SARATOGA SPRINGS
— Stepping out into the streets of Saratoga Springs isn’t
the only time Fitriyah Clark has to get used to her new
culture.Just waking up in her
own home with her American husband is a new experience for
the Indonesian native.
Clark married Maestro’s restaurant
chef Edward Clark two weeks after getting off the plane in
December. The two had met while she was on vacation in New
York City two years ago and kept up a long-distance
relationship.
Although the enthusiastic
31-year-old seems to have a good grasp on the English
language, she said she’d like to speak it even better.
That’s why she started attending
English classes for speakers of other languages at the
Saratoga Springs Public Library.
“I have to decide, either he’s
moving to Jakarta or I’m moving to America,” Clark said
about her decision to come here. “He said it’s better for me
to move to America.”
Clark is one of about eight area
residents who attend a conversation class at the library
that is taught by a Literacy Northeastern New York
volunteer. It started in May and runs three Friday mornings
a month.
The students themselves asked for
the conversation class as a supplement to the one-on-one
tutoring offered through Literacy NENY.
“Even if they have tutors, often
when they leave their tutoring session, they go back to
their workplace and their home, and they don’t have an
opportunity to use [the language skills]. And they lose it,”
said Maria Lange, Saratoga County program coordinator.
A similar class was launched in
Clifton Park about a year ago and has seven students, Lange
said.
She hopes to add an evening class in
Saratoga Springs to accommodate the schedules of immigrants
who can’t meet during the day.
They’re a global bunch around the
table, with immigrants from Nepal, Canada, Switzerland,
Chile, Thailand and Indonesia.
“It’s been a nice melting pot of
backgrounds,” Lange said.
During a Friday morning class, they
took turns reading aloud paragraphs of a story about
building the border fence between the U.S. and Mexico, and
then switched to an installment of an ongoing unit on health
under instructor Margaret Macey’s direction.
“The purpose of this is to get
everyone comfortable talking to doctors,” Macey told the
class.
The topics are real-world and
relevant to immigrants trying to make it here.
“Next week we’re going to talk about
how to call 911,” she said.
Macey encourages the students and
doesn’t talk down to them.
“She talks to them about what’s
going on in their lives,” Lange said. “She tries to address
what they need.”
On Friday before class, Macey looked
over some immigration paperwork one couple received in the
mail and explained what it meant.
Johane Gareau said learning English
is the toughest thing about her move here from Montreal,
Canada two months ago.
Gareau, who worked as a high school
science teacher in her native country, plans to make
studying the language her biggest priority. “I want to learn
English for this moment,” she said.
She moved to Saratoga Springs after
her husband and two other professionals started a high-tech
business, Free Form Fibers, on Congress Street.
Although Literacy NENY also focuses
on giving English-speaking adults better reading and writing
skills, student demand for English as a second language
classes has seen the most growth in recent years.
A new class for Saratoga Race Course
backstretch workers is set to start on Tuesday and continue
until the end of the training season in early November under
the tutelage of Peg Lindsay of Clifton Park, a literacy
volunteer since 2002.
Lindsay, 71, is a retired elementary
school teacher from Shenendehowa Central School District and
enjoys working with adults as a one-on-one tutor.
“A lot of the students who I’ve had
are very well-educated,” she said.
The experience has forced her to
think differently about language.
“I’m very interested in seeing how
different languages relate. It’s like a puzzle, and it’s
just interesting intellectually.”
Literacy NENY has about 90 trained
tutors, 75 of whom are currently active. Still, some
students are awaiting tutors, so the organization is seeking
new volunteers to train during sessions in Saratoga Springs,
Clifton Park and Glens Falls this fall.
Visit www.literacyneny.org for more
information, or call 226-0040.
Volunteers are required to attend an
orientation and about 15 hours of training, then are
expected to make a two-hour commitment per week for a year.
September is Literacy Awareness
Month, and several regional stores are donating a percentage
of sales on given days to Literacy NENY.
Framework on Phila Street and
Chico’s on Broadway are participating, as well as Red Fox
Books in Glens Falls. Chico’s will donate up to 10 percent
of each sale on Sept. 28 at the customer’s request.
Saratoga Springs Yoga will donate
class fees from one class this month to Literacy NENY.
The photo exhibit “Faces and stories
of literacy” by local photographer Ed Burke has been on
display at Rockhill Cafe in Glens Falls since Sept. 10. It
will travel around the region this year.