Spreading the Word--in Many Tongues : Language: At little-known center in downtown library, newspapers, audiocassettes and computers help to teach English to a diverse citizenry.

Out of work and collecting welfare from the county, Armando Cruz was sent to the library to make himself more employable.

On advice from a social worker, Cruz went to the recently opened Language Learning Center on the sixth floor of the Central Library downtown, where, in halting English, he checked out cassette tapes, a workbook and a pair of headphones.

For two hours, with headphones in place, Cruz followed the lessons with his lips and eyes.

These days, Cruz has time for studying. But, he said, he hopes to fill out his leisurely schedule before long.

“Speaking good English will help me get a good job,” he said.

The 51-year-old agricultural worker, who immigrated to Los Angeles from El Salvador in 1978, is one of the few library patrons who have used the language learning center since it opened in mid-April.

In a city where more than 100 languages are commonly spoken, the little-known center is yet another measure of the diversity of Los Angeles, said Sylva Manoogian, manager of the library’s foreign languages department.

The language learning section, with its six carrels, two videocassette players, two computer terminals and six audiocassette decks, is stocked with English instruction material in 28 languages. To help prepare applicants for citizenship under the Immigration and Naturalization Service amnesty program, there are video series in Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese and Armenian, Manoogian said.

“In this city, deciding what languages we should include in the collection is very easy,” said Manoogian. “We get everything we can get our hands on.” To determine what language groups and communities are represented in the city, the library culls data from Census Bureau reports, the city’s Community Development Department, the Los Angeles Unified School District, and through postal records of foreign language periodicals published locally, she said.

Perhaps most helpful in gauging the growth of foreign languages and immigrant groups are what Manoogian refers to as “windshield surveys.”

“On the weekend, I try to drive through neighborhoods around the city, and see the areas that are changing,” she said. “In an informal way, it gives me sense for what communities are developing.”

In addition to stocking the center, the library maintains a 179,000-volume collection of foreign-language books, and subscribes to more than 250 magazines and newspapers, Manoogian said.

Although patrons are familiar with the department’s reading room, word of the language center has not yet spread, Manoogian said.

Hyon Shin said he discovered the center one afternoon when he took a break from his filing work in the economics department of the library.

Like most college graduates from Seoul, South Korea, Shin had completed 10 years of mandatory English language study before he arrived in the United States. Yet with a decade of conscientious study, he could not converse coherently in English, he said, alternating between Korean and English.

“Learning English is frustrating,” the 36-year-old clerk said as he scanned the center’s shelves. “The problem is, in Korea, most college instructors speak English with an accent. For me, pronunciation has been the most difficult thing to learn.”

Shin, who started working at the library three months ago, said his cataloguing duties do not suffer because of his difficulty with spoken English. But when given the chance to share in casual banter with co-workers who are native English speakers, Shin shies away.

“I would like to be in on the chatting, but usually I don’t participate,” he said. “I can’t follow the conversation.”

After a few minutes of browsing, he interjected, “This is very significant material,” and pointed to a series of tapes titled, “How to Speak English Without a Foreign Accent--Oriental Edition.”

Shin lingered at the center, admiring the equipment--the new video screens, the Apple Macintosh computers and the built-in cassette decks. “It’s very impressive,” he said.

The $45,000 cost of setting up the language laboratory was donated by the Southern California Gas Co., Manoogian said. The grant enabled the library to follow through with plans for a language center that would serve immigrants and low-income patrons, who may not be able to afford private language classes.

For those already proficient in English, the center has computer programs for learning Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Hebrew, Russian and German, Manoogian said.

After brushing up his English skills, Cruz, the agricultural worker, said he plans to apply for a landscaping position with the city Department of Recreation and Parks.

“Next time I talk to the welfare worker, I want to explain in English what kind of job I’m looking for,” he said. The county social service office had placed him in a synthetic rubber manufacturing plant and a furniture repair shop, without success, he said. He also spent a year in trade school studying electrical wiring before dropping out.

“My English wasn’t very good,” Cruz said. “That made it very hard.”

If he studies diligently, he said, and his language skills improve, “things may turn out differently the next time.”