To foreign fiancees/spouses: Learn English before coming to the US

[Eric-Pris 1,602]

I just wanted to encourage all the foreign fiancees and spouses to learn English in your country before coming to the US. The English courses in the US are very expensive. There are free courses offered by the government in some cities but for the most part you have to pay. And it's usually much cheaper in your home countries. With all the costs involved in bringing a person over, you don't need the added expense for an English course. But it's not just about the money. In your home country the teachers usually speak your language, so they can explain complex things better than here.

My wife could have taken classes back home for $40/month and the teacher spoke Spanish so he could've explained things clearly. She chose not to for various reasons. And now she's struggling with it. She has improved a lot since coming here in late May, but it's not easy. Here, a class in a community college costs about $1,000 for about 6-8 weeks. The "better" (more popular) private ESL schools charge over $2,000. My wife is taking a class now where the majority of the class is struggling to keep up. I'm teaching her at home as much as I can, but I thought I wouldn't need to if she took a class.

Bottom line: if your English is weak, study before coming to the US. It will save you stress, time, and money.

Edited August 18, 2008 by kid brooklyn

[GlobeHopperMama 95]

My husband is teaching English in Mexico while he waits for his visa (and I also taught English there for 6 months), and I would contend that you get what you pay for in MOST cases in Latin America at least. My husband is an exception because he learned English both academically in Mexico and in conversational daily life context as a kid who spent his formative teen years in the US. However, most of the teachers he works with have limited knowledge of how to use English in a realistic context, teach wrong vocabulary, and have accents that make it hard to learn the proper way to say things. You can find native speakers who are qualified to teach English in Latin America, but they aren't as common and not nearly as affordable as the non-native nationals who generally populate the affordable language institutes.

I am TESOL certified and taught English in Western Europe for a short time, and I can say that a large number of institutes there employ American and British teachers who have native accents even if they have no formal training/certification/are 18 years old/are mostly just teaching English to support a fun party lifestyle at night.

To avoid this, you want your spouse to look for a school where teachers are certified by CELTA or have other qualified TEFL/TESOL certification. Unfortunately, this generally costs a lot more.

Another complication is that most people do not learn English simply from going to class (especially in Latin America for some reason). Part of the reason we pick up language quickly is when we're immersed in it/HAVE to learn it. For example, my husband and I rapidly learned more French than we ever did in the classroom during the time we spent in Paris. If we didn't learn French, we weren't going to be able to eat or ride the Metro!

That's why it's hard to learn English in a country where it's not spoken much. My husband notes that the most successful students in his classes are the ones who choose to watch TV almost exclusively in English, listen to music in English, read in English, purposely spend time outside class practicing their English, etc. Meanwhile, many of my students in Mexico who had been learning English for 4 years purely in the classroom still weren't able to ask "Where is the bathrooom?" That's a sad extreme, but it was too common.

So I guess what I'm saying is if your spouse can afford to take English classes in his/her home country, more power to them! But be prepared that this will most likely just keep them exposed to the language, while not necessarily giving them all the tools they need to use it when they arrive to the US.

And as you've described for your spouse, learning English is not easy. Learning any language is a challenge and takes many years to feel successful. There's no way our spouses can learn enough English to feel successful before they come to the US unless they have the chance to study it in many contexts for many years before coming to the US. English is not a quick language to learn and I wish more Americans would understand this.

[Kang Lang 7]

you might try to check into your local community colleges in most major cities they offer a free esl program. my husband speaks some english but wanted to improve it while waiting for residency to go to college and found several adult centers as well as the community colleges that offer free programs.

good luck!

[ginger1981 0]

The CC sounds really expensive. Is it because of residency? Usually residency is pretty lax...most places you have to be a resident anywhere from 30 days to 6 months to qualify for resident tuition.

Otherwise, lots of cities have English literacy programs. My dad is an ESL teacher and the classes he teaches are very affordable. I would say keep looking...

[Mononoke28 134]

I strongly disagree for several reasons. One being that the Engligh taught outside of the US is not up to par with the English that may be taught here in the States, at least that's what I've seen in different cities in Colombia. Not only that, but I've seen many people who say are fluent in English and as soon as they land here, it's not as fluent as they said they were and have to start all over again.

The other reason is that they would have to start taking classes way ahead of time before arriving in the US. Mainly because it may take months if not years to kind of get to a good level, otherwise they'd have to take classes here again.

And the last reason I can think of is that there are many, may options when it comes to ESL classes in the States. I enrolled my husband in a very expensive school here in Denver that cost $800 per month full time and after doing lots research found another school that costs $100 full time. So there are many options to choose from.

Diana

[PJB 0]

In CA the unified school districts adult education depts offer English classes for free. Community college classes are expensive if you don't have a 1 year residency and they are also hard to get into (in the LA County areas) due to huge demand. Try finding a private teacher. I've known American college kids who teach ESL for as low as $20/hr. Even though not certified they did a great job and the results were better and faster than lessons given in a classroom. They usually post their advertisements on the college bulletin boards.

