The struggle to assimilate

Coral Wilson

Electronic dictionaries, scribbled notes and English books filled the

rows of desks at the Oak View branch of the Huntington Beach Adult

School.

“I’m going to clean. She’s going to clean. You are going to

clean,” was written on the whiteboard in large, neat letters.

Teacher Ursula Souders worked to elicit a response from the sea of

23 blank faces as she explained the more difficult words in the class

exercise. She was teaching a beginning English as a Second Language

class and some of the students had only been studying English for

several months.

“Do you understand toothbrush?” she asked them.

With a wide grin, she pretended to brush her teeth with large,

exaggerated gestures.

The students giggled quietly and Domingo Godinez translated the

word into Spanish for his classmates.

“In English, in English, Domingo,” Souders reminded him.

Resorting to pictures, she put a cartoon story on the overhead

projector, about a soldier who receives a letter from his girlfriend.

“Dear John, I am sorry but I have a new boyfriend,” the class read

aloud.

The soldier’s face is sad. But when the girlfriend asks for her

picture back, the soldier’s face becomes angry. Souders emphasized

the word ‘angry’ with an angry face of her own.

The soldier returned his girlfriend’s photograph in a box full of

pictures along with a letter that read, “I can’t remember which one

is you.”

Only a couple of students laughed at the punch line. The rest had

a look of concentration and deep confusion. They are still mystified

by the language, the culture and the jokes they now live among.

The class paired up to work on a fill-in-the-blank worksheet about

the cartoon.

“Remember, this is an English class, not a Spanish class,” Souders

reminded as she walked around to help them.

She stopped at Tomasa Balbuena’s and Maria Ponce’s desk. The women

were huddled over their paper, working in silence.

“Are you speaking, or only writing?” she asked them.

Most students learn to copy, read and write English. But what they

need most of all is to talk, Souders said.

“Fear stifles the learning process,” she said.

She jokes around and acts silly to encourage her students to do

the same.

This year, the Oak View Education and Resource Center received

federal funding to buy new computer equipment. This has accelerated

the progress by allowing the students work at an individual pace. It

has been especially helpful for students too intimidated to speak out

in class.

“It has given them self-confidence as well,” she said. “Everyone

uses computers. Now they can use them too.”

The center serves the largely Latino Oak View community. With a

pre-school and elementary school nearby, parents have a chance at

keeping up with their children.

Originally from Germany, Souders can relate to her student’s

frustration with learning a new language. She understands how hard it

is to get by in a new environment, to feel at home in a new country.

“Everything is so different and everyone thinks you understand

what is going on,” she said. “But you don’t.”

* CORAL WILSON is a news assistant who covers education. She can

be reached at (714) 965-7177 or by e-mail at

coral.wilson@latimes.com.