NONFICTION  -  
​         WITH A THEME OF WORK

The students give us identical gifts -  -  - 
                        ​a beautiful orchid and a bromeliad in a large pot.        Photo by Weebly.com                                    

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"Thank you for teach me"
by  Lynne Rappaport

​It's the last day of class in the middle of May, and our students at the Bayshore Community Learning Center in Daly City are having their end-of-semester celebration. Excited as children at a birthday party, they are decorating the room with lime-green crepe paper, giggling as they blow up balloons. I've brought a few small bottles of bubbles and distribute them, enjoying the "aha" moment as they realize what to do with the little stick and soapy liquid.
 
These are adult ESL students, and they come from all different corners of the globe. Trying to learn the English language, with all its intricacies and rules and exceptions to the rules, is the glue that binds them.
 
One of the highlights of these parties is the homemade food the students bring in to share. Cai Fen, or Lisa, her American name, prepares noodles with mushrooms, and always sends me home with the leftovers because she knows I love this dish. Gamilah makes Yemenite pizza with lots of oregano, and Hana brings her Iraqi dolma wrapped around rice, beef, and tomatoes. Laura's guacamole quickly disappears.
 
Maria Teresa, a petite El Salvadorian grandmother with curly hair, loves to dance, and as soon as the salsa music starts up, she gets down. I heard that she once won a dance marathon contest. I can’t ask her, because my Spanish isn’t good enough.
 
Everyone is in good spirits. We call each one up to present them with a Certificate of Completion, and hand them tapes to practice pronunciation over the long summer break. The other teacher personalizes his congratulatory comments. We shake their hands and sometimes offer hugs. Not everyone is receptive to that; one of the three Arabic women, in head garb and long dress with little or no education back in Yemen, recoils slightly from the male teacher's physical gesture. She's also shy about being included in class photos.

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​The students give us identical gifts that they've each contributed some money toward: a beautiful orchid and bromeliad in a large pot, from Costco, and a box of chocolates, the kind Walgreens sells. They've also circulated a homemade card where they attempt to write a message.
 
"Thank you for teach me!" says Jun Cui, an immaculately dressed older Chinese man who buries himself in the dictionary and ponders grammatical structure.
 
"Teacher Lynne, thank you for help us to learn English and you have beautiful vacationes this long time," writes Obdulia, a proud Chicana who sparkles with personality and energy every single day, despite having six children (five sons and, finally, a daughter) under the age of l4 to tend to at home.
 
Lily says, "Thank you Lynne, have learn a lot of English in the pass, I wish to seeing you again in the next semester." She's one of the veteran students, in the program four or five years already, doggedly copying everything into her notebook, stumbling with reading, unable to decode words phonetically, memorizing as much as she can. Even though her reading's weak, we can usually rely on her to translate for the lower-level Chinese students. Lily made the Costco run to get the potted flowers, and always hugs me tightly when the semester ends.
 
Juan Lei, a young Chinese girl around 20, says, "Teacher, see you next team. I think, You have a nice day and happy every day!" She comes in at 9 a.m. looking half-asleep, and explains that she stays up till 2 a.m. playing computer games at home.
 
Hong writes, "Thanks you a lot." He is a very recent arrival to America, hardworking and serious. We are grateful to have him, so that the only other Cambodian student, Kim Lang, has someone to communicate with and lean on for translation help.

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la​Ernestina, or Tina, from Mexico, gets it right: “Teacher Lynne—Thank you for your help this year." She's our most capable student, with neat handwriting and correct spelling. She has two daughters in elementary school and reads to them every night. She has been timid, though, about studying for her citizenship exam, and we're trying to encourage her.
 
Clever Ana from El Salvador copies exactly what Tina wrote.
 
Our program is beset with California's educational budget woes, so the students only study with us Monday through Thursday, 9 to l2. Friday classes, and afternoon and evening sessions, have all been cut back. There are no funds for summer school, so we'll have a three-month gap before fall semester resumes.
 
When they leave the classroom each day at noon, they frequently retreat to a cloistered world within their native language. They watch telenovelas (Spanish language soap operas), or read the news in the Chinese newspaper. One student, a young Chinese woman named Sammi, stopped coming to school once she got a cashier's job in a Chinatown store. She works ridiculously long hours, and there's little opportunity there to pick up much English.
 
But today we are all giddy with joy at completing another year of learning. Everyone pitches in to clean up—vacuuming, washing dishes, and emptying the garbage. They take home balloons and leftovers, and as they leave, they tell us, "See you later, alligator," one of the idioms we've worked on during the year. I wonder if they'll remember it come September.

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​Lynne Rappaport moved to San Francisco at the age of 22 and never looked back. Born in New York City, she was raised in the rural Catskills in a village of 1,000 people. She attended college in Buffalo but eventually transferred to SFSU, completing a BA in Humanities in 1978 and meeting her future husband in a class on Contemporary Culture. Lynne retired recently from a long career in ESL classrooms, teaching adult immigrants in Daly City. She is a student of Tai Chi Chih, a singer in an older adult community choir, and a 30-year resident of the Sunset District, where she seeks out nature at Ocean Beach, Stern Grove, and Golden Gate Park.

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