Agencies fill language vacuum for refugees

A large number of asylum-seekers in Ireland come from non-English speaking countries. Most do not speak the language, yet they are not entitled to Government-funded language lessons until they are granted refugee status. Applications can take as much as two years to be processed.

Several agencies have now stepped into the vacuum, to provide English language classes for asylum-seekers - such as the Vincentian Refugee Centre in Phibsboro, Dublin. The centre, opened officially by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern last week, is a partnership of three religious organisations - the Vincentian Fathers, the Daughters of Charity and the Society of St Vincent de Paul.

The director, Rev Brian Moore, explains:

"We provide various support services to asylum-seekers including a drop-in and meeting centre, social visits to those who are isolated or hospitalised, housing - getting them out of B-and-Bs and hostels and into rented accommodation.

"We also create awareness of their situation aimed at enabling them to integrate into the community and train them to communicate effectively through our English language classes."

Sister Breege Keenan is co-ordinator of the language training at the centre. "English class is divided into three groups - beginners, conversation and written skills," she says. Classes are held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for both beginners and those with conversation-level English, while a written English lesson is held weekly. The teachers are all professionals who volunteered to teach on different days. Parishioners also join in to boost spoken English."

In the conversation class in a room in St Peter's club house, we meet a group of asylum-seekers. They are learning "dead as a dodo" and other idiomatic expressions from Lily Sexton. Alan, a blind parishioner, helps with conversation and explanation. In another room teacher Sinead Mannion is taking a beginners' group. She says: "We teach them phrases of everyday conversation, listen to previous news bulletins which we have recorded, do a little drama, and we give them homework at the end of each lesson"

In the beginner's class, a Russian participant who had no English before his arrival here, describes the programme as "v-e-r-y n-i-c-e - I h-a-v-e l-e-a-r-n-e-d a l-o-t o-f g-r-a-m-m-a-r."

So far, says Sinead, the performance of many of the students is encouraging: "They are hard-working people who are so hungry to learn the English language, even to the extent that some of them attend up to four lessons a day."

Alan finds their progress surprisingly good. "They are doing very well," he says. "They are speaking English better than I would speak their own language given the same length of time."

Apart from the Vincentian centre, the Irish Refugee Council runs free language training programme for asylum-seekers in Dublin and in Ennis, Co Clare. An Outreach programme, organised by Comhlamh and the African Refugee Network, provides both asylum-seekers and refugees with a language teaching service in their homes. Kathy Kane, the association's programme co-ordinator, explains: "The programme established last February is specifically designed to reach women and children who have been left behind by other arrangements because of their inability to attend lessons at existing venues for cultural and other reasons.

"We have 25 volunteers who are qualified and experienced teachers. They design their programme to suit the present 35 asylum-seekers who are learning in different homes on individual or group teaching, two hours a week."

An African woman explains, with some difficulty, that the programme is "g-o-o-d - g-o-o-d f-o-r m-e".

The South Inner City Community Development Association in collaboration with DCU students also provides English language training, as does the Franciscan community at St Audeon's Church in Cook Street, Dublin.

"The needs of asylum-seekers are different from that of other immigrants," says Keenan. She blames irregular attendance by asylum-seekers on "transit accommodation and the pressure they have about social welfare and health matters".

Kane says "a more structured premises with creche and drop-in facilities in central locations" is needed by asylum-seekers in order to advance the programme.

She also calls for a co-ordinating body for all providers of English language lesson to asylum-seekers.