Correction:
April Paw was born in a refugee camp in Thailand.
Felix Paw, a precocious 3-year-old, has a favorite phrase: “I don’t know.”
Which isn’t entirely true, as his mother, April, knows. He loves to quiz her on his favorite dinosaurs and sea creatures, congratulating her when she answers correctly and, when she doesn’t, wagging his little finger.
Beyond the prehistoric beasts that once roamed the plains and the turtles that once swam the oceans, he’s beginning to learn letters and numbers — well enough that he reads off license plates at stop lights. And this week at Akron’s downtown library, Felix and his mom worked through large-print books.
“C-A-T,” Felix said, correctly spelling a word in-between his endless hunt for dinosaur toys and requests to bounce on library chairs.
April has exposed Felix to English since before he was born. It started with her reading to her son in the womb, and now, as an energetic toddler, he’s learning the alphabet and reading along with books from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
Preparing Felix for academic success isn’t just a personal mission for Paw. It’s part of a larger effort to educate and acclimate Akron’s large immigrant community to life, work and studies in the United States.
April acknowledges that her English is a work in progress, although she works part-time as an interpreter. She tries to read with Felix as much as possible.
She wanted to give him an educational head start before he arrived this week at Maranatha Preschool Park.
“I’m very proud,” she said. “I just hope and pray that he continues to love reading, and then he will read a lot and do well in school in the future.”
After preschool, he’ll likely head to Akron Public Schools, where, like many first-generation immigrants, he may be tested for placement in the English as a Second Language curriculum. For his mother, who was born in a refugee camp in Thailand before moving to the United States at 13 years old, setting Felix up for educational success is paramount.
That diversity demands investment by the district, said Loi Dang-Nguyen, the school district’s ESL and world languages supervisor. Students in the ESL program are taught at grade level, regardless of their English skills before entering the schools.
The Paws are part of Akron’s growing Karen community, a cultural identity that adds to the area’s diverse landscape. Students in APS speak 49 languages across the district, including English.
It’s not enough for students to navigate directions or speak in English with friends. They are required to master the context around standardized English tests — which they cannot take in their native language.
Dang-Nguyen said the success of English learners at APS helps build up the city.
“If the community grows, the community gives back, the community looks good, then that means that we look good,” she said.
It’s a tall task, but one that Dang-Nguyen and her team of tutors and teachers are finding success in. Last year, the district saw 282 students test out of the ESL program, and a total of 1,986 students have exited the program since 2016.
This year, there are about 2,200 ESL students across the district. In total, APS has around 20,000 students across all grades and cohorts.
APS’s first Nepali-born teacher finding common ground with her students
For Shreejana Subba, the first full-time teacher of Nepali descent in Akron Public Schools, her work teaching English language arts to elementary ESL students at Crouse Community Learning Center is personally rewarding.
The 24-year-old moved to the United States in 2012 from a Nepali refugee camp with little background in speaking English. Back then, she was shy, at times hesitating to ask to use a restroom or for help with her studies.
That hesitation faded by the time she left Jennings CLC for North High School, where she said the school’s diversity helped her make friends quickly.
“I have a lot of empathy for my students, because I have experienced the challenges of my students,” Subba said. “So I hope to provide the same dedications and empathy that I once received from my ESL teachers.”
She uses this experience to find common ground with her students, regardless of where they’re from. One of the best ways she’s found to forge kinships is sharing her journey from a refugee camp — a story that many of her students share at least in part.
Another unique way she has made inroads: asking them what their favorite app is.
When she showed her TikTok account to a student who didn’t understand the favorite app question in English, she saw a figurative lightbulb go off. He drew a picture of the Snapchat app.
Fostering those moments of revelation, she said, is incredibly rewarding.
“I think knowing that my students are making progress and that I am making a difference in their life is like a dream,” Subba said. “It’s something that I always wanted to do.”
Community, books and television are tools for English immersion
Dang-Nguyen, Subba and Paw, all with different backgrounds and journeys to the United States, have a shared struggle. They all moved here from refugee camps and forged their own paths while learning a new language. Their subsequent successes give them unique insight into what it takes to succeed as an immigrant in America.
“I would say, talk to your neighbors,” Dang-Nguyen said. “Practice. Go to the different functions.”
The community immersion Dang-Nguyen recommends has paid early dividends for April and Felix Paw.
“I think talking to him so much and taking him around,” she said, “like [the] library, churches, you know, like with other kids, he learned so much.”