Getting There

Refugees in Abilene: An ESL Challenge

by Bronwyn Bowen

“You’re living a normal life. You go to school or have a job and family. You see friends and relatives. Suddenly, you have no bed, no medicine, no blanket and no hope for the future. The faces around you are different, because many of your friends and family are dead or lost. It’s rare to see smiles. It’s like you’ve been forgotten.” – An Abilene refugee (Congo)

Listen in on most ESL (English as a Second Language) classrooms in Texas and you will probably hear an undercurrent of Spanish among students whose names are Ramirez, Garcia, and Castillo. Drop in on mine and you will hear Kirundi, French, Swahili, and Napali, with a smattering of Spanish and Chinese, by students named Ntibihoringere, Baradereka, and Mukaudeugo. Refugees, mostly African, comprise more than a third of the Abilene ESL students, with the preponderance in my Beginning/Beginning Literacy class. They are both a joy and a challenge.

Abilene is one of eight Texas cities selected for international refugee resettlement by various non-governmental agencies. Since 2004, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has brought about 600 refugees to Abilene from 13 countries in Africa, Asia, South America, Europe, and the Caribbean. Other ESL programs in the state have different ethnic groups.

Our first wave of refugees was a large group of ethnic Turks from the former Soviet Union – Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, together with a few Africans. Currently, the majority of our refugee students are from Burundi, Rwanda, and the two Congos (Kinshasa and Brazzaville) in Africa, as well as Bhutan in Asia. All have come straight from refugee camps, some with visible scars. The Bhutanese have been in camps in Nepal for 17 years. The Burundians fled tribal conflict in Burundi in 1972 and have been in camps in Tanzania ever since. For many of these younger people, the culture within the camps is their only connection to their home country. This longstanding dislocation makes the simple question “Where are you from?” very difficult for some to answer.

It is tempting to think of the refugees as a monolithic group, but in reality they are quite diverse. Languages, religious beliefs, and customs differ from one country of origin to another. Some have a background of professional jobs and perhaps a little English. Their previous education gives them the advantage of knowing how to learn. Frustrated by the language barrier, they want to regain their position in the middle class. Others, however, were subsistence farmers who have never been to school or held a job. For them, learning to write and answer questions about their names, addresses, and other personal information is a huge achievement. Functioning independently in American society – with jobs, schedules, bills, and children in English-speaking schools – is a daunting task.

What refugees have in common is loss of family, home, and country; conditions of war and discrimination that forced them into refugee camps; deprivation and hardships of camp life, and overwhelming language, cultural, and economic adjustments of life in the United States. These learners have presented a number of unexpected challenges.

The gaps in my TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) training have become painfully clear. My writing course, for example, focused on teaching students to write coherent paragraphs, not the alphabet. When 12 of the nonliterate 1972 Burundians, some of whom had never held a pencil, trooped in from the bus every morning last spring, we struggled to give them the individual attention they needed within the context of a class that had progressed to simple grammar. If they attend regularly, the very lowest do make progress, but rarely enough for an official gain on an assessment test. When a student cannot seem to learn, is it a teaching deficit, a language problem, a learning disorder, shyness, or post-traumatic stress?

Names are a particular issue. Apart from the difficult pronunciation and spelling, most of these African students place what we consider their last names first, so the terms first and last names are confusing to them. Moreover, the term family name is meaningless because everyone in the family usually has a different last name; babies are given both a first and last name. This lack of a common family name also makes it hard to identify family members in class since they rarely sit together.

With no word for goal or objective in my Kirundi dictionary, it is difficult to do the requisite counseling sessions with students who speak only Kirundi. I approach some content units differently now. I was about to begin my unit on family this fall when a new group of Congolese arrived. During the intake process, one man who also has four sons in class burst into tears as he pantomimed the brutal murder of his wife. I postponed the unit. We have also added new components, such as hygiene and American manners.

On the other hand, we have learned much since they have been with us, especially how much knowledge we take for granted. Would you think to tell a student to remove the paper wrapping from a straw? Or how to open a sugar packet so that sugar does not spill everywhere? We have had to rethink some teaching strategies. Despite these difficulties, the Africans and Bhutanese have radiant smiles, and when they wear their native clothing, the classroom blooms with bright colors.

We are proud that refugees have moved into every class in our program, from ESL to GED (General Educational Development) classes. Our Student of the Year last spring was a remarkable woman from Rwanda who began in Level one four years ago and is just a few points shy of completing her GED. Her determination and achievement symbolize what, with our help, our refugees can accomplish.

About the Author

Bronwyn Bowen is ESL Coordinator of the Abilene Adult Education Program, which is offered through the Abilene Independent School District. She can be reached at 325-672-6336 or bbowen60@gmail.com.