Polish school helps New Bedford immigrants

These language classes are the opposite of what we are used to, and since it is so valuable for anyone to know two languages, the students will benefit.    - - Donna Poisl

By MATT CAMARA, The Standard-Times

 NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) — The teacher peppered her four students with questions.

‘‘What day is it? What day is tomorrow? Yesterday?’’ she'd ask each of the students, girls between 7 and 14-years-old, in turn.

The girls answered the teacher’s questions without reverting to English, their responses punctuated by the instructor saying ‘‘dobry’’ — Polish for ‘‘good’’ — and moving on to the next lesson.

‘‘Even though (the students) speak Polish at home, it’s difficult to teach the grammar, the writing,’’ said Renata Morrison, principal of the Polish School of New Bedford, while she walked a reporter through the halls of Holy Family-Holy Name School, where Polish is the language of instruction Saturday mornings. ‘‘We don’t make money on this, it’s just to help our children become fluent in a second language, their native language.’’
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