did not make the trip to the United States with his brother, sister and mother.

Shuhua decided to attend ESL classes as soon as she arrived, making this her second quarter of learning English. She was tired of her husband (who came here first to establish a racing car parts business) teasing her about her English.

“He says my English is garbage,” she recalls wryly, this time emphasizing her point with the classic fist-hitting-the-palm move. After all, back in Taipei she was an accountant, good with numbers, smart and capable—the heck if she was going to let her poor command of English be an obstacle her husband was going to heckle her with.

Her status here, though, is one of a student learning another language and caretaker to her children, 15 and 11, who are doing better (in her estimation) in acclimating to the language.

At Tacoma Community College, Shuhua is one of the students who attend a Level 4/5 ESL Grammar class five days a week. There are six ESL levels in three categories (Reading and Writing, Grammar, and Speaking and Listening) at TCC, with Level 1 being the beginner’s class. In the 2005-2006 academic year, TCC had a total of 419 ESL participants—with 89 percent of them being older than 25 years old. The age of the average ESL student brings with it life experiences and certain insights that come with age, so while their English language skills might be on par with a typical American first grader, they are definitely not 7-year-olds.

Abayas and “the quiet one”

Zee likes to sit towards the front of class so she can hear. When she brightly answers the teacher’s questions, she sounds muffled. That is because she wears an abaya, a form of clothing women in Yemen wear that shrouds everything from head to toe, except for their eyes. Similar to a burka, it is usually made up of lightweight material, and in Zee’s case, a chocolate brown jacquard-textured rough silk.

“Anywhere where men outside of your family are, you must wear it,” Zee says. “That way, men can’t tell if you are beautiful or not beautiful and they cannot be tempted. If they can see everything, makeup and such, things that attract a man to a woman, well… it is against my religion.”

The abaya does work to hide features because when Zee removes the cloth that covers the lower half of her face, then it can be seen that she is older than what her spry and birdlike movements under the tented material reveal. The wrinkles that fan out from her eyes and the soft-worn crinkly pale skin with irregular brown spots appear to be premature for a 45-year-old woman.

Usually inquisitive and verbal in class, Zee sometimes irritates her neighboring classmate, Anh-Thi, one of the younger students in class, who prefers a quieter environment when it comes to studying. If Zee knew this, she would be crushed. Where she comes from, neighbors from all points around your house are considered family; that is what she misses most about her Yemen culture.

“Anybody needs help, you give it to them. That’s the way of my religion. If a neighbor’s leg is broke, you help pay for it. Things like that. Not here,” she says. Everyone is too busy running around.”

Cultural Enrichment

When Miss Rosalie (as her students call the ESL teacher) finishes relaying a lesson about how to use the word “should” correctly while giving examples like “She should drink” and “He should eat,” Anh-Thi’s arm hesitantly raises up.

“But it seems not polite to say ‘should’ to elders,” she starts uncertainly, and with an encouraging nod from the teacher she continues, “If you’re a younger person you need to be polite and don’t give advice to elders—like you don’t give advice to your mother.” Affirming nods from other students accompany her comment.

Rosalie Robinson, who has taught ESL classes for over 10 years, answers immediately, picking up that Anh-Thi is asking more of a cultural question than a grammatical one.

“In the U.S. there is no set rule to ‘respect your elders’ as it is in other countries. It is not so important to be polite to elders,” Robinson clarifies.

Robinson then gives an example of a real-life scenario, which, along with conveying personal experiences, is the way she likes to answer questions:

“If your grandfather was mowing the lawn on a very hot day and you are concerned, then you can say, ‘Grandfather, maybe you should drink some water.’”

Something like relief is reflected in Anh-Thi’s and other students’ body language as they absorb the lesson on American culture.

 “The buds”

A Korean businessman, a Vietnamese monk and a Ukraine student: No, it is not the setup to a joke. These people occupy the last row of tables in the back of the class, and they are best buds.

Admittedly they don’t socialize outside of class, but during class—watch out. They are constantly laughing about something and guffawing about certain words, like typical class clowns who sit in the back of a high school science class. There is a lot of high-fiving and nodding at inside jokes. Funny thing is, they find each other’s pronunciation of English too difficult to understand due to their respective heavy accents. Still, there is a lot of energetic hand-gesturing and one word “phrases” that they use to communicate. And it seems to be enough. 

Case in point: A lesson on gerunds calls for the class to contribute answers—“skiing is fun,” for example. When it is Dmitri’s (nicknamed “Dima”) turn, the 20-year-old Ukrainian student turns to his colleagues in fun and they do a lot of gesturing until the

iment from “the buds”. The question was, “[Blank] is Ana’s favorite activity outside of class.” Ana happens to be one of the extremely rare students in class who doesn’t pay attention to lessons, preferring to text on her cell phone to her tablemate, Nicole.

Dmitri stands at least 6 feet tall if not taller and he is built like a lumberjack. He has brown hair with yellow glints and a cherubic face with wide Slavic cheekbones. His eyes are gray-blue ice chips. Mostly, he is like the Jolly Green Giant, alternating between having fun and causing fun, and wherever you are in class, you can hear his booming voice.

The Korean businessman’s name is Soong-chool. He misses a lot of class because of his work schedule. With his heavy plaid suit coat, maroon sweater vest, sensible shoes and his glasses perched on the end of his nose, he actually resembles the stereotype of an English professor. When he is apart from his buddies, he is shy and uncertain when it comes to his command of English. He smiles politely if asked questions in English.

