About This Site

Welcome to the site of BMCC-HMH ESL level 2 class which I teach this semester. The class is located at 50 Madison Street, Manhattan, New York City. The program is offered by BMCC (Borough of Manhattan Community College) in partnership with Hamilton Madison House, a long established Settlement House in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The students in this class are all Chinese, mostly women. Most of them are from China's southern provinces such as Canton and Fukian Province. Some are form Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and other parts of China. They speak a variety of languages: Mandarin, of course, the official language of China, Cantonese and Fukianese, the local dialect of Canton and Fukian Province. Those from Hong Kong are more fluent in spoken English since they had more exposure to English when they attended schools in Hong Kong. Our class meet twice a week, Monday and Tuesday. The class starts at 9:15 a.m. and finishes at 12:15 p.m.

They all love to study English because they all know English is very important to us. To get a job, first of all, they need to speak English. To communicate with their children, children's teacher at school, or parents of other children in the school, they also need to speak English.

Yet most of them find it very hard to learn English. People take it for granted that it is a piece of cake to learn English in America where English is spoken. "You are surrounded by native speakers and are exposed to English 24 hours a day." But it doesn't seem to hold true with this class who mostly live in Chinatown or other Chinese communities in New York City. It is true that they are surrounded by native speakers, but inside Chinatown, they can virtually do anything without having to speak English. Chinatown thus is much like a foreign territory on American soil. Yes, they are exposed to English 24 hours a day, but his kind of input available to them is often far beyond their comprehension level and therefore barely has any effect on them.

On your right hand side, you can see a list of their blogs (beginning with Bu, Yun Nian, ending with Zhu, Ling Di). Some students on the list only attended my Friday computer class. They are Hee, Wei Seng; Ho, Kam Lim; Lian, Wen Shan and Zhu, Ling Di. This is their first time to create a blog with their limited English proficiency. Yet they made an effort and made their first step forward. I hope you will enjoy reading their blogs. Comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Ke Xu