Partners in learning: Volunteers take on the challenge of teaching English as a Second Language Partners in learning: Volunteers take on the challenge of teaching English as a Second Language (March 06, 2002)

By Jocelyn Dong

Students seems to be everywhere in this classroom in Menlo Park. They sit at three long rows of gray tables. Some are in chairs that curve around the ends of the rows, with their backs to the teacher. Others are seated along the walls, without benefit of a table. More than 40 students, ranging in age from 17 to 80, are here at Opportunities Industrialization Center West (OICW) to learn English as a Second Language.

Peggy Hilberman of Menlo Park picks her way among the rows, stopping to check student work and answer questions. The noise level is high, as students chat and consult with each other. Ms. Hilberman is a volunteer tutor, the only person besides teacher Al Coleman who is here to help these adults learn a new language.

Ms. Hilberman is part of a small cadre of trained volunteers in an 8-year-old program called Partners in Learning, run by the Sequoia Adult School in Menlo Park. She and her colleagues volunteer a minimum of two hours a week, for six months at a time, in classrooms and one-on-one with students. The program has anywhere from 25 to 40 volunteers at one time; most tutors stay in the program about a year, according to Margy Kahn, Partners in Learning's director.

The demand for ESL classes these days is high, says Carolyn Wittman, the ESL and GED program coordinator. About a thousand students are enrolled in the program, and at the beginning of the semester, 100 more were on the waiting list. (Ms. Wittman eventually opened up four new classes to accommodate them.)

"We're really booming right now," she says. The Sequoia program is the second largest in the county, behind San Mateo Adult & Community Education, which has about twice as many students enrolled a year. Three other adult schools in the county also offer ESL.

With high demand, and some classes stuffed to the gills, the need for volunteers is also great, says Ms. Kahn. Even as she dreams of having hundreds of tutors in her program, she says that her goal is simply to be able to provide what students need to learn English.

"There's such a desire to learn English," Ms. Kahn says. "They deserve to have smaller classes."

Ms. Wittman calls the volunteers "an integral part of the (ESL) program." They do everything from making photocopies of worksheets to teaching grammar, comprehension and vocabulary - whatever help the teacher needs. Even though students are grouped by ability level, "all students are not equal," says Ms. Wittman. "The volunteer program enables us to give individual attention to students who need it." And teachers get another set of eyes and ears - and hands - with which to help the learners.

In Mr. Coleman's class, Ms. Hilberman spends part of her time cruising the classroom and part time doing remedial tutoring with a handful of students who didn't learn to read and write in their native countries. The group had to start by learning the letters of the alphabet.

"We realized that these people weren't progressing (in class) because they're starting from such a deep hole," Ms. Hilberman says.

Tutors are not required to know a foreign language, but Ms. Hilberman brushes up on her Spanish as she works with the students. As a child, Ms. Hilberman lived in Bolivia for a few years. She learned to read and write in Spanish before she did English, a fact that she says gives her an understanding of people who want to learn English.

"Even though I spoke (English) with my parents, I never read or wrote it in my two-and-a-half years there (in Bolivia)," Ms. Hilberman says. "It's that experience of having to learn English as a second language myself that (gives me) a strong feeling about it."

During a recent class session, Ms. Hilberman takes three Latino students into another room to work on writing their addresses. She hands them each a worksheet and has them pronounce words like "address," "city," "state" and "zip code."

"Let's write the whole word for California. Todo la palabra," she says, stretching her hands out to indicate the entire word.

"Bueno, bueno," she adds.

"Teacher!" one student calls out, raising her hand and her voice. Rosa Ana Amaya is from Honduras. She has a compact face, reminiscent of Mother Teresa, and her black hair is pulled back into a long braid. Ms. Amaya sports a pale yellow sweatshirt and gold-rimmed glasses.

" 'P' or 'T'?" Ms. Amaya asks, trying to copy letters from a sheet that her tutor has written.

" 'P'," Ms. Hilberman replies, pointing to the letter.

Besides Ms. Hilberman, two other Partners in Learning volunteers work with the literacy students on different days of the week. The tutors communicate with one another through a binder, making note of each student's progress.

One student, a tutor has noted, "mixes caps and lowercase, so his letters are a mix of different elements. He also wants to write all letters above 'the line' so lowercase letters are the same as caps, just smaller. ... But, he understands a lot, so catches on fairly quickly, so I don't dwell on this."

Eventually, on this day, the literacy students complete three worksheets and then head back to class.
Breaking down barriers

Ms. Hilberman has volunteered with Partners in Learning for a year and a half. She says she's motivated by a desire to help people get ahead in the United States. A former vocational counselor with the state for 15 years, she saw that people were not advancing in their careers and lives because they lacked basic education. She views her volunteerism as addressing that issue.

