One afternoon when I was in Kindergarten at Twain Sullivan Elementary School, my mom began to ache with worry when she did not find me in my usual classroom amongst the kids that rushed to greet their parents. The bubbles in her belly became bursts of laughter after we reunited in the library and I told her that I was special because I got to leave class to attend my first group gathering as an English as a Second Language (ESL) student. Unfortunately, due to reasons a child in Grade 5 would have no leverage in, the ESL program at Twain Sullivan was cut.However, those brief years in ESL founded an interest and enjoyment in languages and writing that I would only come to realize years later. English as Second Language is for students that had more than one language spoken in their household or were bilingual themselves. But ESL was more than just helping students better understand the formal education one received in primary school. It was a weekly participation that allowed us to go deeper into the subjects we were learning about. I’ll never forget when Carroll Aiery, the former ESL teacher at Twain Sullivan, educated us about adjectives. And when it came up in my Grade 5 class, I was nervously shaking with excitement as I raised my hand because I knew the answer, and I was the only one who had my hand up. English as a Second Language gave us confidence. It was also a space for friendship built on the recognition that we all came from something similar, that our parents’ native language was not English. This also gave me a certain position in the household. Both of my parents were bilingual, but my mother being Filipino and my father being Czech, neither spoke to each other (or to my siblings and I) in their native tongue. My parents, like me, were still learning English. So often my parents would ask me, “Does this sound right?” or, “Ann, how do you spell…?” In ways, ESL made it possible for my family and I to grow closer through shared learning. The benefits of such a program are not just subjective to the classroom. It is found in day to day conversations with friends, can be utilized at a workplace, and it can be experienced right at home.

Houston Today