Forget the CUE guide, the Derek Bok Center and all the attempts of late to transform socially stunted graduate students into Socratic-quality teachers. In the past three years, as I have sat through many poorly-taught sections, I have let my eyes wander, betting that most of my fellow classmates could do a much better job reviewing lecture concepts, explaining grading policies and creating paper topics.

Call it an instinct. I assumed that we, the multi-talented students at Harvard, would excel equally on the other side of the desk. After all, above all else, the classroom is our niche and homework our most cultivated habit.

Despite this long-held assumption, I was still inspired and impressed by my experience this week observing the English as a Second Language class taught by Erica J. LeBow '01. Lebow, a joint English and Sociology concentrator, is one of 35 Harvard students involved in Partners for Empowering Neighborhoods (PEN). This Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) program offers free adult education classes in English as a second language (ESL), computers, math and reading/writing to residents of the Fresh Pond Housing Development in Cambridge and the Bromley Heath neighborhood in Jamaica Plain

Topic of the day: household chores. Ho do you explain "ironing" to a group of newly immigrated adults, ages 22-65, who have arrived at the Fresh Pond projects from China, Honduras, Columbia and Haiti?

"To Defrost." This translation stumped even the most advanced students. LeBow creatively darted to a refrigerator conveniently located in this quasi-classroom, quasi-community center and compared the ice cube's solid state to the running water flowing from a spigot. Teaching ESL often requires a modicum of acting talent. Frequently, LeBow found herself improvising, role-playing and relying on extemporaneous examples and analogies.

"Aha!" was the gleeful exclamation of 65-year-old Desiree, a recent immigrant from Haiti, when she finally comprehended the term. Native English speakers take the words "broom," "sweep," "dishes" and "hammer" for granted. These brand new vocabulary words and phrases will be of critical importance to newly arrived low-income Americans, as they struggle to understand help-wanted advertisements, American shopping malls and even soap operas.

Even Chang, a recent immigrant from northern China and the most proficient English speaker in the class, struggled to pronounce the word, "freeze." For a chef in a local Chinese restaurant, mastery of this word might make or break his culinary presentation and ensure employment success.

Although neither speaking slowly nor enunciating clearly are Harvard students' fortes, LeBow maintained her calm composure and clarity. Soon, the entire class was chiming in unison, "to freeeezzze."