Teacher Cathy Martin, 21, of Reading, stood in front of her class at First Presbyterian Church, 37 S. Fifth St., and made her seven students stand, too. Martin, a Mennonite and a senior studying English-as-a-second-language, or ESL, at Lancaster Bible College, flapped her arms like a bird and said the word, fly. She asked her adult female students, all Latinas from Puerto Rico, Mexico and Honduras, to mimic her motion, repeating "fly, fly, fly." She did the same thing combining the appropriate motions with the words leave, enter and march. "These are all words that give you something to do," she said. "The motion will help you to remember them."

This ESL language learning application is referred to as total physical response. It is a core program of the faith-based and volunteer women's group called Wisdom31 Inc., which takes its name from the Bible's Proverbs 31, extolling good women as "worth far more than rubies," and Titus 2:3-5. The ESL classes stress functional and practical use of the English language, and meet the needs of many Latinas, some single and others living with boyfriends, who sometimes may have to wait hours for
interpreter services in public places. READ FULL STORY
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