This article was written by Daniel Cleland, iACT for Refugees Americorps Program Assistant. 

During my first days of observing iACT’s ESL classes at Central Presbyterian Church downtown, I remember the strange and wonderful feeling of being surrounded by so much diversity, so many different backgrounds, ideas, and of course, languages. Walking down the hall, bits of chatter and conversation would drift to my ears, some of it familiar, some of it totally foreign to me.

Another thing I noticed was that many students from different countries, separated by vast geographical, linguistic, and cultural distances, were still often able to communicate by speaking a second mutual language. It was especially fascinating to see speakers switch fluidly between these languages, from Kirundi to French and back again, such that I became keenly aware of my own limitations as a speaker of English and English alone.

One incident in particular impressed upon me the desire to reassert my efforts to learn not just about the different cultures in an iACT classroom, but especially the languages. The morning’s lesson had just finished and I was speaking to two students: a woman from Cuba and a man from Eritrea. The woman was having trouble navigating the bus routes in this new and strange city, but it wasn’t specifically clear to me what the problem was or how I could assist her. She seemed at a loss for words, unable to describe the precise nature of her predicament and both of us felt a little helpless.

At that moment, the man from Eritrea whose English was fairly advanced, asked the woman a clarifying question in Spanish. With a look of relief, she explained to him her problem and he was then able to translate this information for me. As it turned out, the man spoke not two, not three, not four, but FIVE languages, including some English and Spanish. I asked how long he had been studying Spanish and he said, “Three months. No. Two months.” He told me this in a very calm, disinterested manner, as if nothing could be more natural than learning a new language in such a short time.

I later found out that he had been in the USA for three months, though two and a half of those months had been spent in detention. He had traveled from his native Eritrea to Sudan, from Sudan to South Africa, then taken a plane to Brazil, where he secured motor transportation from various drivers (barring two days when he was forced to travel on foot through Colombia) all the way up north to the Mexico/US border. There he requested political asylum. The usual procedure then is to be incarcerated in a detention center where the asylum seeker can work at preparing his case to appear in front of an immigration judge.

When a court date is secured, the applicant is released from detention and in our student’s case, made his way to Austin. Along this incredible and tiresome journey, he had begun his independent study of English and Spanish and his months in detention gave him the opportunity to practice both languages.

As I marveled at his remarkable achievement, I couldn’t help but wonder what I had been doing in the past three months. Perhaps a little brushing up on my language studies is in order. In addition to teaching English, I want to make sure I am available to my students as a resource. Making the effort to learn another’s language, as my student profoundly demonstrated, would be highly useful in that regard.