Collin College will hold its annual ESL Excellence Scholarship Luncheon, noon-1:30 p.m., Thursday, April 2, at the Spring Creek Campus Living Legends Conference Center, 2800 E. Spring Creek Parkway in Plano.
Part celebration and part fundraiser, the scholarship luncheon will feature live entertainment, a catered meal and a message from students helped by the English as a Second Language program.
Communication is a skill that most Americans take for granted. Someone who has lived here all his life understands even the roughest native speaker’s English. That isn’t always true for non-native English speakers, who may need a little more help working through the language to function well in society.
Originally from Mexico, student Martha Ahmad said she was not prepared for the transition to English when she came to the United States even though she had studied the language for years on her own. She just didn’t feel fluent enough to be confident in her speech.
“I had a lot of plans, thinking I was going to work and do so many things. It was very surprising that I couldn’t even ask for a job,” she said.
She has made great strides in the years since she came to America, but there were subtleties to English that made going to college difficult. Ahmad said the small classes in Collin College’s ESL program made learning easier because the education felt more personal. She said the teachers were very nurturing and that she feels much more confident now.
“I took four classes last semester and I feel much better,” she said.
The ESL Excellence Scholarship program has given 21 students help paying for classes to master the language since its inception in 2011. The scholarships are available
to all Collin College students who have taken at least one English as a Second Language class and plan to take another. The scholarships are tied specifically to ESL classes, which are not always covered by other scholarships.
