Title:
Young Haitians in Florida Learn About US Culture and
Their Own
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
The state of Florida is home to one of the largest
populations of Haitians outside of Haiti. The city
of Miami has a neighborhood known as Little Haiti.
People who live there keep close ties to Haitian
culture. Young Haitians can learn French at the
Little Haiti Cultural Center. Haiti is a former
French colony. French is the main language used in
schools there. The center offers the classes through
a nonprofit organization called the French Heritage
Language Program. Not all of the students are
Haitian. But for the ones who are -- including
Dominique Domond -- the language has special
meaning. He says, "My mom speaks French a little
bit. She speaks French and English."Marie Domond is
Dominique's mother. "Sometimes, he says, 'Mom, I
want you to teach me how to speak your
language.'"Jennifer Linkletter teaches French at the
Little Haiti Cultural Center. She says, "French is
part of what it means to be Haitian, and the goal of
the program is to get them in touch with their
French history and with their French roots and to be
proud of that." Learning another language can also
help them when they grow up. Martine Buissart is the
Miami coordinator for the French Heritage Language
Program, which is based in New York. She says, "The
more languages you speak, the more you can share,
you can work. For work, it's very important."The
organization has also helped expand French classes
at Boyd Anderson High School in South Florida. About
twenty-five Haitian earthquake survivors attend the
school. The students were among thousands of
Haitians who came to the United States after their
country's powerful earthquake last year. One of the
students, Kerby Edme, says, "The teachers were very
patient with us, because some of us, we didn't speak
English before we came here." Principal Angel
Almanzar says there were also problems with lack of
knowledge about the American education system and
feeling isolated."Teacher Mathieu Daquin is himself
Haitian. He says the classes have been good for the
students from Haiti. "It's like Little Haiti within
a school. This is where they feel at home."Many
Haitian students in Florida say they want to help
their homeland. Kerby Edme says: "Every Haitian,
even [if] they weren't there when the earthquake
happened, I think they have in mind to go [and be]
successful and then do something for the country,
even a little bit, because when it all comes
together, it makes a big thing." For VOA Special
English, I'm Alex Villarreal.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
