Learning About America for Everyday Life

Yuri has been in this country two months and Amy only four weeks while Po-Chun and Pei Yu arrived mid-summer. Like their 11 classmates, they are trying to understand America.

The students in the America 101 class taught at come from Taiwan, Mexico, Korea, France, China and the Ivory Coast. They are visiting scholars, spouses of scholars, and graduate students studying everything from demographics to engineering at University of California at Berkeley. But they all have in common a desire to figure out the ways of America.

Why do Americans eat lunch while walking around? 

“It’s called eating on the run,” answers Professor Bonu Ghosh during a recent Friday morning class, explaining that Americans don’t take a long break for lunch. Ghosh, a director of the English Studies Institute in Berkeley, has been teaching Amerca 101 at University Village for the past four years.

She asks them what else perplexes them about America – a question posed as much to get them to practice their English as anything else

Some of the students wonder why Americans dress so casually; others why Americans call each other by the first name even when they are first introduced or hardly know each other.

But each seems most eager to perfect their pronunciation of words and phrases the American way. And Professor Ghosh obliges.

“Language, I think, is the underground railroad to success,” she says to the high achieving group after they practice vowel sounds and accents that don’t seem to follow any rules.

And as much as Americans slur their words and make up expressions that do not make a lot of sense – "break a leg" before an exam? - the UC Berkeley newcomers will have a more fulfilling time, she advises, if they understand American ways and American expressions.

“Being able to communicate is very important. You may have studied four years of English, have perfect grammar and passed the TOEFL test, but if people don’t understand you are you communicating?”

Many international students have learned from British instructors or have perfect written skills but have trouble understanding American speech.

“My goal for the class is to give students the tools for cross-cultural understanding and the skills for communicating clearly in English,” she explains.

“Many of the students are isolated and need to feel confident about living in the U.S., making connections with their surrounding community and communicating in English.”

As the class practices the various sounds of an “o” and then “u” and then the distinctly American way of stressing certain words in a sentence, she urges them to just listen to everything they hear around them.

“Trust your ears, listen to where Americans put accents. Listen to conversations, to radio, to TV. You can listen to radio talk shows.”

Students love the class and it grows in size each week, from 11 to 14 to more.

“When I arrived here I found it difficult to converse fluently,” said Pei-Yu, a graduate student from Taiwan who is studying demographics. “I believe this experience has improved my English.”

His wife Pei-Yu, who is without university classes full of students to get to know and converse with, enjoys the discoveries and camaraderie of conversations with the America 101 group.

Ghosh says this is the kind of thing she hoped.

“My favorite part of teaching this class is the cross-cultural understanding and communication that takes place in the America 101 sessions,” she said.

The students and their professor decide to have lunch together after class from now on.

Another student, Ya Ping, says the class helps her keep up with her son, who is listening to and speaking English many hours a day as a student at . “I like class very much.”

America 101 meets Friday mornings at the University Village Community Center. Learn more about it here.

Everybody makes mistakes ... ! If there's something in this article you think should be corrected, or if something else is amiss, call editor Emilie Raguso at 510-459-8325 or email her at emilier@patch.com.