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Kacy Kizer The Daily Barometer International women practice English and make connections Thursday morning at the Church of the Good Samaritan. [Click to enlarge]

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning for the past 18 years a moderate group of international women have gathered at the Church of the Good Samaritan for a common cause; English.

In 1986, Rosemary Stoltenberg found a solution to an incessant need.

Stoltenberg, the wife of a former dean of the Forestry Department, created Crossroads Conversation School because she "saw a need for international women to both learn English and make friends," said Janet Swinyard, the director of the program.

"She went around the country looking at programs and learning about this kind of thing," Swinyard said.

Stoltenberg succeeded in creating a successful school, which has seen more than 1,000 women benefit from its services.

The school is a non-religious, non-political organization that holds classes twice a week.

According to Swinyard, its purpose is to allow women the chance to study conversational English at a low cost, while at the same time exploring other cultures and helping one another adapt to their new surroundings.

"The focus is on conversational English because that is what the women need to survive here," Swinyard said.

"The women really form support groups, become friends and exchange information about their own cultures," she said.

The majority of women who take the conversation classes are wives of OSU international students. The school enables them to be more successful in work or school if they choose to participate in either while in Corvallis.

While some of the women are housewives, many have also received degrees from universities around the world. However, some are not able to work because they were not issued work visas.

The classes are run by women in the community who choose to volunteer their time.

There are 12 teachers, two per class, with about 10 students in each.

Depending on the level of English each individual student speaks, they are placed in either beginning, intermediate or advanced classes.

This year, there are students from 14 different countries, including Brazil, Chile, Korea and Japan among others, with about 40 students enrolled each term.

Ximena Jeria, from Viña del Mar, Chile, has been in Corvallis for seven months. She heard about the program through her husband, a civil engineer working toward his Ph.D.

"I enjoy meeting new people from all over the world, exercising English and sharing our ups and downs [about being] in a new country, it's like therapy," she said.

Ping Hou, from Shanghai, China, teaches English at a high school in her hometown, but "enjoys the daily use of English [here]," she said.

The two women also enjoy learning about North American culture in general, "it helps us to be more tolerant," Jeria said.

For more information about the Crossroads Conversation School, contact Janet Swinyard at 754-6015 or jswinyard@comcast.net.

Katie Gill is the international affairs editor for The Daily Barometer. She can be reached at baro.news@studentmedia.orst.edu or 737-6376.

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