Category: Adult English Class

So We All Belong

4/25/2022

2022 n04
As an elementary school principal, Ms. Harrison wants all the families in her school to feel like they belong: like the school belongs to them, they belong to the community, and everyone has a part in educating the children. But at the beginning of the school year, ten percent of the families at West Hills Elementary had an extra hurdle to cross before they could feel like they belonged. Why? Because their first language is something other than English.

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More Alike Than Different

8/3/2020

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2020 n13
Sarah’s purple hair catches many by surprise, so she walked into her KIN interview willing to change the color if Jani, KIN’s Volunteer Outreach Coordinator, thought she should. But Jani loved it, and Sarah began her internship with KIN a couple of days later.

As a college senior, Sarah already knew she wanted a career helping those without a voice in society.

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Green Cards and Blue Passports

6/30/2020

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2020 n12
With their lives threatened back at home, Quincy, Katie,* and their two boys arrived in Knoxville six years ago carrying passports from Iraq. Quincy’s English was fairly good, but Katie didn’t speak any English until she began attending English classes near her home. They didn’t travel much with just US Green Cards.

In 2019, after the required five years of residency, Quincy took and passed the US citizenship test at his first opportunity.

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Of Holidays, Gravy, and Refugee Camps

11/20/2019

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2019 n23
If you grew up in the United States, the story isn’t new for you. You know about the Pilgrims’ struggle to survive when they first arrived in the new land, about the Native Americans’ generosity and patience, and about that first Thanksgiving feast to celebrate a plentiful harvest.

But Thanksgiving is an exclusively American holiday, so for ten African adult English students meeting at a nearby middle school, everything about it is new—even the mashed potatoes.

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What'cha Gonna Do?

10/22/2019

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2019 n22
There’s English, and then there’s southern American. The ESL workbooks don’t teach southern American, which means the books don’t provide a few of the words our internationals need to understand their Knoxville neighbors.

One recent ESL class talked about contractions. The instructor handed out a list of common contractions, and the class reverse-engineered them to discover the full phrases behind each one.

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A Simple Potluck Picnic

8/30/2019

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2019 n16
It was August, but a cool breeze kept everyone comfortable beneath the dark wooden arches of the pavilion. Covered dishes crowded two long tables. I had peeked beneath every foil covering and inside every cling-wrapped container, and, like I do every Thanksgiving, I wondered when someone would finally decide it was time to eat. There were familiar dishes like mac-and-cheese and unfamiliar offerings, like chat masala.
(photo credit: Yahya Sami Alseiha)

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The Orange Line

2/8/2019

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2019 n03
She came to Knoxville alone: a widow with three small children, fleeing an ongoing conflict in her African home country. She found an English class and attended faithfully all summer. With a small child on each hand and her baby strapped to her back, she wrote down every word and asked many questions, but she needed to learn more quickly, so she added another day of classes.

Soon she found a job, but she had to take the bus to get there. That's where things got confusing.

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So We All Belong

More Alike Than Different

Green Cards and Blue Passports

Of Holidays, Gravy, and Refugee Camps

What'cha Gonna Do?

A Simple Potluck Picnic

The Orange Line

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