[panamania79 2]

I just wanted to encourage all the foreign fiancees and spouses to learn English in your country before coming to the US. The English courses in the US are very expensive. There are free courses offered by the government in some cities but for the most part you have to pay. And it's usually much cheaper in your home countries. With all the costs involved in bringing a person over, you don't need the added expense for an English course. But it's not just about the money. In your home country the teachers usually speak your language, so they can explain complex things better than here.

My wife could have taken classes back home for $40/month and the teacher spoke Spanish so he could've explained things clearly. She chose not to for various reasons. And now she's struggling with it. She has improved a lot since coming here in late May, but it's not easy. Here, a class in a community college costs about $1,000 for about 6-8 weeks. The "better" (more popular) private ESL schools charge over $2,000. My wife is taking a class now where the majority of the class is struggling to keep up. I'm teaching her at home as much as I can, but I thought I wouldn't need to if she took a class.

Bottom line: if your English is weak, study before coming to the US. It will save you stress, time, and money.

My fiance speaks soem English because he used to spend time with me in the Canal Zone when we were little.I work at a college so when he comes,the ESL classes will not be so expensive.Many local community colleges offer ESL classes at a reasonable price.

[Nutty 2]

My husband is an engineer and his english is proficient, not fluent. However, in Iran, there were not many options for learning english. Now that he is here, I see how basic his english is. He wants to get another engineering position, however, due to his poor comprehension and communication of English, I need to break it to him gently that he should not expect the best job now.

[bora bora 1]

Hahaha, I love how this thread is advice for people who don't speak English, yet it's in English

Learning English is a process that usually takes years for most people (especially if they're living outside the U.S.), so that doesn't give many people much time to learn. Once my husband decided to come to the U.S. he started to study, but that wasn't easy because he was working and running around getting his visa stuff together...

Here he studies at a good price since I work at the school.

[Y's_habibitk 2]

I have a dumb question:

How is the US spouse communicating with non english speaking spouse. Is it that the non english speaker can read and type/write english, but cannot SPEAK it(at all or very well)? Or are there that many of the US spouses who speak the others' laguage?

Did I answer my own question? heh heh

[PJB 0]

I have a dumb question:

How is the US spouse communicating with non english speaking spouse. Is it that the non english speaker can read and type/write english, but cannot SPEAK it(at all or very well)? Or are there that many of the US spouses who speak the others' laguage?

Did I answer my own question? heh heh

I am American and speak Russian, my Russian husband speaks English. We are both not perfect in each other's language but we always understand each other . Usually we end up speaking a mish-mush of English/Russian. Some words just seem natural in one language or funnier in the other.

Edited August 20, 2008 by PJB

[bora bora 1]

I have a dumb question:

How is the US spouse communicating with non english speaking spouse. Is it that the non english speaker can read and type/write english, but cannot SPEAK it(at all or very well)? Or are there that many of the US spouses who speak the others' laguage?

Did I answer my own question? heh heh

I'm fluent in Portuguese, so we communicated (and still do to some extent) in my husband's language no problem. Now that hubby is here, working and studying the language, he can communicate quite well so we use more and more English at home.

[Mononoke28 134]

I am fluent in Spanish since I was born in Colombia but raised in the US, so we've always communicated in Spanish.

Diana

[lucyrich 19]

We spoke only Spanish for the first year and a half of knowing each other. We gradually transitioned to mostly English. But now, we're going back to a fair bit of Spanish, because we want our daughter to be exposed to both languages enough so that she will grow up to be fluently bilingual.

I'll add another note: Don't expect to stop taking English classes any time soon.

At my workplace, we have a number of foreign born engineers, from Russia, France, Germany, Japan, China, India, Spain, and other countries. Though all of them are relatively fluent and have basic communications ability, most of them are still taking advanced English classes, sometimes after having been here for 10 years or more. The learning never stops. There's always a bit of potential for accent reduction, for improving grammar, for learning slang, for learning to use contractions the way native speakers use them, for avoiding awkward sentence structure that native speakers wouldn't use, etc.

Many times, an English learner will reach a plateau of functional proficiency, and then stay there for awhile. Sometimes, for too long. But if the US is going to be your real long-term home, you need to know the language well enough that you can always make yourself clearly understood, well enough that you can easily understand a TV news broadcast, well enough that you can overhear a conversation at the next table in a restaurant, well enough that speaking English over the phone to a stranger is as easy as conversing with your spouse, well enough to confidently deliver a public speech to an audience, well enough that strangers who hear you speak can tell that they won't have to slow down or repeat in order for you to understand them, etc. The level of proficiency required to really make this your comfortable home language is not something that's going to happen in just a few years of classes.

[JULIAFERNO 0]

My wife is taking a class now where the majority of the class is struggling to keep up. I'm teaching her at home as much as I can, but I thought I wouldn't need to if she took a class.

Bottom line: if your English is weak, study before coming to the US. It will save you stress, time, and money.

That makes me sad. If the majority of the class is struggling to keep up, the teacher should get a clue and take a few steps back/slow it down! Teachers who don't adapt to student needs aggravate me.