Classes or Self Study

[Chicagoguy 2 27]

My wife begins citizenship class next week at local Jr. College. She is not happy with her English but I believe she has nothing to lose. It is free after all.

But as for her ESL studies, she claims that she can do better at home. She knows the language rules very well and many students in her class are close to illiterate even in their own language so some of it seems like a waste of time for her. She is very dilligent at finding and studing English on line. It will be about level 4 for her.

So should she also study for citizenship test at home and on line ? To confuse things more, this year the gov't. has new rule that no enrollement in citizenship classes unles you are enrolled in ESL at the same time.

[MikeAndIryna 0]

My wife begins citizenship class next week at local Jr. College. She is not happy with her English but I believe she has nothing to lose. It is free after all.

But as for her ESL studies, she claims that she can do better at home. She knows the language rules very well and many students in her class are close to illiterate even in their own language so some of it seems like a waste of time for her. She is very dilligent at finding and studing English on line. It will be about level 4 for her.

So should she also study for citizenship test at home and on line ? To confuse things more, this year the gov't. has new rule that no enrollement in citizenship classes unles you are enrolled in ESL at the same time.

My wife took ESL classes at a local church out here is the Chicago suburbs. In her words, there were a lot of Spanish people in the class (only 1 Russian woman, and her the lone Ukranian) so a lot of the conversation to teach was done in Spanish. Now it did help her some, from a noun, verb & sentence structure standpoint. But she will tell you the biggest thing that taught her English, sub-titles on the TV. We have a 24 disc English set (Russian & English) and once she got to like CD 3 and the phrase was "I have a dog, but not a cat", that did it for her and she stopped the CD's (anyone want to buy a hardly used CD set?). Wasn't practical in the applications. Watching movies where she knew the plot & conversation, but heard and read it in English made it much easier than discs or ESL.

For her citizenship test, she had it on her Ipod to listen at work, the online tests and the written questions & study material. For her, the Ipod & written Q & A worked best and she went 6 for 6 in her interview question response. BUT, everyone learns a different way. Some people are visual, others require sound and others want to write so whatever seems to be the easiest form for your wife, support her on it and go with it.

Edited August 23, 2012 by MikeAndIryna

[Neonred 3,562]

I had to listen to that damn CD they give you with the citizenship questions every time we were in the car together. Wife had to know every answer perfectly, but also went 6 for 6 on the test. Glad we are all finished with USCIS.

[Karee 4,190]

I had to listen to that damn CD they give you with the citizenship questions every time we were in the car together. Wife had to know every answer perfectly, but also went 6 for 6 on the test. Glad we are all finished with USCIS.

I feel your pain. My wife is killing me.

[Sand 5]

Good Luck.

[tamara143 1]

Self-study. Do a role-play, act as if you're the interviewer and ask her 20 random questions every day.

Good Luck.