Story By Joe Zlomek

Outside class, Khalil Hamid rubbed his hands together with glee as he described to an instructor the latest events in his new-found real estate sales career. His wife, already a successful agent in the Philadelphia area, had tried for years to get him to obtain a Pennsylvania sales license. With one in hand, Hamid said, he planned to make the most of it.

“I’m already working on deals back home,” he said cheerily. “I go back about once a month, and do a lot of stuff by phone. And I try to help her, too,” he added, referring to his wife’s business.

The Hamids live in West Chester, a Philadelphia suburb. But the “home” where Khalil’s deals are in progress is far more distant … in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates.

Like Hamid, according to new statistics released by the Census Bureau, almost 20 percent of people now living in the United States speak a language at home other than English. The bureau’s American Community Survey shows that, during 2006, the number of immigrants living here reached a record 37.5 million.

Like almost everyone else, immigrants also pursue the American Dream. They strive to be accepted. They hunger for home ownership. They want the type of lifestyle and financial security that a career in real estate can provide. And they have potential access to a natural sphere of prospects many agents might only wish for: people like themselves who speak English as a second, non-native language (ESL).

An increasing number of ESL adult learners are finding their way to schools and lectures of members of the national Real Estate Educators' Association (REEA). Some are exceedingly fluent in English, without any trace of accent. Some are not. Many, in small or large measure, may benefit from specialized teaching methods than can assist in their comprehension of real estate concepts and terms without attracting unwanted attention.

Four methods are suggested here: 1) Tell, Show, Do; 2) Make It Real; 3) Send It Home; and 4) Gesture Away. In addition, authors and REEA members Marilyn D. Glazer and Deborah Long offer additional and complimentary techniques in an article titled "The Multicultural Real Estate Classroom," published during Spring 2005 in the REEA Journal.

1) Tell, Show, Do. All students, no matter what language they speak natively, acquire knowledge primarily in one of three ways. Some are auditory: they learn from what they hear. Some are visual: they absorb what they see. Some are kinesthetic: they learn best with a hands-on approach, by doing something physical.

“Instructors who use only one of the three in their own teaching style are going to miss two-thirds of their students,” cautioned Dr. Yanni Zack, a California-based ESL education consultant to several universities and school districts. But instructors who talk about a concept, who show the concept in action, and who have students practice the concept … those, Zack said, “are the ones who’ll reach a hundred percent of their class.”

ESL adult learners, in particular, gain significant understanding from role-playing, Zack said. The instructor selects students to play the parts of agents, buyers, and sellers, for example, then gives them a scenario to act out based on the topic being taught. As the role-play progresses the instructor can intervene to reinforce and discuss appropriate responses, or re-direct undesirable ones.

What Zack calls “this communicative approach” works best when the role-plays are unscripted and somewhat free form. Because ESL adult learners put English-language real estate terminology into action by trial-and-error, “it lets them see from personal experience how it’s used,” he said.

2) Make It Real. Not all legal or financial concepts, and maybe even fewer related terms, translate adequately across language or cultural barriers. Explaining basic principles of English common law to some ESL adult learners may be tough going if their native countries lacked a functioning judicial system, much less a regulated market for real estate sales.

In such circumstances, Zack urged, real estate educators should reach for the realia – real-life material that helps students associate words with objects or the concepts they represent. In Pennsylvania, long-time Polley Associates’ pre-license instructor Steve Moyer displays a giant printed deed, several feet wide and several more long, permanently mounted on fiberboard in his class. The deed’s wording and the elaborate scroll of its letters can easily be seen from the back of the room, and Moyer refers to it regularly.

Using realia for some instruction is “fundamental,” Zack said. “It builds knowledge from a basic level,” and is ideally suited for ESL adult learners whose understanding of English is equally basic. He warned, however, that learners with more advanced language skills may find this strategy too childish or offensive. His advice: know your class before trying it.

3) Send it home. Respected author, REEA member, and Georgia Institute of Real Estate instructor Mary Shern, DREI, reports “good results” in teaching ESL adult learners “simply (by) allowing them to tape my classes.” Tape recordings give students the chance to hear an instructor’s lesson repeated as often as they desire, in a comfortable and convenient environment. It reinforces important points as thoroughly as a commercial that drones again and again and again on late-night TV, but without all the negative baggage!

In fact, Shern’s method provides an even bigger boost when coupled with today’s technology. A visionary educator could record his or her lesson as it’s being given – using a lavalier microphone connected to a laptop computer running inexpensive recording software – and save the recording as an MP3 audio file. In that format the file is easily posted to the Internet, available as a download to anyone who wants it.

Yes, posting audio files to the Internet is known as podcasting. Podcasts have long been the rage in music and entertainment venues, but they also can be appropriate and effective real estate marketing tools. In using a lecture podcast to benefit ESL adult learners, and other students too, the savvy real estate educator can accomplish two teaching objectives with a single strategy.

Instructors should make certain, however, that the necessary rights and permissions are in place either to allow tape recording by students or distribute podcasts to them. As Dearborn Publishing Vice President Evan Butterfield’s comprehensive series during 2005-2006 in the REEA Journal pointed out, much of what real estate instructors teach is proprietary content owned by or under the copyright control of others. Beware.

4) Gesture Away. Getting ESL students to use their hands while talking with others does more than animate future listing presentations. It may also help them learn and understand real estate concepts more fully.

Dr. Elena Nicoladis, a psychologist at the University of Alberta, is continuing work on research that indicates the use of hand gestures helps improve memory and language skills. "If you're in a situation where it's important to get the language out and you're having difficulty, it may help to start making gestures," said Nicoladis.

Her team first reported during May 2005 on surprises it discovered while observing the hand gestures of bilingual children as they told the same story twice, first in one language and then the other. The children unexpectedly “used gestures a lot more when telling the story in what they considered to be their stronger language," Nicoladis noted. “We thought (they) would be more inclined to use gestures … in their weaker language."

Based on their results and those from other studies, Nicoladis said her researchers believe gestures, language and memory access are connected. "Initially, we thought gestures were related to meaning—that they meant something on their own.” But now, she added, “we think that the very fact of moving your hands around helps you recall parts of the story. Gestures help you access memory and language so that you can tell more of the story."

By extension, real estate instructors might communicate more effectively to all students using gestures themselves. In addition, their ESL adult learners may enjoy added benefits by relying on gestures in their communication.

Whether he intended them or not, gestures punctuated Khalil Hamid’s tale. With a mention of commercial projects awaiting in Dubai, he spread his hands over his head in a sweeping arc. As he talked about his wife’s interest in having him licensed, he pushed the air before him with his palms as though she was urging him along. His excitement for what lay ahead was communicated in a symphony of movement, eye contact and broad intonation.

And nearly flawless English.

This article was initially published June 1, 2008, in the REEA Journal.