Students start English club

By Kwame Opoku-Duku
The Guardsman

When the news that City College would be cutting summer classes broke last spring, ESL student Amparo Medina Pina, knew that if she wanted to continue her English education, she would have to take matters into her own hands.

In response, she started the English Conversation Club for students learning English as a second language.

Medina Pina came to the U.S. a year and a half ago from Aguascalientes, Mexico, and quickly learned the importance of speaking the language.

“I was married here in March,” Medina Pina said. “In April, I got lost at Powell Station while on BART. No one could help me. I was so nervous that I started to cry. It took me 10 or 15 minutes to calm down. When I did, I said to myself, ‘You have to learn English.’”

She started taking non-credit ESL classes the next month but quickly learned that summer classes were being cut.

“The teachers said there would be no more summer classes, so I started looking for places where students could meet. My friend designed a poster for the club and soon people started to come from all the campuses. There are 210 students now total,” she said.

Medina Pina did all the organizing and recruited people from all campuses. They met four and sometimes five days a week. They would even have the club on Saturday at the main library, the club’s faculty adviser Armenuhi Hovhannes said.

Hovhannes, who also teaches ESL at the Mission Campus, said that her role in the club was mostly facilitating conversation between the students during the spring but stressed that Medina Pina was the driving force in sustaining the club over the summer.

“I didn’t get involved over the summer,” Hovhannes said. “She organized the club as a volunteer club. Amparo did so much single-handedly to help everyone.”

Mission Campus ESL Coordinator Lisa Wagner, who attended the first few sessions before the summer break, also recalled Medina Pina’s diligence.

“It shows what a little enthusiasm and energy can do,” she said. “All the students participated regardless of experience and they really seemed to get a lot from it.

The club’s activities include talking about current events in the news, sharing traditions from their countries, cultural excursions to the museums and taking tours of San Francisco.

“I love it,” Pei-Ying Lau, a club member from Hong Kong, said. “I learned a lot from it and made many friends. The teachers were great too. They cared a lot and did their best to help us. I hope it will continue.”

Among her rising number of supporters is Gregory Keech, chair of City College’s ESL department, who noted the importance of Medina Pina’s work.

“We know from learning research, especially in language, that practice is absolutely necessary,” Keech said. “And what happens with a lot of students is that they don’t have the opportunity to practice the language on their own time. Having a club can be really useful in learning, manipulating and retaining it.”

With more than 1200 students from 90 countries studying English as a second language at City College, Medina Pina is happy to have worked with such a substantial amount of the school’s international population, but hopes to see that number grow.

“I want to learn more English so I can take classes to become a teacher,” she said. “I want to help the whole community.”