NEW YORK (AP) – A New York City museum invites immigrants learning English to learn about immigrants of the past by visiting their restored tenement apartments in lower Manhattan and then sharing their own experiences.
The program at The Tenement Museum is called Shared Journeys. It’s a series of workshops in English for Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL. The museum is in a restored 4-story tenement building that housed 7,000 working class immigrants between 1863 and 1935.
Seven of the apartments are restored. Actors play real-life tenants, including a 14-year-old Jewish girl who lived in one of the tiny three-room apartments with nine family members. Conversations with ESOL participants center on topics such as jobs, housing and religion.