Jan. 5--About three years ago, it occurred to Dolores Veliz that so many immigrants had moved into her Beacon Hill neighborhood that she literally couldn't talk to her neighbors anymore.

"Many of them don't speak any English. And I don't speak Chinese," she said.

So with her friendly, chatty manner and nurturing style, she set about to try to bridge the language gap by offering free English lessons out of her home.

"I want to make a connection, to make friends," she says, sitting at her kitchen table, flanked by students.

"I want to get to know their culture, how they worship. I want them to be able to say more to me than ni hao" -- Mandarin for hello, pronounced nee-haw.

In three years, Veliz, a retiree, figures she's given lessons to about 500 students, most of them Vietnamese and Chinese, and a few Latinos. They've ranged in age from 5 to 75.

And while many are housewives or low-skilled workers, Veliz brags she's had doctors and medical students around her kitchen table, too.

The evidence is in the dozens of yellow sticky notes bearing the names of students that adorn the walls of her cramped kitchen: Thông Lê from Saigon, Xiao Hua from China, Jose Corado from El Salvador.

"I have people in this country just a few days or a few weeks who want to come to me," says Veliz.

Veliz does not hold a certificate for teaching English as a second language (ESL). She doesn't have to because her work is voluntary and she charges nothing for her services.

She herself is not proficient in the languages of her students, and she doesn't teach beginner's English -- she requires students to have some basic knowledge of the language.

That way she can engage them in conversations about American culture and about their own culture. "I help them with conversation, vocabulary, grammar," she says.

On a recent day, Veliz begins her lesson, speaking slowly, deliberately -- careful to enunciate every syllable so that her two students, Kim Loan Nguyen and Hoa Nguyen, unrelated but both from Vietnam, can follow.

Hoa Nguyen, who lives in White Center and has been taking classes for nine months, arrived in the U.S. 14 years ago after spending nearly six years in a Communist-run camp in Vietnam.

Kim Loan Nguyen has been in the country about half as long and has been taking lessons off and on for less than a year.

A South Seattle resident, she works with a temporary agency, taking jobs when she's called, squeezing in English instruction when she can.