Literacy Group Unveils Program for Professionals
Posted on: Wednesday, 24 August 2005, 12:00 CDT
Aug. 24--Doctors and scientists from abroad usually have excellent formal training in English. But they can run into a language barrier during informal conversations.
"They may be totally comfortable at a lecture on nuclear physics," says Christopher P. Caulfield, a tutor and staffer at Literacy Volunteers of Buffalo and Erie County. "But at the supermarket, they're high and dry."
On Tuesday, Literacy Volunteers unveiled its "Quickspeak" instruction program, geared to help foreign professionals and students learn the English of daily life.
In fact, "high and dry" is one of the phrases Caulfield covered in a recent class to help non-native speakers understand quirky American idioms.
The literacy group made the announcement at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, the first employer to contract with Literacy Volunteers to offer Quickspeak as a benefit for its employees. Future recruits to the institute may opt for instruction.
The instruction program began in March for individuals, and 21 students have signed up.
"This program is a little out of the mainstream for Literacy Volunteers," group executive director Tracy Diina said.
The nonprofit organization is known for providing free English reading and speaking instruction for economically disadvantaged residents. It had about 800 adult clients in 2004.
But Quickspeak is for people who are able to pay; the cost for individual students is $42 a month. About 21,000 people in Erie County could benefit from English instruction, the literacy group estimates.
Providing paid instruction for professionals will help Literacy Volunteers continue to offer free services for other residents, Diina said. The group lost $50,000 in annual funding during Erie County's budget cutting, about 11 percent of its total support, she said.
Quickspeak provides one-on-one tutors as well as classroom conversation sessions, editing and library resources, plus e-mail newsletters on local and national culture.
As part of the contract with Hauptman Woodward, Literacy Volunteers will use space at the institute to instruct people from Buffalo's medical campus, Hauptman Woodward chief executive George DeTitta said.
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Source: The Buffalo News
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