I'm the new adult ESOL program director at Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC), formerly called the Quincy School Community Council. I came to this position after teaching ESOL/EFL and a little ABE/GED in a variety of settings. Before becoming the program director, I was an ESOL teacher here at BCNC. This move from teacher to new director has presented a number of challenges, and my current focus is communication.

Like many program directors in adult basic education programs, I am responsible for a variety of tasks: getting money, following the guidelines and requirements of contracts; overseeing ongoing evaluations; implementing program and staff development; and making sure that all staff are happy and fulfilled in their jobs. Most important, and sometimes easiest to slip from our minds, I am also responsible, along with teachers and staff, for making sure that students are learning to communicate in English and are becoming more comfortable in their lives here in Boston.

Background on BCNC
We are a large, multi-service agency serving about 400 students a year, 250 at one time. We offer 16 classes: eight are bilingual Chinese/English, three are transitional, and five are monolingual, English. We also have volunteer tutor and peer tutor programs. We sponsor a citizenship education program and a computer lab. In addition, another 200 or so community members (people not enrolled in classes at BCNC) drop in throughout the year for various reasons. Our students are largely Chinese speakers, and several dialects of Chinese are spoken. Of the eight ESOL teachers, two coordinators, two part-time office staff, and one counselor, ten are Chinese. Two of the American staff also speak Chinese.

Where Does Teaching Fit In?
Like many programs, we do not have enough time or space. We have a waiting list of over 600 people; the average wait for classes is six months to a year.We have space in a decrepit building between Washington Street and Harrison Avenue which is scheduled to come down this winter, and we share space with Josiah Quincy Public School. We spend a lot of time figuring out space for classes, trainings, testing, intake, eating lunch, and graduation.

I won't say anything about how much time SMARTT has taken from several of us. If we just had another 30 or 40 thousand dollars and could hire. I don't want to complain (!), but with all the responsibilities we have, there never seems to be enough time to really relax and teach English.

Biggest Challenge: Communication
My biggest challenge as the program director, besides running around making sure everything is getting done and all teachers have classrooms for their students, is communication. First, and a heads-up to anyone contemplating becoming a director, is the change in relationships with staff that happens when you now have people's "lives"-their visas, income, ability just to stay in the U S- in your hands. Second is the balancing act of dealing with the cultural differences be-tween American and Chinese staff.

As a teacher, I hung out with other teachers and staff and dreamed of what changes we would like to make in our program. We ate together, chatted about personal lives, and even got together outside of work occasionally. While I was supported in my move to director, expectations and comfort levels, especially of the Chinese staff, shifted. I tumbled into the discomfort of having to say "no" to people.

Sometimes I felt as if those who were closer friends wanted to take advantage of me, but maybe this interpretation results from my guilt at having to say "no" sometimes. I also realized that as director, unlike as a co-teacher, my personal life and opinions had to be kept to the minimum, something difficult for me, a typically open, verbose person.

New Goals
Last year, my goal as program director was to get the program closer to the DOE's expectations and organize some systematic procedures for getting more done efficiently. Since those goals have been accomplished for the most part, I would now like to focus on some program development around that intangible thing called culture. Often, Chinese and American cultures are opposites. This gives rise to many questions for our program. As a bilingual program in Boston, do we draw on Chinese ways, or American ways? Do we compromise? What does that look like? Sometimes more traditional, sometimes more participatory? Always a little of both? These are questions we need to explore more deeply as a staff. I realized that some of the communication problems arose because we had not made explicit many expectations and preferences in our new relationship when I moved from co-teacher to director.

I trust that with some careful and conscious planning and conversations, this year of cultural exploration will be fruitful, and we will find ways of at least better understanding our expectations and preferences, even if we are not willing or able to completely change the way we do things.

I also hope that as relationships become more comfortable, roles are better defined, and expectations are clearer, we will be better providers for our wonderful students, the reason we are here in the first place.

Maryana Huston is the program director at Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center. She trained as a mediator and intercultual training specialist at Lesley College and has experience teaching and tutoring English. She can be reached by e-mail at:maryana34@yahoo.com