MANILA, Philippines—There are times when the classroom of Feliciano Jaime “Chito” Atienza, who teaches English to immigrants, seems less of a classroom and more a United Nations peace panel.
In Atienza’s class in Queens, New York, culture-shocked (and sometimes shell-shocked) students who speak zero English not only master a new language, they are also helped by people they consider their enemies back in their motherland.
Atienza, winner of The New York Times 2008 English for Speakers of Other Languages (Esol) Teacher of the Year award, has been teaching English to immigrants for two decades. He recalls one class where Afghans and Russians glared at each other. There were also students, fresh from their war-ravaged Bosnia, who refused to speak to one another.
“The class was divided into two. You can really feel their hatred toward each other,” he says.
With some coaxing, the warring classmates set aside their past grief and became friends. After all, they were Americans now, he reminded them.
Students poured their hearts out to Atienza, the first Filipino and immigrant to receive the award. A Hispanic man lost his job and found a new one thanks to his teacher’s intervention.
More recently, because of Atienza’s class, a Tibetan and a Chinese bonded over the recent clashes in Lhasa. Said the Chinese to the Tibetan, who was worried sick about her family: “I’m sorry.”
These little dramas, played out in Atienza’s classroom in the Queens Library and in the YMCA Center, underscore his ability to reach out to his students. The classroom is not just a place of learning, but also a place for healing.
He is not only their mentor, he is their first friend in a strange land.
Atienza, who studied at De La Salle University, says his method is a blend of linguistic techniques and compassion which he describes as very Filipino and very Christian.
Atienza is a member of the Focolare Movement, which is known for living a certain Gospel verse each month. He visited the Philippines late last month and spoke with the Inquirer.
Atienza says he helps his students learn the English alphabet by “importing” kindergarten textbooks from Manila which teach basic letter construction.
He recommends that his students read anything written in English like newspapers, lottery tickets and restaurant menus.
Atienza swears by a tried-and-tested method of compassion and kindness. He calls this method “skinship.”
“Skinship is a methodology, a teaching approach underpinned by genuine love and concern for students. Its techniques are numerous: A warm smile, a sincere handshake, an encouraging nod, an open and tolerant mind, a word of praise for pronouncing thank you perfectly,” he says.
“What are these but building blocks of hope—the very foundations of trust? In the Esol classroom, without trust, without compassion, without love, there is no meaningful learning,” he adds.
In the speech he delivered when he won the award last March, Atienza recognized that more than anything, learning the English language one word at a time, was the first step in an immigrant’s dream of a rosy future in the United States.
“Willingly or unwillingly, we all came to America and our search for hope began in the Esol classroom. In the Esol classroom, the teachers and the students keep hope alive. [Because] without hope, dreams die,” Atienza says.
Atienza migrated to New York City in 1985, after years of teaching English to college students and displaced Southeast Asians coming to the United States. He received his English as a Second Language (ESL/CO) teacher training at the Southeast Asian Refugee Program in the Philippines, a joint project of the UNHCR, ICMC and funded by the US State Department.
New York City, a bright point in the immigrant’s imagination because of its history as a gateway to America and the American dream, was a logical choice for an Esol teacher like Atienza and in a way, it made leaving the Philippines easier.
He already loved teaching English. While on vacation in New York City, he realized the city needed Esol teachers to teach immigrants.
“I enjoyed teaching here (Philippines). But when I went there (New York), I saw the need,” he said.
Atienza said he “fell in love” with teaching after his stint in Bataan province, where Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees would stop over for a few months to learn English before proceeding to the United States.
If his heart wasn’t in it, he says, he would have gone to other, more lucrative professions. A housekeeper’s paycheck, he notes, is bigger than an Esol teacher’s.
Teaching is a sacrifice. Nobody does it for money. “Teachers, wherever they are, don’t get rich,” he says.
Atienza says the award is not only a personal recognition, it is a recognition of all teachers in the Philippines and abroad. It should erase the stigma that Filipino teachers can’t teach English abroad, he says.
He adds that sometimes, Filipinos are more than capable in teaching the language than their native English-speaking counterparts. Sometimes, the students understand Filipino teachers more easily than their American teachers, whose pronunciations are slurred by their regional accents and twangs.
When the New York Times announced that he won the award last March, it featured Atienza’s photograph on a full-page ad. Beneath the photograph was a white space.
His friends saw the ad and said the white space was a waste of space.
But not for Atienza. The space, he says, is for all Filipino teachers.
Atienza expresses optimism that the Philippines will become a hub for English language teaching.
Reports that the Filipinos’ fluency in the language has been slipping is news to him.
“It’s a bit sad,” he says, noting that decades ago, the country was the No. 1 English-speaking nation in Asia.
Atienza says he hopes the award will allow him to pursue projects with local English teachers. He’s thinking of setting up an exchange program to promote English literacy between Esol teachers in the United States and in the Philippines.
He also wants to set up a Filipino language center in New York because Filipino immigrants want their children to learn their native language.