Rounding off the trio is My Tran. He is a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk who works as a spiritual counselor at a temple in Tacoma. He had come to the U.S. via Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and China on a Study Abroad program sponsored by his temple. Born 30 years ago in Saigon, Vietnam, he decided to become a monk when he was 15.

“I have a green card and I will study English and then continue to work in the temple here in the U.S. I want to help everybody to have a ‘peaceful heart’,” he says through an interpreter. His name at the temple is Thich Hanh Huy. Literally, it means “practicing morals and shine bright.” He considers this to mean “the light to show you the way to your morals”—a purpose he does not take lightly.

 “An assistant to a president”

Robinson, who is new to TCC, taught ESL for nine years at Pierce College in Puyallup. She is an exceptionally warm and kind person, which is conveyed through her interactions with students in the class. Although she tries not to pry into students’ lives unnecessarily, she does find out things here and there.

“I’ll never forget this one student [at Pierce College],” Robinson says. “She was like a mother to everyone in class, a Filipino mother hen. In fact, she did bring an entourage of sorts with her to class—I believe some of the students were her children or children of cousins, some sort of relation to her. She had said that she was an assistant to a president. So I asked her one day, ‘President of what company?’ She answered, ‘Not company. My country, the Philippines.’ ‘You were the assistant to the President of Philippines? Like

Bush is President here?’ I asked her. ‘Yes,’ [she answered]. I never found out the rest of her story since she moved away… ESL students are surprising; many times they have college degrees or were working in a professional capacity before coming here… It’s amazing.”

Mikhail, a student in her 4/5 Level ESL class, exemplifies this trend. A white-haired, bespectacled and charming gentleman, Mikhail was an engineer in his native Latvia. His wife and classmate Zina was a librarian supervisor. They are both in their late-60s but are sharp and attentive, with heavy Russian accents. Here in the U.S., Mikhail works as an assembly worker in a donut factory while Zina works at a small jewelry store.

Sitting at the table next them are Olga – tall, with brick-red shiny hair – and Edith, an attractive, Nordic-looking blonde. Olga, 30-something, is from the northernmost section of Russia, from a place called Murmansk. Edith, though, is from Vinnitsya, a large city in Ukraine where she worked as a singer and musician.

“I was a graphic designer in big advertising company,” Olga proclaims proudly. “We had customers from Finland, Norway, uh…” She breaks off and looks to Edith, spouting off Russian quickly. Edith looks back at her, shrugs, and says, “You know, Sweden, Swisser…” They both look puzzled until Zina says, “Scandinavian countries.” Olga and Edith nod, smiling.

It turns out that Edith is Dmitri’s mother and she is a mere 37 years old. She normally could be found to look at her son during class in an indulgent but quizzical manner as if to say, “He is mine?”

On the opposite side of the classroom sit two Asian women who can typically be found whispering intently to each other when there is a particularly vexing grammar lesson being put forth.

One of them is Chunghee, a 35-year-old woman who married an American a year ago and moved here from Tokyo. Even though she is originally from Seoul, Korea, she had been working in Japan for more than a dozen years.

“I was a publisher for books and also, editor for magazines. Many, many magazines in Japan,” she says.

Chunghee’s easygoing manner contradicts this admission of working in a cutthroat industry. Her kewpie doll-like prettiness, deep dimples, and long black curls belie the image of a cutthroat editor and driven publisher—but apparently she was one.

“I was very tough. And I was serious but I loved my job. I am interested in going to college here someday so I can get a job working for publisher. Right now I’m learning some more English,” she says.

Her friend in class, Rumi, is older at age 41. Rumi is friendly and easygoing, and quick to laugh. Rumi’s beauty is all sharp angles, like cut crystal, surrounded with a short bob of soft curls. She had previously worked in her husband’s company, a Japanese engineering firm—which happens to be the one that designed the new Narrows Bridge and is the reason why they moved here. She, her engineer husband and their two sons, 7 and 5 years old, will be moving back to Japan next year after completion of the work at the Narrows Bridge.

“She is smart,” Rumi points to Chunghee, who shakes her head, “but I studied English in Japan for 6 years and I’m still no good, not smart for English,” she laughs.

Yet learning English is their common thread and, as it turns out, their unifier.

Second language

One day, when one of the three amigos, Soong-chool, is not there, Dmitri begs Shuhua to sit with him and My Tran. She shushes him, but like a puppy with a toy, he hovers over her.

“You have a permit to call me Dima,” he implores. “Please” is said often. After an exasperated sigh, Shuhua growls back, “Okay. Okay.”

There is a new dynamic as she sits between My Tran and Dmitri. She animatedly talks to My Tran in Mandarin, who smiles and answers back somewhat ponderingly. Dmitri, on the other hand, tries to do the camaraderie thing with her, but it turns out to sound more like flirting than anything else. Shuhua responds to this by patting Dmitri’s hand and shushing him frequently, frowning. Her defenses start to break down halfway through class as she becomes more comfortable.

“You are bad,” would be a typical retort to Dmitri, and My Tran would nod and point at Dmitri silently laughing. By the end of class, they are like the Three Stooges. SLAP, goes Shuhua’s hand on Dmitri’s sleeve, WHAP goes Dmitri’s hand on My Tran’s back, and My Tran answers back with a shove. This all comes to an unexpected stop, after a particularly difficult grammar problem comes up that they can’t seem to figure out. Shuhua slams the table with her palm, standing up abruptly and pointing at My Tran: “You English NO GOOD.” There is a moment of silence, then –

“Of course,” booms Dmitri, “That’s why we are here.”

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