Hmong moms learn English while kids are tutored
WAUSAU - Sia Yang didn't have a lot of time to learn English or earn a high school diploma after she immigrated to the Wausau area from Laos in 2002.
"I'm so busy," the 29-year-old mother of five children said. "We (she and her husband) were coming here, then I had kids right away."
In the years Yang has been in this country, she's managed to learn basic English. She speaks with a heavy accent and has to search her mind for the right word. She wants to refine her English speaking and writing skills, but working full time plus caring for children who range in age from 3 to 13 meant there was little free time for her to pursue those goals.
But now her children are getting older, and she is taking steps toward her goals. A new program at Horace Mann Middle School that offers parallel learning programs for adults and their children offers Yang another opportunity to learn.
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Yang is one of 16 Hmong women participating in the evening program offered through a partnership between the Wausau School District and Northcentral Technical College. The women learn English while the children, in a separate room, participate in the school's Growing Great Minds educational program. NTC pays the English language teachers; the Wausau School District pays the costs related to the children's program.
It's a unique arrangement, and it stems from a brainstorm by Zoe Morning, an enrichment coordinator at Horace Mann who oversees after-school programs. Morning is a retired Wausau School District math teacher who taught at Horace Mann.
"I know the population and I know there's poverty," Morning said. About 42 percent of Horace Mann students come from financially disadvantaged families who qualify for free and reduced-price school meals. She also understands the diversity of the student population at Horace Mann. About 30 percent of students attending the school are part of minority ethnic groups; nearly 16 percent are Southeast Asian. The pressures on families who have limited financial means make it difficult for parents to help their children study, let alone study themselves.
Morning said creating a program that included children and adults would remove the need for child care for parents who want to learn. The kids and their mothers aren't learning side by side. There are different classrooms for each group. But, Morning said, there's value in the idea that parents and children are working together toward the same goal.
"I think it's so important," she said, because the concept reinforces the value of education for the children.
Right now the program has a narrow scope: teaching English as a second language for Hmong women. But Morning would like to see the program expand in the future to include more generalized lessons for any adult striving for high school equivalency diplomas.
Yang appreciates the chance to learn how to speak better. English is not an easy language to learn, she said, and "it's helping to talk and speak."
She also would be ready if Morning's expanded concept of the lessons became reality. "I want to get my GED," she said.
Keith Uhlig: 715-845-0651 or kuhlig@gannett.com; on Twitter @UhligK.