As the flow of immigrants into Boston increases each year, the English-language programs so essential to helping them get acclimated to their new lives lack the necessary funding to smooth this transition, according to advocates.
Though funding for the Office of New Bostonians, which developed English as a second language programs in 2001, has increased its funding from $700,000 to $1.2 million annually since 2005, officials say more money is still needed.
“[The Office of New Bostonians is] always hoping that they can get more funding so they can get more classes,” said Kerline Tofuri, project manager for English for New Bostonians. “It’s like it’s never enough. They have more people coming and students with different skills or different needs, where they are not able to help out sometimes.”
Tofuri said the lack of resources and financial support makes creating new classes difficult, adding immigrant communities often complain about long waiting lists to enter the program.
“How can we allocate more funding so we can continue to provide services?” Tofuri said.
According to the office’s website, immigrants make up 26 percent of Boston’s population and 17 percent of the state’s workforce.
The Office of New Bostonians developed ESL programs in 2001 in response to the city’s increasingly diverse communities, said Cheng Imm Tan, director of the Mayor’s Office of New Bostonians.
“The classes are aimed for folks who do not speak English. Most of them are new immigrants,” Tan said. “Sometimes the wait can be up to two to three years, depending on the different program, so some of the immigrants are not so new.”
Tan said students have the opportunity to learn English through Boston public schools in addition to a multimedia pilot program that lets them take online classes.
The Educational Development Group in the Back Bay, which opened last year and is partially funded by the English for New Bostonians program, differs from other ESL programs because it targets new arrivals before they begin working, said program director Frances Laroche.
“We advertise that your job is learn English for 10 weeks,” she said. “The whole point is not to simply learn English, but also to find a job and to guide people to what they want to accomplish in their new country.”
Some of the program’s graduates are now involved in training programs, while others attend the University of Massachusetts and Boston University CityLab, a biotechnology laboratory in the BU School of Medicine, Laroche said.
The Olin Center for International Study on Boylston Street, offers language courses that focus on teaching international students, said Caroline O’Neil, the center’s Marketing Coordinator.
“Our students are generally academically minded,” O’Neil said. “They want to get their undergraduate or graduate degrees in America, but they don’t have the English skills.”
Despite the long waiting lists at other programs, Olin Center students said the courses offered them the immediate opportunity to adapt to American life.
“I just wanted to get to Boston,” said 21-year-old Kiev native Veronica Viazova. “Boston has more schools than anywhere else. I just passed a language proficiency test, and that was it.”
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