Students Celebrate Success at Center for New Americans: Part 1

Lots and Lots of Food Shared by Students and Staff

Students Enjoy Watching the Celebration

It was a joyous day for many students at the Center for New Americans as they celebrated their achievements at the end of the quarter.

Over a three month period, 70 students graduated out of at least one level of English.  Students and teachers celebrated with an award ceremony, food, music, and speeches.

During one impassioned speech, a student answered the question, why are students so dedicated to learning English?  She shared a moving story of her first flight to the United States and how embarrassing it was to not understand anything around her at the airport.  However, she says:

And here I’m after a year and 7 months and studying English.  I don’t speak it correctly.  I don’t write it correctly, but I feel safer to go to the clinic or the store and the airport and ask for what I need.  I will continue studying English until I finish all levels and speak it correctly.  I have two reasons for this…

The first because I would like to be a good example for my daughters, that they see that although I struggle to learn, I try hard and I commit myself to continue studying, so they will do the same with their studies.  I believe that my example is very important even though they are adults.

The second reason why I have as a goal to speak English correctly is because I would like to work or volunteer to be a nurse’s assistant in a hospital.  I have hope in my heart.  I have a lot of faith that I will achieve.  I believe I can learn English.

Students and teachers sing a special South Dakota version of the John Denver song “Country Roads”

The Day was fun, inspiring, and we look forward to many more successes.  Make sure to catch us again soon when we share more inspiring speeches and photos from the student celebration.

Some of the Morning Graduating Students Pose With Their Certificates

 

Written by Heather Glidewell | LSS Center for New Americans | Adult ESL Instructor

300 East 6th Street, Suite 100 | Sioux Falls, SD 57103

1-866-242-2447 toll free | 605-731-2059 fax

Celebrating Student Achievements!

Preschool Confidence- How Can We Be So Sure?

“Play is the highest form of research.” – Albert Einstein

Nationally, there is a focus on how best we can ensure our children are prepared for the future through education. Research shows that this process begins in the womb. As parents, that can put a lot of pressure on us to provide the ideal learning opportunities for our children from the moment we fall in love with them. I believe that sometimes that drive to prepare our children academically can cause us to miss the greatest opportunity for doing just that. We are so excited for our little ones to learn that we forget to encourage the very thing that will help them learn best- play!

As we sort and stack the sweet little graduation caps, tassels and gowns for our preschool class of 2015, I cannot resist thinking about the fact that they are just 13 years away from becoming the high school graduating class of 2028. Fortunately, I’m confident that as a preschool, we have partnered with their parents as they prepared them to be wildly successful! I’m also excited that we will have the opportunity to watch many of these little ones grow as they continue on in our After-School and Summer Programs. Some of our students that have grown up in Sioux Falls have even sent us high school graduation invites or stopped in to show us just how successful they are! Some of our graduates are even LSS employees now. This is such a blessing.

I imagine you are wondering how I can be so confident that our preschool has prepared students to be successful. What follows is a small list of the reasons that I believe LSS provides the type of preschool experience to our students that will help them grow and learn so I have collected some quotes from around the world to support my belief.