Refugees learn English from volunteers in literacy program

Volunteers from First Baptist Church and New Bern's nonprofit literacy organization are teaching English twice a week to refugees from Myanmar and Vietnam.

One class is Sunday mornings at the church on Middle Street. On Wednesday nights, volunteers take about 20 refugees to the church and teach English classes from 6 to 7 p.m.

Two church members, Glenn Lawson and Anna Caswell, volunteer at the Craven Literacy Council. The council helps people in Craven, Jones and Pamlico counties who speak other languages and want to learn English, said Sarah Hendrickson, the program coordinator.

"Glenn and Anna came to us and told us they have a lot of Burmese who attend regularly," Hendrickson said. "They suggested a program to help them learn English."

Volunteers divided the refugees into three groups, based on their English ability, said Charles Wright, an English as a Second Language specialist for the literacy council.

 "One pair of women cannot even write their own language," Wright said. "I began with them by teaching them how to write an ‘a.' We started simple and will build."

On Wednesday, Wright sat in a room with four Montagnard women from Vietnam. Wright wrote letters ‘a' through ‘z' on a white board with a black marker. Wright said the letters, and the women repeated them.

Wright then taught greetings to the women. When he said good morning, good afternoon and goodnight, the women repeated the words. One of the women, Avel Rocham, laughed when Wright shook her hand, smiled and said "hello."

In another room, Julia Hudson and Anna Caswell used picture dictionaries to teach words about buying groceries. The women used real fruit to teach six refugees how to pronounce the words. Caswell held up a card with "lemon" written on it. When she held up a card with "watermelon" on it, the refugees said "waterlemon."

Janet Hyman, a retired school teacher, worked in another room with Biek Sang, a Chin refugee from Myanmar (formerly named Burma).

Biek is a ninth-grade student at New Bern High. Hyman and Biek flipped through a book about directions, repeating words and phrases such as "those," "over there" and "that one." Biek used some of the words in sentences, such as "Hand me that book over there."

"We have a lot of fun," Hyman said. "This kid is very smart, so it's all very interesting to him."

All of the refugees who attend First Baptist Church work with Interfaith Refugee Ministries of New Bern to set up housing, jobs and education. An Interfaith representative called Betty Pace at First Baptist to ask if they would welcome Biek's family at the church.

"It's evolved from there," Pace said. "The Chin refugees are Baptist and wanted to come to a Baptist church. And they are all so eager to learn how we speak and write."