Every year creative teachers and administrators at adult literacy programs in Boston are designing new approaches and using DOE funds to serve low level ESOL learners who come to their centers for classes. Often students who want literacy skills and beginning levels of English make up the majority of the waiting lists at these programs. The students at this level are often the most marginalized of immigrants; whether they have been here for two months or twenty years, they are often not able to advocate for themselves in English or work successfully towards such basic needs as financial security, adequate health care and ensuring quality education for their children. Programs aim to bring students in as quickly as possible and find ways to help them acquire basic levels of English and computer literacy.
As the ESOL Specialist at the A.L.R.I., I have been impressed by the ongoing commitment and active role that program directers and educators have been taking to support these learners. The following article details the innovative use of new DOE money and other community resources at three programs with which I have been in contact. Although this is only a sampling of what is being done, these models may be of interest to other organizations. It is my hope that in future issues of the All Write News we can feature descriptions of other approaches that are being explored in the area of helping low level learners. (Special thanks to Maria Panico at the Log School in Dorchester, Michael Feher at the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center in Boston, and Steve Quann at La Alianza Hispana in Roxbury for the information they provided.)
The Log School, a settlement house program which offers adult ESOL classes on six levels as well as GED preparation, has had a long waiting list for both day and night classes. Maria Panico, the ESOL coordinater, says that for the large number of low level ESOL students on their waiting list, they used new DOE funds last year to start a new program in which there are two paths for beginning students to travel. One focuses on basic literacy skills and conversation, while the other has a heavier emphasis on writing, grammar and English for academic purposes. Students currently on the separate paths had previously been placed together in the same Level 1 classes; however, there was frustration. The literacy level students didn't feel comfortable because they couldn't always keep up, frequently having to repeat the class, and the students with more concrete goals for the GED and job training wanted to progress more quickly. There was a high drop-out rate especially among the literacy level students. Since the inception of the new paths, there has been positive feedback. The students on the Log School's advisory board are enthusiastic at meetings, asking for more of the literacy classes and saying these classes are meeting the needs of people in the community and that they keep students coming to school. They point out that students are done a disservice when they have to study together, but with the separation, people can study in a class that feels right for them.
Currently, there are two levels offered in the conversation/literacy path, where generally students go at their own pace and can repeat classes as needed. They focus on literacy for lifeskills as well as conversation that develops through their own needs and interests. However, they are not stuck once they start at this level: "Students are welcome to switch to the more academic Level 1 classes; every cycle teachers work with students on self assessments throughout the semester. They can visit other classes a couple of times to see if they think they are ready to switch levels. This happens often, with students moving in both directions; they go back and forth between paths as they see they are comfortable," Panico says. In the future, they hope to set up an informal conversation class that would also be on two levels so that the students who have stayed in the conversation path will be able to continue to keep up their English once they have progressed beyond the two entry level classes currently offered.
Panico described the success of the program: "The students are tremendously comfortable because they are among their academic peers, and for many it's the first time they are experiencing academic success in school. They feel that they belong and are the norm, so there is a lot of enthusiasm that we didn't see before from this group." Many of the students in the conversation classes are elders from the community in Dorchester and come from countries where they had limited opportunities for education in their first language. "Although this might be considered tracking by some, it is ultimately a respectful way to treat students by putting them in classes where their immediate goals are being met and they feel comfortable as learners. Both groups of students are invited to participate in their own learning process because they feel they are in the right place for them," Panico says.
There are twelve students in each class and still many more on the waiting list. The greatest challenge that the Log School faces is that it can not meet the large demand for its programs, in part because it has limited physical space. In response to this, they were planning to use new DOE funds to start up a similar two-pathway program for Level 1 learners at night in January '99.
Another innovative program for low level ESOL learners, the TAG tutoring program, started back in 1991 at the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC) and continues today in a revised form to reach learners who need extra help. The BCNC had a traditional volunteer tutoring program in place with tutors from the Commonwealth Literacy Campaign and Community Learning Center Volunteer Tutor Trainings, but the students still had to wait 2-3 years to begin classes. To help with this situation, BCNC set up the highly successful TAG program (with tutor training funded by the Boston Adult Literacy Fund), which draws on the resources of students in the learning community, encouraging them to help each other. This program trains their students who have finished the highest level of ESOL (SPL 6) to tutor the beginning level students from the waiting list before they are able to attend formal classes.
Tutors meet with groups of two or three students once a week. They receive intensive training before they begin tutoring with the TAG program curriculum, which is designed to be used in a structured way. The BCNC has developed a bilingual video (English/Cantonese), supplementary materials, and exercises for tutors to use as lessons. Students borrow the video for viewing in their homes, and later tutors work with them at BCNC on the activities for clarification and practice. The intermediate level ESOL classes at BCNC have more openings than the entry level classes, and after participation in the TAG program, many students are able to start their formal classes at the second or third step of Level 1.