"My commitment is to help people do better jobs," she says of helping her students, some of whom have limited themselves to work that does not require them to use English. "I think that the additional assistance in class means they learn more, and therefore make progress faster."

Prior to the ESL program, Ms. Hilberman volunteered to tutor students through Project Read, another literacy program. But it was the opportunity to work in a classroom that interested her.

Now, she says, she runs into former students out in the community. They greet her cheerfully, and she feels her service is appreciated. "Being involved with Adult Ed is a rewarding experience," Ms. Hilberman says.

For 81-year-old Caroline Bergh of the Sequoias in Portola Valley, it is a sense of necessity that led her to volunteer.

"The reason I do this is because I believe (lack of English ability) is one of the great barriers. We need to break down language barriers. We should not allow it to divide our country," she says.

Ms. Bergh has tutored two students in the past year, a young man from Mexico and a young woman from Iran. She helped the first student learn "useful" English ("things you need every day," she says) in one- to two-hour sessions twice a week. The Iranian student already spoke well, but needed to learn how to organize her thoughts into the American style of essay writing so that she could excel in college. Ms. Bergh met with the young woman twice a week at the student's home, and described their relationship as "very cordial."

"I like teaching. You like to think they're getting something they need to live here and help the country prosper," Ms. Bergh says.

"There are lots of things one could be doing to make one's life more useful," she adds. "It's better than very good flower arranging, which I don't do very well."

According to Ms. Kahn, other recent volunteers entering the program have been dot-com'ers who are in-between jobs. Still others have taken an interest in immigrants, especially since September 11, she says.

The majority of tutors are American-born, but about 20 percent are themselves immigrants, Ms. Kahn says. Part of the satisfaction of the program for her is seeing groups of people meeting for the first time.

"Our students do the gardening, day labor, work in restaurants. People see them, but don't know them," Ms. Kahn says. "I want to introduce groups of people to each other. That's what I get out of it."

And the students, she says, are grateful for the help and pleasantly surprised to have people take an interest in their learning. Some grew up with minimal education; others never got the personalized attention they are receiving from tutors. Because of their backgrounds, Ms. Kahn says, "people know how much value learning has. There are none as appreciative as the students here. It's really amazing."

Ms. Amaya, the literacy student, is taking ESL because she wants to become a citizen. Although she has lived in the United States since 1997, this is her first class in ESL. She's been coming every day for five weeks and says that the class has been useful to her.
Looking for more room

Not all classes have 40 students, according to Ms. Wittman. In part, it is Mr. Coleman's popularity as a teacher that draws so many to his classes, some of which have an enrollment of about 60. At the other end of the spectrum, there are classes with about 17 learners.

Ms. Wittman admits that some class sizes are "not ideal" but says that space problems preclude adding more. She recently commandeered the adult school's cafeteria for one class. In addition, she says, money is a factor in not hiring more teachers. Ms. Wittman would not elaborate. The volunteer program is part of the ESL program budget, which is funded by the state based on attendance hours.

Sequoia offers ESL classes throughout the community, at the adult school on Middlefield Road in Menlo Park, Garfield Elementary Charter School, San Mateo County Human Services offices and Fair Oaks Senior Citizens Center in Redwood City, to name a few locations. There's even a class for employees at a local cabinetry company, Segale Bros.

Originally conceived as a joint program with Palo Alto Adult School, the volunteer program was run under the auspices of both districts until they parted ways last year, according to Kara Rosenberg, principal of the Palo Alto Adult School. Now, for reasons of simplicity, the two districts run their own volunteer programs. The San Mateo Adult & Community Education program also runs a volunteer tutor program in conjunction with its citizenship program.

Back in the OICW classroom, Mr. Coleman and Ms. Hilberman start putting away supplies after the students have left. After three hours of instruction and interactions, it is suddenly stunningly quiet. Mr. Coleman talks about splitting the class into two sections, to separate the more advanced students from those who are just beginning. He mentions to Ms. Hilberman that this will change the tutoring schedule, but she says she is flexible. She prefers to work with the beginning students, and will adjust her schedule to the class' needs.

Mr. Coleman himself began as a volunteer tutor in the early 1980s, before becoming a credentialed ESL teacher some 17 years ago. He's worked with numerous volunteers since the program began and remarks about how they have been an invaluable source of help.

"Partners in Learning," he says simply, "is a very successful program."

For more information

Training sessions for Partners in Learning volunteers are offered twice a year, or sooner if the program has received interest from 10 potential tutors. The training program lasts 10 hours. Contact Margy Kahn, program director, at mkahn@seq.org, or call 369-1411 ext. 7946.