Cargill, school board partner in ESL classes for employees

The London Free Press

Thu, July 31, 2008
By JENNIFER O'BRIEN

Twelve years after arriving in Canada from Cambodia, Sorem Vann is starting to smile in English.

Four years after arriving in Canada from Sudan, so is Parmino Pul.

Well, they're starting to smile while speaking English.

Yesterday, the two were among 13 employees to complete an English as a Second Language course at a London meat-processing factory with hundreds of workers whose first language isn't English.

The class was a result of a partnership between the Thames Valley District school board and food giant Cargill.

"This has been something special here," said teacher Sara McCreery. "It's been so great. I've seen all of (the students) blossom and their confidence just grow."

Though 85 people signed up for the free courses, only 13 completed the first 14-week session, said Cargill training co-ordinator George Foley.

He said some employees -- stakeholders, as the company calls them -- didn't qualify for the recent sessions, which only addressed four of five ESL levels available on site.

"Hopefully ,we will offer it again," he said.

The students agreed.

"I have learned lots of words and how to pronounce them," said Vann, a mother of two, who arrived here from Cambodia in 1996.

"I have wanted to learn English for a long time now."

It was the need to work that kept Vann from continuing English classes after she arrived.
She got a job at Sun Valley Foods, the former Cuddy Foods plant, which recently took on the name of its newest owner, Cargill.

With more than 60 per cent of the plant's staff of 900 having a mother tongue other than English, Cargill is known in London as a place where Vietnamese and Cambodian newcomers can get work without knowing English.

Like others, Vann said she has been able to communicate easily at work, speaking Cambodian most of the time.

While the need to work prevented her from taking English lessons so long ago, this year it was that same job that gave her the chance to do so.

Pul, who speaks Dinka as a first language, hasn't been here quite as long, but with five children who have mastered the language of his new country, he wants to catch up.