NATCHEZ — Spanish-speaking people in the community who do not speak English can soon take classes to potentially enhance their careers and lives.

Copiah-Lincoln Community College will begin to offer English as Second Language classes through the Workforce Development in a few weeks. The exact timetable has not been finalized.

Veteran Spanish and science teacher Leslie Hurst, who will be teaching the classes as part of the workforce development program at Co-Lin, said classes will be offered twice a week at night.

Hurst said she has seen the positive effect ESL classes can have on students from her experience teaching them in Arkansas.

“They were able to grow in their job. They weren’t stuck down at the bottom, able to go to college, or be promoted,” Hurst said of her students.

Hurst, who speaks fluent Spanish, said she has visited to restaurants and construction companies where some employees do not speak English to gauge their interest, and she said everyone she spoke with supported the idea.

“I think there’s a real need for (the ESL) court,” Co-Lin Natchez campus workforce coordinator Joyce Allred said.

Allred said three people have already signed up for the course.

The classes would focus on conversational English, Hurst said.

Before taking the job at Co-Lin, Hurst was a science teacher at Vidalia High School. She taught Spanish at Trinity from 2004-2006 and at Natchez High School from 2002-2004.

Hurst said she is excited about teaching the classes because Spanish is her passion and her children are bilingual.

“We would all be more marketable if we knew more than one language,” Hurst said.

For more information for the ESL classes should contact the Natchez campus workforce coordinator Joyce Allred at 601-442-9111.