What do you do when there is a success in your family, church or business? Celebrate! And we did.
This year we celebrate the first ESL (English as a Second Language) Class at Coastal Container of Holland, Michigan. This program is provided to employees at Coastal through Zeeland Adult Education. The program is part of a national initiative to help immigrants improve their English communication skills, which can be used at home, at work and in the community.
Teacher, John Klompmaker, and bilingual assistant, Eva Aguillon, work with students for a maximum of two hours, two afternoons a week. Students leave their job site to meet in a space provided by Coastal. All study materials are provided by Zeeland Adult Education.
Class work involves tasks such as singing silly songs, which helps improve vocabulary, pronunciation and confidence in using English. Other tasks include grammar lessons, group conversations, reading with a partner and history and geography tasks, all in English. Students periodically take progress check tests to see their own improvement.
And this year was a success at Coastal. We celebrated the efforts of students who, in spite of many challenges to their time and schedules, faithfully attended their ESL class.
Congratulations, students!
