Filipino English teacher gets award from New York Times

This ESL teacher helps all immigrants learn English, and learn about the lives of the others in their class. Often, the classmates are enemies in their homelands, but he teaches them to be friends, because they are all Americans now. DP

By Kristine L. Alave, Philippine Daily Inquirer

newsinfo.net: There are times when the classroom of Feliciano Jaime “Chito” Atienza, who teaches English to immigrants, seems less of a classroom and more a United Nations peace panel.

In Atienza’s class in Queens, New York, culture-shocked (and sometimes shell-shocked) students who speak zero English not only master a new language, they are also helped by people they consider their enemies back in their motherland.

Atienza, winner of The New York Times 2008 English for Speakers of Other Languages (Esol) Teacher of the Year award, has been teaching English to immigrants for two decades. He recalls one class where Afghans and Russians glared at each other. There were also students, fresh from their war-ravaged Bosnia, who refused to speak to one another.

“The class was divided into two. You can really feel their hatred toward each other,” he says.

With some coaxing, the warring classmates set aside their past grief and became friends. After all, they were Americans now, he reminded them.

Students poured their hearts out to Atienza, the first Filipino and immigrant to receive the award. A Hispanic man lost his job and found a new one thanks to his teacher’s intervention.

More recently, because of Atienza’s class, a Tibetan and a Chinese bonded over the recent clashes in Lhasa. Said the Chinese to the Tibetan, who was worried sick about her family: “I’m sorry.”

These little dramas, played out in Atienza’s classroom in the Queens Library and in the YMCA Center, underscore his ability to reach out to his students. The classroom is not just a place of learning, but also a place for healing.

He is not only their mentor, he is their first friend in a strange land.
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