Truths in Another Tongue: How Non-Native English Speakers Tackle Proverbs

In Lee Weidman’s English conversation class at the Kings Bay Library, her immigrant students try to make sense of proverbs.

Weidman begins by apologizing to the students for a mistake she made in the previous class. Full moon spectacles frame her dark eyes, her salt-and-pepper hair is in a pageboy, and her gentle voice carries a hint of Brooklyn, where she has lived all her life. She asks the class to think about different ways to say sorry.  Lydia, a wizened woman in lavender, offers a direct translation from Russian: “I bring my excuses.” Weidman smiles, and suggests that Lydia’s answer is “poetic, but too formal for use in English.”

Next, Weidman asks students to pick a favorite proverb from a handout, and explain it to the class. Lydia chooses “spare the rod and spoil the child.” She says she heard it in Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” which she calls “the good book.” The students miss the irony of this reference, but Weidman grins and explains to Lydia that there is another, even more famous, “good book” from whence the proverb came.

Shaban, a Turkish man in his late 40s, offers an equivalent from his own language: “If you don’t hit your child, you will hit your knees.” He struggles to explain its meaning to the class, and Mohammed, a fellow Turk, helps him. Through rapid exchanges in Turkish and hesitant probing in English, they get the point across: in Turkish culture, during tragic events, women of the household slap their knees. The duo is rewarded with a broad smile from Weidman. She has an engaging teaching style; she conveys attention by moving closer to the speaker and by using encouraging gestures. Her attitude transforms a motley crew into a class; the students give their classmates support and respect.

“Like most English majors, I wanted to write the Great American Novel,” Weidman, 59, says. Instead, she worked as a journalist, a horticulturist, and for 12 years as a book indexer before getting her ESL teaching certificate at Brooklyn College. She has come to the rude realization that steady employment in this field will be tough; ESL education faces sharp cutbacks, and Weidman says that hiring preference is given to master’s degree holders. Though she’s currently living off her savings, Weidman says “she feels a rush when she teaches,” and enjoys volunteering at these sessions at the Kings Bay Library. “The students like to hear Americans speak,” she says. “They ask me, ‘where are the Americans in Brooklyn?’”

Where are the “Americans” in Brooklyn? The borough’s diversity is also its greatest challenge; more than 45 percent of Brooklyn’s population speaks a language other than English at home[i], compared to more than 28 percent citywide. Mastering English is often the steepest slope on an immigrant’s journey, and an imperfect command of the language results in an incomplete integration into mainstream professional and social circles. Many new immigrants cannot afford paid instruction, and so much of their ESL education comes through free classes such as this one, as well as classes organized through community centers such as the Arab American Association of New York and the Brooklyn Chinese-American Association.

An elderly student named Yuriy is dressed in all-white attire that would be apt for Wimbledon’s Centre Court. The Russian, a vocal Republican, taunts Weidman, a staunch Democrat, by suggesting that since President Obama took office, there is nothing left to “save for a rainy day.” Weidman sighs and beckons to Alicia, a young full-figured blonde who has a legal degree from Moscow but works as a restaurant hostess in New York. Alicia reminds the class not to “judge a book by its cover.” She adds with a sad smile, “but now, maybe it’s ok to do that. We have a lot of tension in this world.”

 

 

In the coming weeks, The Ink will explore more language and literacy issues in Kings County, including what it takes to be funny in a language that isn’t your own. Stay tuned.

 

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