By Sophia Chang
It was a scene just like any other school, but these students were gray-haired and carefully speaking English in fragments.”We come here all the time, whenever we're not busy,” said Xiang Yeh, a spry woman in her 70s, in Mandarin Chinese.Twice a week, Yeh and her friends head to the Flushing Library's English for Speakers of Other Languages classes for seniors, launched in partnership with the city's Department for the Aging earlier this month.In addition to the Flushing classes at the 41-17 Main St. branch, there are also classes offered at the Jackson Heights library branch at 35-51 81 St. and at St. Mary's Senior Center at 10-15 49th Ave. in Astoria.The free classes are aimed at the immigrants among the borough's estimated 375,000 seniors, with teaching strategies tailored to meet the student body's particular idiosyncrasies.”We go at a different clip, a different pace. There's a lot more repetition. I speak louder because they don't often hear as well,” said Beatrice Brauzer-Osterer, who has taught ESL classes for the Queens Public Library system for three years. “They have vision problems, so I write larger on the board.”The senior classes also focus on different topics that are pertinent to the elderly. At the Flushing Library, that day's particular lesson revolved around the weather, but Brauzer-Osterer said that hands down her students' favorite topic is health.”Speaking with doctors, hospitals, nurses, a lot of that is overwhelming stuff to them,” she said.At the Flushing branch, the majority of the students are Asian immigrants, reflecting the area's demographics, although there are some Hispanic students, Brauzer-Osterer said. And, because of the age group, there are more men who participate compared to her other English classes because they are retired.”It makes for a nice mix,” Brauzer-Osterer said. She noted that most of the seniors in her class were hoping to improve their overall English rather than trying to learn the language for a job or a specific reason. “They have a good camaraderie. They're all at the same place in life,” she said. “No one's looking for jobs, raising children. They're past all that.”For some of Brauzer-Osterer's students, it was only natural that they would take English lessons, no matter if they had been in the country for months or decades.”We want to learn because when we go out, there's a lot we don't understand,” said a woman who gave her last name as Cheng. She came to Flushing 30 years ago but is still working to improve her English.”The most important to learn is the subway signs, bus signs, shopping and mall information,” said her friend Yeh, who moved from the Guangzhou province in China six months ago. “Every place has English.”For Brauzer-Osterer, who has a rule that only English is spoken in class, her admiration for her students is palpable.”A lot of them were afraid to say even one sentence in English. But they always learn something to say,” she said with a smile. “I love the seniors. I give them credit, the fact that they come and try to learn a new language at this point.”Call the Flushing branch at (718) 661-1200 or the Jackson Heights branch at (718) 899-2500 for more information.Reach reporter Sophia Chang by e-mail at news@timesledger.com, or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
