Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Michiko Yamada (left) and Anne Cross enjoy an outing in Los Gatos. Cross tutors Yamada's two sons.

Cultural Crossroads

Newcomers make sense of the American way of life in Anne Cross' Saratoga home

By Ann Lencioni

East meets West at an improbable crossroads: the far end of a quiet Saratoga cul-de-sac. Shoes, carefully placed outside the front door of a very California home, are the first cue. What goes on inside is also about cues--cultural cues--which, together with a unique program of individual, custom-designed English instruction, help people from other countries, mostly Asian, acclimate more easily to the American way of life.

The program is the result of the creative work of longtime Saratoga resident Anne Cross. She founded it eight years ago under the name Crossroads Unlimited. "It just so happened," Cross says, "that my first students were Asian. They were a group of women who worked in Silicon Valley companies and needed help with their English in the workplace." Presently, Cross and four other instructors work with 10 families (a total of 14 students) primarily from Saratoga, Los Gatos and Cupertino. For the most part, they are the wives and children of business professionals from Japan, although some are from Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. Her English instruction is not limited to Asians, though, and other countries often are represented in her classes.

A teacher with lifetime secondary credentials in English and history and a master's degree in English and teaching from Stanford University, Cross designs the curriculum herself. Although she employs some standard ESL (English as a Second Language) techniques, she generates most of her own materials. "I design each class specifically to suit the individual's need, based on whether the student is in the workplace, elementary school, high school or college," she says. "And I give a great deal of attention to what I call cultural cues." Cross says these are the innuendoes in language and mannerism--and attitude--that, if not understood, are the great barriers to communication.

Such as baby showers and yellow brick roads. "One of my students, a businesswoman from Taiwan accustomed to international travel and to giving presentations all over the world, came to me with a critical question," she recalls. "She had been invited to a baby shower. She wanted to know what it was, what should she wear, should she take a gift? Imagine--a woman of her credentials with such a problem." Another student, also a business professional, was assigned to a team at work which was named "Yellow Brick Road." Cross said the student was intrigued by the name and had many questions about it. It elicited not only a detailed explanation but also an interesting conversation abut wizards, witches and cowardly lions.

Cross believes that Asians who live in this country want very much to contribute to the community. As an example, she cites the case of Tomoko Nakajima, a woman from Japan who now lives in Saratoga. She wanted to become involved in her little girl's school, but her limited English and uncertainty about how things work in our schools made that difficult. Cross discovered that Nakajima made beautiful shadow boxes and arranged for her to take the shadow boxes to her child's second-grade class. "Mai, her daughter, spoke in front of the class and explained how her mother made the shadow boxes, while her mother showed them to the children. Mai felt good that her mother was contributing at school--just like the other moms," she says.

Nakajima, whose son is also in Cross' program, says the classes have helped both her children make friends at school and that they are learning English because Cross makes it fun. "She has a natural way of teaching," Nakajima says. "She makes it fun for the children. And when they have fun, they learn."

Interaction with the schools is an important part of Cross' extraordinary support of her students. Cross is their reliable source of information when they need to know what exactly is involved in a field trip and what is expected of a parent who is asked to be a chaperone at an event. She reads the memos that are sent home from school and helps the mothers interpret them so they know what to send for this or that project. "One of the most difficult memos to explain was the one that asked the parents to send empty Cool Whip containers to school," Cross recalls with a smile. "How could I explain what Cool Whip was? With many hand motions, and wishing I had some Cool Whip in my refrigerator, we finally figured it out."

When parents want her to do so, Cross accompanies them to parent-teacher conferences. "Teachers tend to speak in educational terms that are not easily understood by people learning English," Cross says. "We need to slow down, to use simple English to describe how a child is doing in school."

She believes that our schools' methods of evaluating children are easily misunderstood by Asian parents. Where a teacher's intent might be to give honest criticism--a commendable American trait--such directness is often perceived as a negative by Asian parents. Michiko Yamada, who has two children in Saratoga schools, says that Cross' program not only helps her sons with their schoolwork but also helps her better understand how the educational system works--a system that is vastly different from Japan's.