Today the waiting lists at BCNC are not as long. "This is because of the success of the TAG program, and also there are more places for learners to go for classes in recent years," Michael Feher says. Therefore, in the past year, BCNC has capitalized on the TAG structure by inviting TAG and volunteer tutors to work with students who are currently enrolled in classes to give them extra help outside of class. Feher explains, "Teachers identify the students who need the extra help, and tutors work with two or three students at a time, once or even twice a week. This way, students who need the extra help can keep up with what's going on, and we see that they are much more able to get involved in their classes." The bilingual TAG tutors work with the students in the lower level classes while the monolingual volunteer tutors work with students from the higher level ESOL classes. About one-third of the students that receive this help are not able to enroll in classes because of scheduling conflicts, but at least they are able to acquire a base knowledge of English and a higher level of confidence for when they do proceed with formal studies, either later at BCNC or in another program.
In addition to the TAG program, the BCNC has focused on using computers and software to encourage the language acquisition process of low level ESOL learners. In the past two years, they have spent new DOE funds on computer operations classes and new ESOL and keyboarding software. In addition to class visits, students are encouraged to use the software on their own time to learn and practice basic skills during the drop-in lab hours. Initially, the State Street Bank funded a computer lab assistant for twelve hours a week, and now the new DOE funds have allowed the BCNC to expand the program as of January to two half-time teachers who support students in the lab. "Students are so eager for computer literacy that they are even attending classes on Friday nights and Saturdays. They are starting to see it as a useful tool to aid them in their language development," Feher reports. "The goal is for students to get more familiar with software and ultimately for low level internet use. It's just a matter of time until there will be things on-line appropriate for low level learners."
However, as with any new program, there are challenges. Many students at the BCNC are accustomed to traditional, teacher-centered approaches, and these innovations are a move towards education that is student-centered. It is not an option to abandon the traditional activities that make students feel comfortable or they will drop out, so teachers have to find a balance between the familiar methods, which often include drill work, and learner-centered, communicative activities integrated with computer projects.
Teachers at La Alianza Hispana are also working with computers as a teaching and learning tool for low level ESOL learners; in the past two years they have spent new DOE funds on setting up a computer lab. Steve Quann, an ESOL teacher, reports that since students have started working in the lab, there has been a great deal of excitement. Students say that they feel like they are learning more and find it interesting to practice English with the computers. During one ESOL class, students even organized to ask for a computer course designed to suit them, along with more time in the computer lab. Although La Alianza Hispana doesn't have a special computer class for the low level ESOL learners, there are computer classes offered in Spanish. All students are encouraged to start working on the computers as soon as they feel comfortable with the idea. The goal is that they will start to see the computers as a learning tool and get familiar enough with them to use ESOL software programs on their own time in the lab.
"Computers are integrated into the ESOL classes to do many of the same things that we'd do in ESOL classes anyway," Quann told me. "Learning the functions of the computers and practicing ESOL happen at the same time; for example, students unscramble sentences using the click and drag functions, categorize and group items by creating folders, and practice vocabulary and prepositions with clip art by moving shapes with the mouse." Quann and another ESOL teacher, Diana Satin, have written a teacher resource guide, Computers in Action, which describes in detail activities which integrate computers with ESOL content. It is available at the A.L.R.I. library.
Quann has seen speech gains in low level students when they work together using computers. "We have the students work in pairs to make it a communicative activity. Whenever possible we try to have them discuss the content with each other along with manipulating the images on the screen." When doing a comparative grammar activity using clip art animals and phrases like "is smaller than/is larger than," through the repeated pronunciation, manipulation and reading of what they were creating, "for some reason it seemed to me that they were reading more fluently and stumbling less over words after the activity. They were improving, using real communication skills and picking up a grammar point along the way." A possible next step for La Alianza Hispana is a greater focus on assessment to find out what students are getting out of their work on the computers. How do they perceive their actual learning gains, as opposed to simply their enjoyment of the work?
There have been some challenges associated with the new emphasis on computers with ESOL students. Some of the students don't find it useful and voice doubts over whether or not this is a valuable way to spend their classroom time. The classes are open-entry, and this tends to happen when new students come into the classes, before they get familiar with the use of computers and their potential gains. "The use of the computer has to be concretely integrated with learning ESOL, or the students may question its role in the class," Quann says. However, the challenges have been offset by most students' excitement and the joy they have shown in working with computers as a new tool for learning. In closing, Quann paraphrases Antonia Stone, author of Keystrokes to Literacy: Using the computer as a learning tool for adult begining readers (National Textbook Co., 1990), when he says that the thing about the computer is, it's a little bit of magic, but we need to not lose sight of the fact that we are also the magicians that make it happen, teachers and students alike.
So, these are three programs offering diverse models for inviting low level ESOL learners to participate in the language acquisition process. The programs were able to use new DOE funds for computers and additional teachers, as well as capitalizing on community resources to put their ideas into action. Each offers support to adult learners in a way carefully considered to meet their needs while building on their interests and the skills they bring to the learning process. Ultimately these approaches raise some important questions for us all to continue exploring: How can we assess the value of our programs for beginning level students' progress? In what ways do the ESOL Curriculum Frameworks support our work? What effect do programs have on students' confidence in themselves as learners, as well as on helping them develop the skills they need to work towards their goals, advocate for themselves and strengthen their use of community resources? I look forward to hearing and reporting on more voices from the field about teaching approaches and programatic innovations that address these issues. Please call me at 782-8956, ext. 20, with your thoughts.
Diane Paxton is the ESOL Specialist at the A.L.R.I.