By Lisa Garrone, ABCD's South Side Head Start Adult ESOL Program, Roslindale
Summary
I direct and teach in an English to Speakers of Other Languages Program within a community based organization in Roslindale. The adult ESOL Classes are held at night and child care is provided for the students' children during class time. There are five levels of ESOL classes, including two beginning levels. I teach level 1A, which is the higher of the two beginning levels, and my colleague, Dwight Jarrat, teaches level 4, the most advanced ESOL class in the program. We both participated in the Adult Literacy Resource Institute's 1999 Homebuying Readiness Curriculum Project, but given the differing English proficiency levels of our classes our teaching approaches and the objectives that we set for our students were quite different.
My class meets every Tuesday and Thursday night, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I have thirteen students whose first languages include Albanian, Spanish, Haitian Creole, Arabic, and Treguga. My students come from Albania, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti, Lebanon, and Eritrea. They've been in the United States anywhere from one to twelve years and their range of English language skills varies as well. Some speak fairly well, but have great difficulty writing a simple sentence. Others are able to communicate much more effectively on paper than through speaking. Still others need to work equally on their oral/aural and written communication skills. Educational backgrounds range from five to seventeen years of formal education, and all the learners in the class earn a low to moderate income.
All but two of my students are currently working. They work as housekeepers, a nursing assistant, a child care worker, a bagger in a supermarket, a dietary aid in a hospital, and an electrician's assistant. Although everyone in my class owned homes in their native countries, only one student is a homeowner in the U.S. However, everyone expressed interest in finding out how one goes about buying a house here.
Students revealed their interest in homebuying while working on a library curriculum. In discussing the meanings of the library vocabulary words, "borrow" and "lend," I asked students what people borrow. "Money" was a popular response. When asked why people need to borrow money, the topic of homebuying was introduced. Students had a lot of questions: "How much does a home cost?", "What happens if I borrow money, but lose my job and can't pay it back?", and "How much money can I borrow?" I then asked if they wanted to buy their own homes. They all wanted to be homeowners, but were doubtful that they could ever afford to buy homes in this country. The desire to eliminate this doubt motivated us to work with, the FannieMae Foundation's ESOL curriculum How to Buy a Home in the United States as part of the ALRI's 1999 Homebuying Readiness Project. This search to answer my students' questions and alleviate their doubts about being homeowners in the U.S led us in unanticipated directions.
Using Unit One of the Curriculum
The limited amount of text, descriptive accompanying photos, application of recently learned vocabulary from our lessons about the library, and the chance to practice using simple past, present, and future verb tenses made unit one an appropriate starting point for this class of beginners.
Lesson 1: Sharing Housing Histories
As a pre-reading activity, I gave students a copy of the picture on page one and accompanying caption above, "Do you want to buy a home?" I did not include any of the questions below the picture. I then asked them to talk about the picture.
Teacher: "What's happening?'
Students: "The husband and wife are thinking about future, want to buy home."
Teacher: "How do they feel?"
Students: "Happy," "Hope," "Pressure," "They worry"
Further discussion revealed that the Haitian students owned their own homes in Haiti. They talked about owning beautiful homes for very little money ("cheap"). My Venezuelan student, in contrast, stated that homes in her country are very expensive, so she always rented. The Albanian students said that the banks in their country don't have enough money to lend, so it's very difficult to borrow money.
Following the same procedure as above, I introduced the reading on page two. This generated the vocabulary item, "dream house." In addition to completing the comprehension check in the text, students underlined verbs and copied them into the appropriate column in a past/present/future table of verb tenses. For homework, I asked students to write in their journals about their dream houses.
Lesson 2: Exploring the Advantages and Disadvantages of Home Ownership & Expanding Notions of Home
After I explained the meanings of "Advantages and Disadvantages," the class generated a list of the pros and cons of home ownership. I was surprised that the advantages didn't outweigh the disadvantages:
Advantages
-You have something to show for your money-You are the boss
-Nobody downstairs can tell you that your kids are running around too much and making noise
-You get a tax deduction
Disadvantages
-You must pay for all repairs-You must pay property taxes
-You must pick up garbage, pay for water and insurance
-You have to maintain the house (cut the grass, rake the leaves, trim the bushes, paint the house). . . a lot of work.
-Have to pay the mortgage.
-Worry!
At this point, I broadened the concept of home to include neighborhood.
I emphasized the difference between neighbor and neighborhood, although
some students still confuse the two. I asked the class, "What's in a neighborhood?"
This is the list students generated:
people
health center
apartments
church
houses
beauty salon
trees
dry cleaner
yards
convenience store
library
playground
school
dogs and cats
park
funeral home
market
bakery
Laundromat
police station
gas station
office building
bus stop
restaurant
subway
fire station
I asked students to choose fifteen items on this list that represented
the most important to have in a neighborhood (see items in bold). Of course,
everyone did not agree and some interesting arguments ensued. The Haitian,
Latina, and Lebanese students all felt that it's very important to have
a church in the neighborhood. This met strong opposition from an Albanian
student who said she doesn't care about a church because she is from a
communist country. A Haitian man responded, "It's very important. Sometimes
when you have a problem and you can go to church, it helps you to change
your mind." We resolved this by coming to the conclusion that what's important
to one person is not important to another.
Each of the chosen neighborhood elements revealed something about the person who selected it. The man who chose yards and trees had been a farmer and now it is important for him to have enough land to grow some tomatoes. The couple who chose dry cleaner both worked as pressers at a dry cleaner. When asked why it was important to have houses and not apartments in a neighborhood, a student explained that there are too many people living in apartment buildings and that would make the neighborhood crowded.
