Articles - Summer 2010 - return to index
Business Solutions: ESL and employers help new residents
 Joe Monaco and Eric Razo “Everyone in my house, we are students.” |
-By Bonnie Henderson
When 36-year-old Eric Razo moved from his native Mexico to Lane County in 2007, he spoke almost no English. But he knew how to weld, having learned at his father’s knee at the age of 11.
After welding horse trailers for minimum wage in Eugene for nearly a year, Razo landed a job with Monaco Tools, a small, locally owned fabricator of tools for diesel engine repair.
It’s a good job with benefits and opportunities for advancement. Which is why Razo, with his boss’s support, caps most work days with classes in English as a Second Language (ESL) from Lane Community College.
“I told him when I hired him, you have to learn English if you want to work here,” Joe Monaco says. “Eric’s very intelligent, and he could advance with better language skills.”
Advancement would involve operating more complex computerized machinery. Razo’s dream, is to complete Lane’s Manufacturing Technology degree program. But first things first: he’s close to completing his GED, he plans to take his citizenship exam this fall, and he’s improving his English daily, with help from LCC.
Razo’s work schedule allows him to squeeze in a three-hour English class four evenings a week. English must be spoken in the shop, and Monaco keeps a Spanish-English dictionary within reach.
Some employers cover the modest cost of ESL classes for their employees, says Cathy Lindsley, dean for Lane’s ESL program, which enrolls some 500 students every term.
“Everyone in my house, we are students,” Razo says of himself, his wife, and his four children, ages 5 to 17. “We have dreams, here in the U.S. Right now, I want to learn English well.”
