Bridges ESL

Our Mission:

Bridges ESL provides free English language lessons to individuals in the Yale and New Haven community who want or need to improve their communication skills and bridge their language gap. These individuals will acquire the English skills needed to be effective in the family, the workplace, and the community — building bridges for their own future.

Millions of immigrants arrive in the United States lacking fluent English language skills. They need English proficiency to pursue employment, obtain a higher education, obtain citizenship, and/or to interact with others in their daily lives. Bridges ESL helps its students to develop confidence in carrying out interactions in English and provides them with tools that will help them become more involved in their new home in this country.

Our Activities:

Saturday Morning Classes
Direct Service
We teach classes in person at the AACC and La Casa and virtually on Zoom on Saturday mornings from 10am-12pm.

Tutor Training
Direct Service
We instruct our tutors on how to create proper lesson plans for their students.

Free English Language Tutoring with Bridges ESL
Direct Service
Yale students involved in Bridges ESL meet once a week to tutor English as a second language to adults in the greater New Haven area and abroad. Through a combination of in-person and remote classes, we are expanding lessons to students living in other states and other countries. With eight lessons per semester, tutors create lesson plans tailored to their students' interests, whether that be conversation, grammar, reading, writing, etc. A certificate of completion is emailed to students at the end of the semester.

End-of-Semester Celebration
Direct Service
We host a celebration at the AACC at the end of the semester on a Saturday morning. The event celebrates tutors and students, and we share the semester's anthology, a collection of student submissions.

Student Leaders:

Gina Coque Alarcon - Co-Coordinator/Co-President Isabelle Stemerman - Co-Coordinator/Co-President