Learning English: Tips for students

MY BIG DREAM was the title of Rogerio’s essay.

I came to America in March, 2000. I did not know one person in America, but a friend in Brazil gave to me a phone number in Framingham, Mass. I had only one thousand dollars and a little bag of clothes. I was very, very afraid. I did not speak English and could not understand.

I got a van in New York and went to Framingham. It was very difficult. I called the number and the person he said for me to stay 30 days. Next day, a person from Brazil took me to a restaurant and I got a job as a dishwasher. After one month, I got a job as a landscaper and I share one room with 6 people. I sleep on the floor for 3 months. I save money and send some to Brazil to my family. I buy a very old car and meet people from Brazil who are my friends. They live in Marlboro and I live with 3 people in 3 rooms. This is very good for 2 months.

I have some money and have an apartment with 1 bedroom for me. I am very happy. My brother came to America and lives with me. This is very good. I work now in a factory and have a job making pizza. I am tired but I am happy for opportunity for a new life. I am a student for English. My heart and my head are in Brazil everyday with my family. I hope I can go home one day. Thank-you, the people in America, for helping me. Thank-you from my heart.

There is a poignant familiarity to Rogerio’s story. It is, in many ways, our story-the immigrant experience of families all over America. Yet some of us have forgotten what our parents, grandparents or great-grandparents went through. We see immigrants every day, but have no idea what their lives are like. We grow impatient at MacDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts when the person at the drive-through doesn’t get our hastily-muttered order right, and never see the world that an Adult Education teacher named Marta showed me. It is a world where often well-educated people work at low-scale jobs because they speak no English. Like all who came before them, they come for the chance of a better life.

Many Americans don’t understand that the immigrant bagging their groceries at the supermarket or serving them at Dunkin Donuts didn’t consciously make a decision to not learn English. English As a Second Language had been a course taught in schools for several years. Originally in my town, classes were held mornings, but then this was changed in response to a growing awareness that many of the immigrants’ jobs