Taiwan native Lucy Wang was not happy with her English speaking skills. She said, "Even though I had been in the United States for quite a few years, people were always saying, ‘oh, where are you from?’ That’s perfectly fine, but I realized my accent was giving me away. My coworkers thought my accent was cute, but it bothered me a great deal." 

"I wasn’t sure about my grammar skills, either," Lucy said, "and the people I know are too nice to stop the conversation and correct me. So I would keep on recycling the same mistakes. Finally, I put pressure on myself to do something about it."

Lucy was taking college courses at the time, but she couldn’t find a class for the language skills she needed. Then a classmate told her about the Marin,California Literacy Program. After two years, Lucy felt she had come far. "The tutor in my conversation group has helped me learn to speak more fluently. She is very, very positive."

"Since I started English-as-a-second-language classes I have a lot more confidence,"Lucy said, "and I’m learning new things. Right now I’m working on writing grammatically. I had stopped going to college, but now I’ve decided on a major and I’m going back in the fall. Eventually I’ll get a four-year degree. The people at Marin Literacy started as friends. And now we’re not just friends ... we’re good friends!"