by Associated Press Tenement Museum uses novel way to teach English by ULA ILNYTZKY, Associated Press - 1 December 2014 07:32-05:00 NEW YORK (AP) — The actress playing a teenage Jewish immigrant in 1916 never stepped out of character as she talked about the hardships of living in three small rooms with nine family members. Her captive audience of 11 — squeezed into her tiny apartment at the historic Tenement Museum in lower Manhattan — were immigrants themselves; some recently arrived in New York City from Venezuela, Mali and other far-flung nations. The group, representing eight countries, spent several hours one recent morning at a workshop that uses the museum's exhibitions of authentic former tenants' apartments to help the recent immigrants build their language skills. Called Shared Journeys, the workshops in English for Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL, encourage participants to imagine life in the tenement and to share and compare their own experiences to those of the early Irish, Italian, Jewish and German immigrants. Voytek Chachlowski, 55, who came to the U.S. from Poland 20 years ago, said he could easily relate to 14-year-old Victoria Confino's story of living in cramped conditions. When he first arrived, he had to "share two rooms and one bathroom with seven people." The program is one of many immersive experiences at the museum located in a restored 4-story tenement building on the Lower East Side that housed 7,000 working class immigrants between 1863 and 1935. Seven of the original apartments are restored, complete with drab furnishings, peeling wallpaper and laundry strung over a coal stove; three others have been intentionally left as they were when the building was condemned in 1935. Kathleen Fletcher played Victoria, whose Jewish family came from Greece, for the visiting group from the International Rescue Committee, an organization that helps refugees resettle. She is one of 15 "costumed interpreters" who bring to life the stories of the tenement's residents. "It gets to the heart of the museum mission most immediately, revealing the challenges of people of the past, present and future," she said. Jennifer Call, the Rescue Committee's family education coordinator, said her groups sometimes start off shy but the interactive experience gets them talking. "Field trips like this really bring the class together," she said. Before visiting Victoria's first-floor apartment along a dim, dilapidated hallway, the group gathered in a visitor's center classroom. There a museum worker gave a short history on Victoria's family and her job sewing aprons and introduced them to unfamiliar vocabulary words like "tenement" and "homesick" before inviting them to share their own stories. Later they reconvened in the classroom for further discussion on topics that touched on religious freedom and education. The classes are adjusted according to the level of English proficiency but always focus on the museum's mission of connecting immigrants of today with immigrants of the past. They are popular with dozens of organizations and language schools that offer English as a second language. The adult program recently expanded to include high school and middle school students. The museum offers 150 workshops and averages about 1,700 participants a year. News Topics: General news, Museums, English as a second language, Immigration, Recreation and leisure, Lifestyle, Leisure travel, Travel, Language education, Education, Social affairs, Social issues People, Places and Companies: New York City, Manhattan, New York, United States, North America Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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