Ever heard of Gujarati?

It’s a language spoken by more than 60 million people in India. And increasingly in communities in the United States, which more than one million Gujaratis call home.

One such community is McKenzie, Tennessee.

Carol Nanney, the school librarian at McKenzie High School, recently requested an English course for Gujarati speakers to help a new student and their family:

“We are a small, rural district in northwest Tennessee. We had a student move into our district that speaks Gujarati with very limited English. Our ESL teacher had spoken with our Supervisor of Instruction about acquiring resources to help this student.  There were very few resources available.  The student comes to the library quite often so I inquired how I could assist in locating resources for her. When her ESL teacher told me of the struggle to find resources, I reached out to Andrea at Tennessee Electronic Library for help.”

Thanks to Tennessee Electronic Library, every public and academic library in the state has free access to Transparent Language Online. That includes the ESL collection for speakers of 38 languages. That number is so high because of requests like Carol’s.

So our team got to work creating the English for Newcomers course for Gujarati speakers. This 25-unit course covers 1,782 useful words and phrases for common newcomer scenarios like:

• Shopping for groceries & essentials
• Looking for work & interviewing
• Securing housing & utilities
• Getting medical & dental care
• Using technology
• Navigating public transportation

Carol plans to use the course with both the student and her family, who are opening a local business:

“What a blessing this course will be! We plan to use it during her ESL classes and when she visits the library. I plan to share the resource with her family also since they have recently purchased a restaurant in town and could benefit from the curriculum as well.”

If your library is supporting English learners, learn more about Transparent Language Online and explore our 300-hour English collection for speakers of 38 languages.

And if your library already subscribes and needs English for speakers of a language we don’t have, let us know at libraries@transparent.com.