Program created by a San Diego company allows for more customized guidance, its supporters say Hawa Ahmed listens to a pronunciation of English words during a session with the Learning Upgrade computer software at the offices of the nonprofit Somali Bantu Association of America in City Heights

A computer program created to help elementary schoolchildren improve their English and grammar skills is also helping dozens of Somali refugees in San Diego pick up the language.

The program, called Learning Upgrade, uses customized songs, videos and other interactive activities to help students remember common words and phrases.

 

Said Osman Abiyow, president and founder of the Somali Bantu Association of America in San Diego, said it has been more effective than hiring an ESL — English as a second language — teacher for the group because students are absorbing new information at a quicker pace.

 

He and other staff members at the organization said the program’s one-on-one approach keeps the refugee students engaged and allows for more personalized learning than perhaps would be available in the traditional classroom setting.

 

 Abiyow first discovered the program when he saw his daughter, then a student at Fay Elementary School in City Heights, using it at home a few years ago. A lightbulb went off.

Abiyow contacted Learning Upgrade, and the company initially donated 20 licenses for the computer program.

 

"We had several groups that had difficulties speaking English. We couldn’t find a way to get through to teaching them. They were sitting in adult education schools for five, six years,” he recalled.

 

"[Now] they can write, read. They can speak sentences with this program. Some of them have gone on to become U.S. citizens, to get jobs because of this program,” he said.

 

The nonprofit group, founded in 2009, provides Somali Bantus — an ethnic minority group primarily located in southern Somalia — and other African refugees with a comprehensive network of resources to help them settle in the San Diego region. For many of these refugees, moving to the United States is a jarring experience after living in remote desert areas where there was no clean water or electricity.

 

Each lesson in the program takes about 10 to 20 minutes to complete. It consists of a tune or video that focuses on a particular aspect of English, such as letter sounds, capitalization or main ideas. Quizzes mark each student’s progress.

 

The Somali Bantu Association currently has 10 computers but needs more as demand for the program grows, Abiyow said.

 

During a recent open house for the association, which is situated in City Heights, several students sat in a small computer lab.

 

One of them was Farhiyo Hassan, who visits the lab five days a week to use the computer program. On that day, Hassan was in the middle of a lesson that asked her to select the proper word identifying a frog.

 

"When I first came here, I didn’t even know how to write my name,” said Hassan, who fled the ongoing civil war in Somalia six years ago. "I didn’t know how to write, I didn’t know how to speak. ... Now I can speak Somali and I can read and write in English.”

 

Students will have completed about 300 lessons by the time they reach the fifth grade learning level, according to Vinod Lobo, CEO of Learning Upgrade. The company comprises creative professionals — singers, songwriters, artists, teachers — in San Diego.

 

"[Students] can put their headphones on and it’s safe. It’s not embarrassing. You can imagine if you’re 40 years old, sitting beside someone and having to do ‘C is for cat.’... But with a computer and headphones, it’s private and you make these breakthroughs,” Lobo said.