The Difference Between “Chicken” and “Kitchen”
I have been a part of many exciting programs while working at City Gate, one of which has been the development of an expanded English as a Second Language (ESL) program.
We started an evening ESL program late last year to complement the morning classes. We were not sure what to expect, but the additional classes have allowed nearly thirty new learners to participate.
Learning a language is difficult, but it’s very important for new Americans to have English skills to have opportunities. Most of the learners work in service jobs where they don’t speak English, and often they are not prepared to take advantage of career changes because of their limited English skills.
For me, the most rewarding part of teaching and coordinating the ESL program is watching the learners advance in the language. While the students come from all skill levels, I have been working most closely with the beginner-level classes. Volunteer teachers teach intermediate and advanced level learners. The intermediate class works on grammar exercises and the advanced class concentrates on short stories and news articles to enhance conversation.
Since evening classes have started, I have watched the dedication our learners have for improving their English. They come to class excited to learn. We laugh a lot, spending time going over words that sound similar, creating tongue twisters to learn.
One evening with the beginner level learners last spring, we spent over half an hour going over the difference between the words “kitchen” and “chicken.” The two words are very different in meaning, obviously, but the learners often confused the words because they sounded similar to them.
It was so fun practicing, “I cook chicken in the kitchen.” Everyone was correcting the classmates who were saying this sentence, yelling out “No!” or “Yes!” while trying not to laugh in order to let each individual speak.
On the first day of class last December, one of our most dedicated learners started the beginner level with her sister, niece and two friends. She could not communicate in English, so we began in Spanish. From the start she struggled with reading and writing in her own language and had difficulty understanding instructions on the activities that we were doing.
As the spring semester continued, this woman and her sister attended class every Monday and Wednesday, eager to learn. They came twice a week in the summer and continue studying with us now. As this learner’s English abilities improve, I have noticed her gain confidence. She is now taking classes on Saturdays and is asking a lot of questions about expressions that she hears on the playground or in the supermarket, words that the toddler she nannies for says. She even wants to know how to tell the young girl to “stand in the corner” or to say “good job.”
Another beginner level learner comes to class every week with papers of completed grammar exercises for me to correct. She is very motivated and hopes to become good enough at English so that she may someday return to her native country of Mexico to teach English in the schools.
As we are nearing our one year anniversary of an expanded ESL program, the same group of beginner-level learners that has been with us from the start understand the difference between chicken and kitchen, and are now learning the difference between more complex irregular verb conjugations, such as “bring” in the present and “brought” in the simple past. We do still giggle at words that sound similar; last night it was “duck” and “book” that cracked up the class.
When I first started at City Gate in January, one of the most frequent topics the students asked me about was college. I remember on the first day a third-grader asked me, “What do you do in college?” Then another girl chipped in and said, “You probably go to a lot of parties, right?”
This morning I opened The Washington Post to an editorial entitled “