I questioned who they wanted for people (neighbors) living near them. This revealed that a few students had lived next door to or downstairs from neighbors who were constantly fighting and had police called on them nearly every night. All students agreed on the importance of good neighbors. This was quite apparent in their journals where they wrote about what they liked and disliked in their neighborhoods here and in their home countries.
Lesson 3: Using Student Journal Writing
Excerpts from students’ journals provided material for grammar instruction. I chose writing that illustrated a specific grammatical point that the class was studying. For example, the following is a sample from a student’s journal that I copied on the board and asked the class how they would change it:
"I liked my neighborhood. She drinks coffee with me every morning."
I used this excerpt to reinforce our work on the simple present and past and also to emphasize the difference between neighbor and neighborhood. The majority of my students confused these two words often. To prevent any one from feeling picked on, all writing samples were shared anonymously and I included excerpts from most of the students’ journals. I tried to include examples of proper grammar usage as well.
I also combined journal excerpts and organized them to reflect back to students what they consider important when evaluating a neighborhood in which to reside. We used this compilation of journal writings as reading material (permission was granted from the class to include the following corrected excerpts):
Things Students Like in Neighborhoods
Nature:
"There are quiet beaches. There are lots of flowers. It is a beautiful country.""In my neighborhood, there are a lot of trees."
"We liked living there because there was a forest with pine trees close to us. . ."
"The air was clean."
"My yard is very big. It has many flowers and grapes."
"My house was in the middle of the yard full of trees."
"Every morning we get sunshine through the window on the balcony on the backside of the house."
Good Neighbors:
"All our neighbors were very good people.""It was nice and people were friendly."
"The people in my neighborhood are very friendly. We joke together.
"The people on the right are Tewelde and his wife, Mighoti. The people on the left, Mr. Gebregiorgis and his wife, Migistim are very gentle people. . . On Sundays, holidays, and days off from work, all the neighbors eat together in my yard."
"We have good neighbors and a lot of cousins."
"When I lived in Caracas, Venezuela, I had some very good neighbors. My son was 3 years old. I took him to day care and my neighbors picked him up at 4:00 because I got out of work at 6:00. While I was out, they took care of my apartment and, if there was trouble, they called me at work. I miss them very much. Now that I’m in Boston, I always remember them because they treated me so well."
"I liked my neighbor. She drank coffee with me every morning. After we drank coffee, we went shopping all day. Sometimes we went to the beach and tanned. Sometimes we went to exercise in the gym."
Quiet:
"I like my neighborhood because it is nice and quiet. . . I like it because I live on a dead end street where there is no traffic and no disturbance."
Convenient:
"My neighborhood had a market, shops, library, cinema, theater, school, and park."
Parking:
"My dream house has a driveway so I can park my car."
Things Students Don’t Like in Neighborhoods
Noisy:
"My neighborhood was near the airport. . . There was only one problem. When a plane flew over our neighborhood, it made a lot of noise."
No Parking:
"My problem is that I can’t park my car easily because I don’t have a parking space."
Far From Transportation:
"We did not like it because our home was far from the bus station. . . Most of the streets where we walked were not paved.""I don’t like that my house is so far because, when I have to take the bus, I walk a little too much. That is very hard for me. Most times, when I have to catch my bus and no one can drive me, it is a problem because I live far from the Main Street."
Compiling and organizing students’ writing in this way, and then using it as reading material in class, impacted students positively in two ways. In addition to building students’ confidence in their ability to write, it seemed to affirm their beliefs concerning factors to consider when choosing a neighborhood in which to live.
At this point we turned to the neighborhood in which our school is located. I asked students to list some places where they go in the neighborhood. A student volunteered to write the places on the board as the class told him. This list was generated:
Lesson 4: Practicing Directions
Following some basic comprehension questions about the locations of the police station, Catholic Church, and parking lot in the neighborhood described above, I drew a simple map of the neighborhood in which our school is located. I limited the map to the three major streets and drew in the school. Referring back to the list of neighborhood places from our previous class, I asked, "Where is the pizza restaurant?" This elicited the response, "On the corner of Washington and Corinth". I asked a student to come to the board to draw in the various sites on the map as directions were elicited from the class. Students asked each other the location of each of the listed places. The student drawing the map had to listen and fill in the map according to these directions. This activity provided a thorough review of the following terms: across the street, on the corner, around the corner, next to, beside, on the left, on the right, on the next block.
Referring back to the reading, I asked the class how long it takes the writer to get to the Catholic Church from her apartment. After some explanation of my question, the class agreed that it would take 5 minutes. I recorded this information in the chart below (drawn on large newsprint). Referring to the list of places in the neighborhood where students go, I asked one student, " How long does it take you to get to the beauty salon from work?" and "How do you get there?" I recorded the answer in the chart and repeated this with a few other students before asking one student to take my place.
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From this chart, we constructed sentences:
It takes K.M. 30 minutes to get to school from work by car.
It takes M.H. 20 minutes to get to the health clinic from home by foot.
Reflections
Unit one of the FannieMae Foundation's ESL curriculum served as a starting point from which my students and I could proceed in a variety of directions. After students compared home ownership in the U.S. and their home countries and examined the advantages and disadvantages of owning their own homes, I chose to broaden the concept of home to neighborhood. This branched into a number of smaller paths, giving students the opportunity to examine their own criteria in evaluating a neighborhood and to look more closely at the neighborhood surrounding the school. Simultaneously, students studied simple present and past verb tenses, giving and following directions, and acquired a lot of vocabulary related to neighborhoods as well. My students are still interested in buying homes in this country. However, if they were to buy now, they would enlist the help of a bilingual relative or friend rather than try to master the technical language required to effectively negotiate this process.
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