Program helps teach slang

Armed with a dry-erase board, plastic mistletoe, poinsettias, Christmas CDs, a big smile and tons of energy, William Kelly was ready to teach English yesterday.

English slang, that is.

Kelly, a New Jersey resident and an avid community volunteer, created the SLANGuage program at Penn four and a half years ago after he came across a survey, which illustrated that many foreign students at Penn felt disconnected from American culture.

Inspired by his previous experience teaching English as a Second Language, Kelly developed his program to teach graduate students the ins and outs of the English language so that they can better communicate with their peers.

SLANGuage, which meets every Tuesday, has developed a solid reputation among the Chinese graduate community, which makes up 80 percent of the program's participants. The program even attracts students from Temple University and Rutgers-Camden to come to Penn to brush up on their speaking skills.

Yesterday's meeting drew a relatively sparse crowd -- only two students were present. Kelly said that meetings usually host five students, but sometimes sees groups as large as 15.

Meeting in the Christian Association House, yesterday's group discussed topics ranging from snow to the Schuylkill River.

The students who participate in SLANGuage usually have a solid background in the English language, but they are looking to learn more about informal vocabulary and American culture.

Yesterday's participants -- Jie Sun, a Biomedical Ph.D student from Shanghai, China and Xinging Shen, also from Shanghai -- were curious as to if there will be a lot of snow here this winter.

Kelly, 59, used the opportunity to discuss past local blizzards -- some of which were "doozies," and introduced the new slang word to Sun and Shen.

When Kelly initially told his students yesterday to call him Bill, they were unaware that the common nickname is actually a form of William. So, Kelly ran to his trusty dry-erase board and began to list other common nicknames for the students to learn.

After this, Kelly distributed the lyrics of some popular American Christmas songs and then popped in a CD to bring the songs to life. When unfamiliar words -- such as popcorn and mistletoe -- were heard, Kelly was quick to provide explanations.

Kelly's interest in international issues and foreign languages is not new. In fact, he has been interested in the issues since he was in high school. Kelly is now proficient in Russian, Chinese and Japanese. And he recently began studying the less-popular Uzbek in an attempt to communicate with nine Uzbekistani refugees that were taken in recently by his church.

About six years ago, Kelly started teaching English to recent immigrants, working with people who fled the former Soviet Union.

"It was just one night a week, but I loved it... I was pumped," he said.

And Kelly has been teaching ever since. He said that an important goal of his program is hospitality. Since many foreign students at Penn lack the opportunity to spend time in traditional American homes, Kelly opens the doors of his own house to his program's participants whenever possible.

Kelly has used other innovative techniques to reach his students, providing lyrics to popular songs, such as "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Leaving on a Jet Plane."

Kelly said that he enjoys his work, especially getting to meet new people -- over 200 foreign students, visiting scholars and their spouses -- and does not see stopping any time soon.

"I am enjoying [it], and I will probably keep on [volunteering with the program]," he said.