On their fourth class session, Manuwai Peters' students had to do a "show and tell" speech.

"It was an amazing night, and I wish I videotaped it," Peters said in an e-mail interview. "To hear Hawaiian and to see the Empire State building through the window at the same time, that's a juxtaposition!"

Peters, 43, is on a two-year sabbatical from his position as Hawaiian language immersion teacher at Molokai High School. He is in graduate school at Columbia University's School of International Affairs and jokes that he went from an island with 7,000 people to Manhattan island with a population of 8 million.

"Mind you, we don't have traffic lights or a working elevator (on Molokai), so this is a drastic mid-life move for me," he said.

He started the Hawaiian classes in New York for two reasons: to help make ends meet in a notoriously expensive city and to continue his work of perpetuating the Hawaiian language.

"My hopes are that a Hawaiian language nest is created here, that we incubate this use of the Hawaiian language in a total urban metropolis and see it thrive, just like the other 140–plus languages in NYC that have been transported there." He calls the course "Portable Hawaiian" because he'll teach it wherever.

Peters rented a little studio one night a week on Eighth Avenue near 36th Street, where theater companies rent rehearsal and class space.

"I have to raise my 'kumu voice' sometimes because on any given night, you hear piano, tap dancing, R&B singing and, of course, salsa dancing in the other rooms."

Peters, a 1983 Kaiser High School graduate, studied the Hawaiian language at the University of Hawaii-Mänoa, where he majored in political science. His grandparents were native speakers. Most of his New York students have a connection to Hawaii through a love of Hawaiian music and hula.

"The majority are not ethnic Hawaiians. Out of 20 students, I think only three are Hawaiian," Peters said.

Word got out through e-mail blasts among New York hula hälau, and the class filled up immediately. The adult students are serious about their studies, and Peters loads them up with homework every week. He says he hasn't had any absences or tardies.

"They know I am here for two years and want to go up to the second year of learning."

The New York Times recently wrote a story about Peters' Hawaiian language classes, which generated even more buzz about the already-full class. He had to start a waiting list for the spring semester. For more information, check out his Web site at www.portablehawaiian.com.