In Lawrence, her learning goes slowly
LAWRENCE -- Paola Figueroa's hand shot up when the teacher asked for a volunteer to define the word ''several."
One of eight students in a reading class for limited English speakers, she was eager to answer, though she was unsure of the word's meaning.
''More than one?" asked Paola, 14, making circles in the air with her arm, as if trying to reel in the answer. ''Teacher?"
The eighth-grader, whose native language is Spanish, came to the United States nearly two years ago from the Dominican Republic. At the Oliver School, she feels comfortable speaking English in her tiny reading class, where students can ask for help from a teacher willing on occasion to translate vocabulary into Spanish. In this class and another, Paola gets at least 2 1/2 hours a day of help learning English.
But the uncle and aunt whom she lives with say they are worried that the teen is not learning English fast enough. So is Paola, who spoke no English when she came to the United States because her mother wanted her to live with relatives to learn English and go to college.
In her math class, where most students are fluent, she is ashamed to speak. Earlier in the year she flunked an exam.
''It's embarrassing," she said in Spanish. ''I'm afraid they're going to laugh at me."
Paola, who got tutoring to boost her math grade to a C, can speak, read, and write in English, but grammar frequently confuses her. In Spanish adjectives appear after the nouns, the opposite of English.
Sitting in her living room with her aunt, Paola said more Spanish in class might help. But her aunt, Maria Almanzar, shook her head and said English is better.
''She's about to go to high school," her aunt said. ''She's going to need it."
MARIA SACCHETTI 