Building Friendships in Illinois

"At the beginning of our school year, I had two new girls come from different countries, and I started them on Imagine Learning English. Conveniently, I work in a computer classroom in our building that only has computers set up with the ILE software. Our ELL students (K–5) come every day to do their lessons with me.

"I randomly seated these two students next to each other. One student is from Germany, the other from Korea. A wonderful unexpected friendship has blossomed during their time spent sitting next to each other. They check each other’s computer screen to compete, and they wait for each other to walk back to their main classrooms. They are now speaking English with each other and have whole conversations; I hear them as they are walking out. Wow! I cried tears of joy. Imagine Learning English helped these two girls from completely different countries to have conversations and just express themselves as girls do."

Mary Augustine
ELL Assistant
Naperville, Illinois