Church supports American dream through language

This story shows how much immigrants want to learn English. And they are learning conversational English that will help them at work and in their daily lives. DP

By JILL BODACH, Hour Staff Writer

On Sunday, Javier Carranza sang "Jingle Bells" for the first time.

Carranza sang the traditional carol loudly and with enthusiasm, following along to words printed on the sheet of paper in front of him. Carranza, 45, came to the United States from Peru seven years ago. He came to the U.S., leaving behind his wife and three children, to find work. He now works as a landscaper, in addition to other odd jobs, but right now, his most important job is learning to speak English.

"It isn't that difficult to me to learn English," Carranza said. "I like coming to this church for these classes because we have a good teacher."

For the past five weeks Carranza and others have been meeting in the basement of the Calvin Reformed Church on Lexington Avenue to participate in an English class.

The English classes began the first week of December but the idea to hold them date back to early fall when Gail Deaver, a congregant, and Rev. Ervin Betts, passed of the Calvin Reformed Church, passed the day laborers crowding together along the bridge on Ely Avenue waiting for work each Sunday on their way to church.

Each time Betts Deaver passed them Betts would say to Deaver, "You're an English teacher. You should teach them English."

It was true; Deaver had taught English, poetry and literature, but she didn't think she had the skills to teach English as a second language. Then she saw a brochure from Norwalk Community College describing a methods course for teaching English as a second language.

"Erv says that God directed by eye to that course in the catalog," Deaver said.

Deaver and Betts signed up for the course and began to prepare materials for teaching English. Deaver had the advantage of knowing Spanish from the time she spent living in Venezuela, but the question remained: How would Deaver and Betts get students to come to the class?
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