TLC Assistant Director of English Programs Erin Keafer represented and promoted TLC at the Nashville Public Library’s Adult Education Summit. The Summit offers Nashville’s adult education providers the opportunity to engage in discussion and strategy-building around the issues most pressing to our community.
TLC Teacher Lorie Adams was one of the five finalists for the 2024 Adult Educator of the Year, an annual award given by the Nashville Public Library Adult Education Community
TLC received a $10,000 grant from Dollar General’s Yellow Glasses Project for our ESL to Go program. The Yellow Glasses Project helps build awareness and empower others through literacy and basic education. The grant helps TLC’s ESL to Go program continue to provide high-quality English classes close to where refugees live in Middle Tennessee.
TLC’s ESL to Go program has received a $93,000 grant from the Tennessee Office for Refugees through Catholic Charities. ESL to Go offers free English as a Second Language classes to approved asylees, refugees, and people with Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) that have been in the U.S. five years or less.
Classes are offered online, and ESL to Go also has a classroom on wheels that can travel to the apartment complexes where refugees live, eliminating the need for transportation to and from class. This grant will cover the cost for classes for around 170 students.
ESL to Go, a grant-funded program that is part of the Tennessee Language Center (TLC), has been able to provide free English classes to over 1,700 students in the Nashville area with the help of generous funders including the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. ESL to Go was recently awarded another year of funding from Dollar General.
ESL to Go was founded in hopes of helping refugees overcome barriers to attending classes, with transportation being at the top of the list. ESL to Go uses a “classroom on wheels” in the form of a Ford F-650 truck equipped to be a fully functioning classroom to take English classes to the areas where refugees live. ESL to Go also works closely with local refugee resettlement agencies, community organizations, apartment complexes, and churches who allow ESL to Go to use free classroom space, so TLC-trained teachers are able to meet with refugee students close to their homes.
Recently, ESL to Go has expanded class offerings to include virtual classes in order to continue helping students access classes during the time of social distancing.