Hours after the last bell at Nantucket High School rings and the last public school students take off for the day, dozens and dozens of adult students are once again filling the classrooms with hopes of improving their English skills.
They come from 15 different countries and speak five different languages. But for an hour and a half, two nights a week, they’re speaking English, learning the day-to-day vocabulary and grammar to communicate with their employers, their children’s teachers and neighbors, to order a meal or talk on the phone, and simply to connect with other English speakers in a new community.
“The most important part is to build community,” said Laurie Richards, an assistant instructor with the Nantucket Community School’s English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program. “The students are here to understand the language and to be part of a community where they live and work.”
At home, the students speak Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Georgian, and Uzbek in addition to the English they’re practicing. They come from Belarus, Brazil, Columbia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Georgia, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Venezuela. They represent the increasing diversity of Nantucket’s year-round population. Some of them have students in Nantucket Public Schools, where nearly 20 percent of students take English as a second language classes.
“Our ESOL program provides classes for more than 150 students each year,” said Nantucket Community School Executive Director Alicia Graziadei. “Our one-on-one placement tests with bilingual instructors ensure that we are meeting each student’s needs, as well as allowing progression from term to term.”
