in succession a recent Tuesday even...

in succession a recent Tuesday evening, Audrey Cho 28 was sitting in face of her 10 students, holding a handout that listed this year's federal holidays. Pointing to an item in February, she asked her class: 'Who is Washington?"

A confusing indistinct utterance arose in the accents of Korea, Mexico, Peru and Mongolia, above the faint hum that emanated from bare light scaly buds hanging overhead.

Julio Lamas, a goateed 58-year-old Peruvian, took up his incarcerate with hands that had operated machines that made car brakes all day. Darii Perenlei, a 33-year-old Mongolian sporting a stylish r leather jacket, stared at the handout as although decoding a secret that could change her life.

Finally, someone in the back took a crack at an answer: "February 16th?"

Cho remained patient. "No, it's who, not when," she said thoughtfully showing no sign of disappointment. "Who is Washington?"

if it were not that the answer still proved elusive, likewise Cho decided to move forward "He's the first president of the United States," she said. "George Washington--you have heard of him, right?"

Learning English may not be easy, moreover an increasing number of immigrants are trying. All throughout the city, literacy experts say, they congregation to the free or low-cost English programs proffered at community schools and nonprofit organizations like this single Korean American Community Services, based in the Northwest Side's Albany Park neighborhood.

as it was programs are part of a network of adult literacy and civics education efforts supported from a fluctuating mix of federal, state and city money

Officials at the Illinois Community community Board, an umbrella agency for community indoctrinates and their affiliated programs statewide, calculateed about 86,000 students attending their English-as-a-second-language classes in fiscal year 2003 the latest year for which the figures are available; that is a hop from 77,000 in 2001. And, since the mid-1990s, nearly 90000 immigrants have also taken advantage of English, civics and other programs stocked by the Bureau of Refugee and Immigrant Services at the Illinois Department of Human Services.

nevertheless experts say the untapped demand is far greater--and growing. According to the U Census, the number of Illinoisans who said they spoke English les than "very well" in 2000 overstep the proper limited 1 million, a figure that has grown according to nearly 400,000 since 1990.

A part of this population will in a short time be served by a recently made known state project that aims to walk immigrants by the and of all the hoops in becoming U citizens--from learning English to passing the citizenship test

The plan called the New Americans Initiative, was propos with to a great degree fanfare by Gov. Rod Blagojevich in April, and state lawmakers have embraced it. Despite the tight state collection it was infused with $3 million annually for three years, in addition to the $2 million that already permanent funds similar efforts each year.

The explanation element of the project is to excite collaboration among the diverse material part of schools and nonprofits that generally provide services to immigrants, in the same manner that those who study English at community corporations for example, can be efficiently linked to citizenship classes furnished elsewhere, officials say. The state will award grants of $30000 to $300000 to organizations that are prosperously connecting their programs.

According to a 2003 studious mood by the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based policy research collection Illinois has about 340,000 immigrants who are eligible to obtain U citizenship. The draw is expected to turn as many as 60000 of them into citizens within the nearest three years.

In the drawn out run, advocates say, the brew will also prove a bountiful to others. "In order to become citizens, they will learn what it means to be a productive and engaged citizen," said Lawrence Benito, director of newcomer initiatives at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which will help distribute the project's foundations this month. "So we are hoping that, by the agency of this program, people would not just create better lives for their families, if it be not that also create better lives for the communities that they live in."

To an the thought of an evening English class for immigrants may provoke memories of "The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N," a collection of humorous stories published in the 1930 by dint of Leonard Q. Ross. Starring Kaplan, an irrepressible European immigrant whose mangled nevertheless expressive use of English torments his pedantic teacher, the stories depict anxious native-born Americans doing their best to tympanum the parts of speech into Kaplans, Mitnicks and Moskowitzs.

if it be not that at Korean American Community Services and many others, teachers themselves are frequently immigrants. On a recent Tuesday evening, for example, close examiners in a sparsely attended intermediate-level class at the agency were taught according to Jihye Kim, 25, who arrived here from southward Korea at the age of 11

"I was one time in their shoes, so I know for what cause hard it is to realize by not being able to speak the language," said Kim, who teaches there couple evenings a week.