Through my work in teaching English to the refugee family I visit, I have come to understand the difficulty in firmly establishing what “level” of English learning someone has accomplished. The last time I went to the household of my refugee friends, a multi-generational group of their extended family gathered around their dining room table so that Alicia and I could teach them vocabulary from an English picture dictionary.
Because my refugee friends isolate themselves from much of the outside world in Chicago, they have not been effectively gaining English skills through immersion. Therefore, after we teach them school-themed or seasonal vocabulary, what ends up happening is that they can identify “computer” and “snow” but lack the ability to perform basic greetings and small talk.
Of course, now that Alicia and I have identified this problem, we are taking steps to teach lessons designed for conversational English. However, it brings up the importance of prioritizing what types of English skills to teach newcomers. I can tie this experience to the experiences in my role as a member of the class’s Employment Group because in helping train newcomers towards successful job interviews, knowing animal names and camping vocabulary is useless in the face of day-to-day challenges. While these aspects of English should of course be learned eventually, or as people become interested, I recognize the importance of GED and job vocabulary now through my interactions with the refugee family I visit.