Our ESL Center is an award winning program providing volunteer tutors, tutoring space, study materials, computer-assisted instruction, citizenship classes, English classes, and referrals to adult immigrants in the Amherst area.

Recognition

The ESL Center is the only town (rather than big city) library program named as a model in a special USCIS report Library Services for Immigrants: A Report on Current Practices (PDF).

Libraries for All, an initiative of the European Union, featured the Jones Library ESL Center as a model for civic integration efforts at community libraries. Our program was recognized under "best practices" on the European Union's Libraries for All website.

Learn More

• Read our ESL fact sheet
• Read our stories
• Watch our tutor and student interviews
• Follow us on Facebook
• Watch a short video (7:18) about the ESL Center produced by Rachel Swansburg, a journalism student at UMass Amherst
• Listen below to a podcast (10:55) about our ESL Center entitled "Amherst Welcomes Newcomers" created by students in the Spring 2020 Sociology of Immigration class at UMass Amherst (read a full transcript)
  
• Watch the ESL Center portion of Amherst Media's Celebrating Community episode featuring the Jones Library (below)
• Read additional news coverage of our program:
  
  
  • Older Beginners: Library tailors ESL program to seniors by Lynne Weintraub (American Libraries; June 1, 2023)
  • Keeping up with the Jones Library by Margo Pedersen (Amherst Student; May 10, 2023)
  • New language program to benefit older immigrants at Jones Library by Scott Merzbach (Daily Hampshire Gazette; January 2, 2023)
  • ‘A very long journey’: Twenty-one residents become newly minted citizens at Amherst naturalization ceremony by Scott Merzbach (Daily Hampshire Gazette; October 1, 2021)
  • Passing the citizenship test by Marietta Pritchard (Daily Hampshire Gazette; August 25, 2017)