ESL program question (Franklin: rent, buy, universities)

[Alkist]

Hi All,

We moved to Nashville from Ukraine couple of weeks ago and i am looking for english classes for my wife to start from almost zero. I was thinking of something more or less intensive (more than couple of hours a week), in a group (so that she communicates and cooperates with peers), any Nashville district and more or less affordable. I googled a bit and my findings so far are

IEI program looks great but pretty expensive for us (~2.5K$ for 7 weeks class, 20-25 hours a week, could be an option perhaps as it's kinda ~14$ an hour)
Tennessee Foreign Language Institute seems to have couple of hours a week class only
Universities (Belmont and Vanderbilt) as far as i understood suggest either programs for their employees families or future ESL teachers
Not sure about Tennessee State, but im afraid it's same as two above
There are lots of classes suggested by churches, but i am not aware of the details here yet

Is there anything i am missing, or are my criteria not quite fair?

Thanks!

[CountryGirl2b=]

Try these folks . . the Nashville Literacy Council

Nashville Adult Literacy Council | English

This is going to sound a little strange BUT if you rent or buy some videos, and then close caption them, it really does help. (Assuming Ukranian uses the roman alphabet?) Try some Sesame Street or other kids programs where there isn't a lot of dialog.

I am betting you could find something online as well . . such as
http://www.learnamericanenglishonline.com/index.html

[CountryGirl2b=]

The Google Translate app let's you speak a sentence in one language and it will translate and "speak" what you said, in another. Ukrainian is included. Might be helpful in the short term?

[Alkist]

Sure, thanks a lot, will check these out.

[septimus]

TV really does help. That's how I learned to speak Swedish while living in Denmark.

Probably a little more work, but there are churches that have ESL classes as part of their outreach. There was a church several years ago in Franklin that offered free ESL classes. My nanny and housekeeper both went and the improvement was amazing.

[CountryGirl2b=]

I took a Swedish class in college. Would you have learned Danish in Denmark? Or were you watching a Swedish channel? Anyway, yes, TV does really help . . . and I guess you could just watch Sesame Street on the PBS channel but I can't figure out how to get Comcast to give me closed captions here in Nashville? Easier on a DVD.

[septimus]

Originally Posted by CountryGirl2b=

I took a Swedish class in college. Would you have learned Danish in Denmark? Or were you watching a Swedish channel? Anyway, yes, TV does really help . . . and I guess you could just watch Sesame Street on the PBS channel but I can't figure out how to get Comcast to give me closed captions here in Nashville? Easier on a DVD.

I spoke Danish while living in DK, but I picked up a lot of Swedish from watching TV.

[Alkist]

Might be wrong, but take self study and TV as an addition to group classes.

[Siamese Kitty]

If you need a tutor at any point, I wanted to suggest you contact the graduate language departments at the bigger universities, i.e. Vanderbilt. While they may not know your mother tongue, they almost always do necessary teacher training and second language acquisition classes in order to teach their target language to undergraduates (I did.) Many foreign language graduate students also teach ESL as secondary jobs. (Source: I am a former language professor. )

Welcome and good luck!

[Alkist]

Thanks everyone for the answers, appreciate a lot!