Teaching English as a second language to professional baseball players might seem like a fairly straight forward proposition: Give the students some key vocabulary words ("ball," "strike," "safe," "out") a few useful phrases ("Hey, batter batter," "You're blind, Ump!"), and they're on their way.

Red Sox ESL instructor Lynée Connelly '00, however, takes a more comprehensive approach. Connelly tries to give her students language skills they can use both on and off the field, which helps them adjust to a different culture.

Connelly has spent the past four summers with the Lowell Spinners, a minor league affiliate of the Red Sox. In her classes, students talk about their families, discuss health issues and practice ordering at sit-down restaurants.

Her boss, Red Sox director of player development Ben Cherrington, approves. "What we find is that the more confident a player becomes in his English skills and his overall assimilation into U.S. culture, the more confident he ends up being as a baseball player," Cherrington says.

Of course, just because the front office recognizes the value of ESL instruction does not automatically mean the players do, too. When she arrived for her first day of class in Lowell, Connelly found her two students seated with their arms crossed, eyes glaring out the window. Clearly, this was no time for a lesson on verb tenses.

"I just tried to get them comfortable," Connelly says. "I believe that language learning is a social thing--you have to relax, let your defenses down and just speak." With a steady diet of role playing and conversation, the students slowly began to uncross their arms and embrace the process of learning English.

One of her students began to bring a different piece of fruit to class each day and ask its name in English. As his language ability developed, Carlos would stick around after class to eavesdrop on Connelly's conversations with other staff members.

"He would imitate me saying things that would make him laugh, like, 'Are you serious?'" Connelly says. "It was amazing to watch (the students) go from being walls to being people."