WINOOSKI -- A quick glance at the bread shelf in the grocery store can leave anyone but a nutrition expert feeling lost in food language.

Not many people can easily define and differentiate terms such as enriched white flour, multigrain, split-top, whole-wheat, whole grain, sourdough or rye.

For those who do not understand English -- such as many of the refugees who settle in Vermont -- grocery shopping, cooking and healthful eating are even bigger challenges.

A group of women, originally from Somalia, worked hard Wednesday morning to figure out the whole grain issue and learn which was the best bread to offer their families. The session at the Winooski United Methodist Church was the last of a three-week nutrition and English training class organized by the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program.

"When we shop for bread, one word is important: whole," said class leader Louise Brunelle, an educator with the University of Vermont Extension's Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program. "It should be the first word here," she said, pointing at the ingredients listed in the nutrition label of a loaf of whole-wheat bread.

The women, dressed in colorful traditional outfits, passed around loaves of bread and tried to identify the word "whole" in the labels. "Very healthy," said Maryan Liban, one of the 10 women participating. The rest of the women nodded and made comments in their native language.

The Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program began to resettle Somalis in Vermont in 2003. Megan Cannella, the group's English language training coordinator, said 386 refugees had arrived by 2006. That number does not necessarily include Somalis who might have moved to Vermont from other states, she said.

Most of the Somali refugees who resettled here through the program are Somali Bantu, an ethnic group within Somalia. Many Bantus speak Mai-Mai, an oral language, Cannella explained after the class. Some of them do not know how to read or write.

The challenge of learning English is even greater when students are illiterate, Cannella said, not only for them but also for the instructors who have to come up with a different teaching style. In these cases, the students' listening and oral comprehension is amazing, she said. When the class is content-oriented and the students have a concept of what is being taught, learning the language seems a little easier.

Content-focused English classes help students and teachers to focus instruction and learning on one relevant area. Students learn specific content while also experimenting with a variety of language skill areas. Since adopting this method of training, the resettlement program has noted higher enrollments, more consistent attendance and better retention rates.

The nutrition class, funded by the Winooski Coalition for a Safe and Peaceful Community, was developed after another content-oriented training class on child care was held by the Refugee Resettlement Program in November. That class aimed to train women to become child-care providers at home or in child-care centers.

Cannella said seven of the women who completed the November training have had child-care businesses in their homes, but none has worked in a child-care center. Some are participating in the nutrition training. During the summer, the Refugee Resettlement Program hopes to develop more content-oriented English classes for the refugees, she said. "Future topics may include family communication in the U.S., citizenship and job safety."

Learning about American food

The women from Somalia learned Wednesday about the importance of whole grains and how to make beans, vegetable soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Liban, 31, who has been living in Vermont for three years, improved her English and learned how to cook new recipes during the class, she said in halting English. She brought three of her six children to the class, where they were cared for by a volunteer while she participated in the lesson.

The class met three times a week, and participants learned about food safety and storage, food groups, frozen versus fresh vegetables, and sugar and fat intake. They also learned how to cook and scramble eggs, how to prepare English muffin pizzas, fruit smoothies and peanut butter yogurt dip, and how to soak sweet potatoes in orange juice and bake them instead of frying them.

Instructors tried to help the refugees relate the lessons to experiences they bring from their countries. Students were shown different types of grains and were asked which ones they had used in Somalia. "We've tried to not only teach nutrition information and the English to support those lessons, but to also respect the students' knowledge and past experiences," Cannella said.