By Jack Dulhanty, via Manchester Mill | @MancheterMill).
Wednesday morning on Bengal Street, just off Oldham Road in Ancoats. There was a queue forming, people carried notepads, pens, dog leashes and babies. The rain was falling in light sheets and construction sites roared somewhere in the distance.
The doors to Mustard Tree — a homeless charity — opened at 9:59am, and the queue quickly filed inside. They were guided to a room where they each signed in and were given visitor lanyards. Every Wednesday, Mustard Tree holds a series of free ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) classes.
Staff at Mustard Tree have seen a big influx of attendees of their ESOL classes recently, spiking from 65 in August to 221 in February. March is set to top that — on the two Wednesdays I attend I’m one of more than 90 people, not including children and babies, who Mustard Tree encourages people to bring so they aren’t deterred. The recent spike remains unexplained, though it’s thought that Manchester’s intake of Afghan refugees in August is one of the big drivers.
The dining space at Mustard Tree. Photo: Mustard Tree.
The main focus is making the ESOL classes as accessible as possible. Often, ESOL classes will require multiple checks and are set over months-long terms. It can be difficult for refugees and asylum seekers entering the country — as they try to build new lives for themselves — to commit to these time frames.
With that in mind, students can attend Mustard Tree’s ESOL programmes without committing to coming back and the charity will also pay for their commute into the city and give them a free lunch afterwards.
The day started with an English conversational session, a kind of warm-up before classes begin. A whiteboard suggested conversational topics like whether people were planning to stay in Manchester, how they were faring getting a job, and — most popularly — what the weather was like.
Volunteers drifted between small groups, starting conversations and encouraging people to mix. Three women, one from Poland, two from China, carefully delivered some well-practiced good mornings to each other, and before long were laughing at one another’s attempts at English. Then they just laughed together generally. Four neighbours from a refugee hotel almost seemed to roll new words on their tongues before pronouncing them.
One volunteer started a conversation with a group of Somalian women, asking them where they were living. This is partly curiosity and partly by design, Mustard Tree being a homeless charity means conversational classes can have a dual purpose, as it gives volunteers access to people they otherwise may not have, and can identify those who may need help with their living situation.
Later on in the session, volunteers realised the man with the little bit of scruff on his chin and the tight, almost permanent smile was actually a 16-year-old boy from Syria, who was still yet to start school. “ESOL is good for stuff like that,” said Beckie, one of Mustard Tree’s fundraising officers, “now we know we need to help him with that”.
One of the Somalian women was asked her age. Seeing her struggling, her friend — by reflex — translated it for her, then clasped her hand over her mouth. With the conversational session coming to a close, people began filtering out of the room to their classes which started at 11am. As they prepared to leave, the room collapsed into a multi-lingual hum, mothers and fathers picked up their toddlers, often prying them from the arms of someone else’s toddler. The studious gathered their notepads and pens.
I sat in on a beginner’s class, led by Debbie, Mustard Tree’s training manager. They learned the alphabet and how to write letters and numbers. Students filled in pages of words beginning with G, H, I and J — only the first letter was blank — “jar is this, the jam goes inside,” explained a volunteer.
Debbie, training manager at Mustard Tree. Photo: Jack Dulhanty/The Mill.
Khuram, one of Mustard Tree’s trainee chefs, came into the class and fell languidly into an armchair. “We’re cooking for 160 people today,” he said. Khuram is training to be a chef on one of Mustard Tree’s training programmes, he’ll get a qualification at the end which will make it easier for him to get work in other kitchens. He used to work in sales, but left due to stress affecting his health: “I think what they do here for people is brilliant,” he said, as he headed back to the kitchen.
In another class I found Jim, one of Mustard Tree’s trustees and a longer-term ESOL teacher, who teaches one of the more intermediate groups. In there, they read aloud a story about a girl called Madeline who fell off a slide and broke her arm. There, they get into the nitty-gritty a little more. Madeline had her arm put in plaster, which gave rise to Jim explaining the different kinds of plaster, small plasters for cuts, plaster for casts, and so on. By the time Jim taps the wall and said that was also plaster, and that other words in the English language can apply to three or more things, one student looks at him as if betrayed.
Next door, Jim’s brother Jon teaches a slightly more advanced class on the past participle, handing out sheets of common irregular verbs. He told me how many levels of English speakers they get: some who can speak English but not write it, some who can’t do either, others who aren't fully literate in their first language and haven’t had this kind of formal teaching before. “We just kind of take that flow of people,” says Jim.
One thing that stands out is the energy of the classes, beginners don’t just repeat the alphabet by rote, they shout it. Questions are constant, people don’t want to leave until they understand. After ESOL classes, students eat, then often will go to digital skills, where they can learn to use Google Maps, manage storage on their devices and save money online. It’s a one-stop shop for people who want to start new lives, and that’s inspiring. The entire second floor of Mustard Tree — where the ESOL classes are held — sings with enthusiasm to learn. The queues will only grow longer.