LESSON	TEACHER	FULL LESSONS
1	A. Dumas	Homebuying in a Homeless Shelter
2	S. Rieman	What We Brought
3	S. Bernstein	Homebuying Babes
4	S. Bernstein	Homebuying Babes

1) Using the Writing of Other Students by Ashley Dumas, Project Hope

To begin with, I had the students read a short essay entitled "My Goals" by a former Project Hope student that was published in an in-house collection of student writing. Then, the students answered questions about that student's goals. Finally, the students answered questions about their own goals. Many students cited "owning a home" or "finding permanent housing" as one of their top goals.
 
 

2) Do You Want to Buy a House? by Shelley Rieman, El Centro del Cardenal

I chose to use Lesson One from Unit One, and Lesson One from Unit Two of the FannieMae Foundation's ESOL curriculum, How to Buy a Home in the United States. I felt that these lesson would generate interest in homebuying information, without being too difficult or technical. I taught both lessons as presented in the accompanying teacher's guide, with some modifications because of the students' limited English. For each lesson, I added activities with an emphasis on literature and written and oral expression. The students were very responsive to the lesson and participated with enthusiasm.

After the students wrote their letters of advice to Rosa and Manuel in How To Buy A Home In the United States, p. 5, we discussed their personal opinions and aspirations regarding home ownership. Everyone agreed that it is better to own than to rent, although they acknowledged that the responsibilities of home ownership can be difficult. Most students thought Rosa and Manuel should try to buy a duplex or three-family home in order to have rental income. We then discussed the obligations that owners/landlords have to their tenants for apartment maintenance and repairs. People agreed it was a great advantage to know something about plumbing, electricity and building construction in general, if you are a home owner.

About half of the group wanted to continue living in the United State, and hopefully, one day, buy a home here. The other wanted to make enough money in the U.S. to be able to afford a home in their native countries. Because home prices have risen incredibly in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in the past ten years, students who own, or have families who own homes there, felt they a had made very good investments. Many thought it would be very difficult to get a mortgage in their native countries because of the scarcity of good jobs.
 
 

3) Goal Setting by Sam Bernstein, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center

Early in the semester we started the material in our program-designed text which includes an introduction to very basic banking concepts. I introduced the thought that we might be studying apartment finding (a topic from their text) and maybe, a new twist, house buying. Students liked that idea. We also incorporated grammar into these lessons: "How long does it take to______?" "It takes (time) to (do something)." That Friday I gave them a writing assignment that combined the above elements. The assignment included questions about the difference between banking in China and in America. It also included the questions: "How long will it take you to be comfortable in America?", and "What will it take you to be comfortable in America?" My thinking was that housing and banking and the idea that time was an important factor in the equation would lead the students to begin the process of establishing some goals; and I knew, from my years of teaching in this community that buying a house was a predictable goal for many Chinese immigrant families.
 
 

4) "What if" Constructions by Sam Bernstein, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center

For their final assignment, students wrote up a report of the visit from Dekhahn based on the in-class notes that I had taken for them. This exercise lent itself to learning about what/if constructions: "If I have enough money, I'll buy a house; If I make a lot of money, I'll buy my dream house."