Parent-teacher conferences also give Cross the opportunity to help the parents feel at ease with the teacher, to assure them that it's usually perfectly acceptable to use first names and to even discuss--as she is sometimes asked to do--what might be appropriate attire for those occasions.

Sometimes, Cross' support of her students involves time away from home. Sachiyo Morimura, a high school senior from Cupertino with whom Cross has been working for some time, recently toured several California colleges accompanied by Cross. "When I came here two years ago, I had no idea what American college would be like. I didn't know about dorms or anything," Morimura says. "Anne spent three days visiting several colleges with me. She explained the history of the schools, helped me understand the positives and negatives. She helped me with my interviews and with the admissions people.

"She's like my American mom. I couldn't have gotten through all this without her."

Cross says she works around soccer schedules and myriad other activities. "And since most of my young students also take classes in the culture of their native countries, we also work around Japanese, Chinese, and Korean school schedules." Every effort is made to accommodate the agendas of her adult students as well. Most of them attend class for an hour or so before or after work. While Cross occasionally has short-term students, such as those studying for the SATs, most stay in the program for many months, sometimes years. "They don't seem to want to stop," she says.

The dilemma of living in a foreign country and needing to learn to communicate is one that Cross herself has experienced. She has lived in Zimbabwe and Austria and over the years has traveled to 28 countries. "The whole structure of English and Asian languages is different," Cross says. "English comes from the Indo-European language branch which originated with Hindi in India and Sanskrit. Asian languages are an entirely different branch, so the rules are different." She adds that English-speakers are very clock- and time-oriented and speak in present, past and future tenses. Asian languages deal with time in an entirely different way. "It's another example," she comments, "of how difficult English is to learn."

But at Crossroads Unlimited, the English classes are of a kinder and gentler variety, though not in any way indulgent. "I always give homework, which involves writing stories and sentences using the vocabulary they are working on. Regardless of the students' age, homework keeps them on track," Cross says. For the more advanced, reading materials include the classics in literature and poetry, and for some, business and technical journals.

A class for Cross' adult students is typically one to two hours long, once or twice a week. It begins with five to 10 minutes of conversation, talking with them about what is going on in their lives and making them feel at ease. Cross believes that it's time well spent because it gives the students an opportunity to converse. Conversation skills are emphasized because, according to Cross, that is the weakest element of English instruction in Asia.

While the students talk, Cross quietly takes notes about their vocabulary and pronunciation. "Later, I give them a list of what they need to work on, and they put the list in a binder that is their own personal dictionary which they can take with them wherever they go in the world," she says. That binder might even include some Anglo nursery rhymes, fairy tales and political and social cartoons--all a rich source of puns and idioms that the students find fascinating, though understandably puzzling.

One gets the feeling, though, that what occurs in Cross' English classes is less about books and more about a somewhat elusive quality in today's approach to education: mutual respect. "I admire their enthusiasm, their desire to learn," she states. "Asian people, and I think the Japanese in particular, place a tremendous value on education. They are willing to set aside time and resources for education over other things, given those choices." And she appreciates their respect for the sensei, the teacher.

"When I need to go to a student's home," Cross says , "they bend over backward to make me feel welcome. One woman always serves wonderful tea or coffee and uses her most beautiful china. It's all part of the Asian culture's respect for education. I feel deeply honored to be treated in such a special way."

When she sends her students on their way, Cross would want them to take with them "a feeling that they are not alone, and to know that it would be just as difficult for us to learn their language. I would want them to feel that it's OK to be learning all the time how to get along in the workplace or in school or wherever they need to get along."

Some of the happiest moments for her are graduations, to which she is always invited. Some of the proudest moments are when the students bring her success stories of how well they've done on a test or in a conversation or a presentation at work. She speaks joyously of the West Valley College student who earned a rare "A" in a challenging art history class after working very hard at it with Cross.

Cross seems hard-pressed to speak of any negative aspects of her work. But she does make note of one concession she's had to make: "I've had to opt for shoes that slip on and off easily over a favorite wonderful pair of hard-to-lace boots for the times when I go to the homes of my Asian students," she says with a grin.

A small tradeoff, Anne Cross thinks, for being the sensei.

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