by Keith Schoendoerfer

Hoi and Tho are a Vietnamese married couple in their early 50s that moved to the United States in 2005 under the sponsorship of Hoi’s sister Diane. Hoi and Tho have lived with Diane in Grass Valley since, and have worked at Golden Empire Convalescent Hospital for almost as long. Hoi works in the kitchen and Tho works in housekeeping. After they had been here for almost a year, Diane sought ESL help from PiEll, which was then The Literacy Council of Nevada County. I was subsequently assigned to them in February of 2006 and the three of us have met close to once a week since then.

At the beginning Hoi and Tho could understand or speak very little English, however, they were able to read English somewhat better. At first we largely communicated with pen and paper; I would say something to them and then write it down, sounding out each word and breaking down the multi-syllabic words into individual sounds. When they said something to me, they would write it down first and then we would practice saying it. It probably took me the better part of the first year to realize that there are many English sounds they could not hear because most of the words and sounds in their language, Vietnamese, come from the back of the mouth and the throat, whereas sounds in western languages form at the front of the mouth. One thing that drove that home to me and changed how I taught was the first time Hoi and Tho tried to teach me just a few Vietnamese phrases. It was very difficult to say the least. I soon learned of another thing that is difficult for them, long multi-syllabic words, since most of the words in their native language are single syllable words.

Because of his schedule at work Hoi was able to attend a local English class, taught by Lisa Stine in Grass Valley, where he spent as much time on English structure as he did on vocabulary and pronunciation. Because of her schedule, Tho was not able to attend these classes, so Hoi would tutor her at home. After about the second year, I spent most of my time with them working on hearing the sounds and speech comprehension/pronunciation. Over the years we tried different things to help them “hear” English such as word games and short outings, but one of the things we did that they liked the most was watching movies. I would loan them a couple of movies which they watched and then at the next meeting we would talk about them. We still do this from time to time.

During the last year our lessons have centered on preparing for the United States citizenship test. Both Hoi and Tho were studying the material very hard and we spent many of our meetings reviewing questions on United States history and government, still concentrating on speech comprehension.

Their goal from the beginning has been to become United States citizens and eventually sponsor their son and daughter to immigrate to the United States. Well, last month Hoi passed the test and has become a United States citizen. Tho is not too far behind and should pass the test sometime next year.
 
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