I enjoyed this class because I always say I want my own home one day, and I don't know the first thing about owning my own home. So I enjoy this class and I am going to get more what I need to know so when my money is right, I will know how to go about getting my home. --Gwendolyn Roberts, Project Hope, Dorchester
The Adult Literacy Resource Institute's National Home-buying Readiness Curriculum and Technical Assistance Project, through its partnership with the Fannie Mae Foundation, is pleased to announce the publication of a new resource for adult literacy teachers and program directors, The Money Management and Home-buying Readiness Sourcebook. The sourcebook's approach to teaching housing and money-management is rooted in the belief that students learn best from working with materials that spring from life experience and self-identified needs. From instructional activities about saving for a down payment to lessons on applying for a mortgage, signing the final papers, or maintaining the owned property, these materials are based in the actual process of buying a home and living in it. Most importantly though, these lessons are meant to support adult learners as they acquire and practice language, literacy and numeracy in the context of learning about a topic that is useful and meaningful to them.
The Tools for Teachers section, a collection of tried and true lessons, emphasizes classroom experimentation and learning through inquiry. Some of the literacy skills that are embedded in the lessons within the sourcebook include listening and speaking skills necessary for talking with housing professionals, math skills for effective budgeting, consumer knowledge essential for recognizing unsavory lending practices, reading comprehension skills for understanding documents, and the imaginative and interpretive skills critical to understanding poetry and prose about the themes of home and homeownership. In addition to these skills, home-buying readiness covers the content knowledge necessary for buying a home--from reading a credit report to overseeing house inspections.
In the words of Nancy Coffey, an ESOL teacher at Operation Bootstrap in Lynn: "I often use thematic, content-based units in my class, but never with such new and sophisticated content. Nor do I usually teach the unit over such an extended period of time. If we truly learn vocabulary through contextual presentation and repeated use, the [home-buying] unit provided an excellent vehicle for vocabulary building. The classes included so much information that we were able to build vocabulary in many areas: housing and real estate, job history, general banking and credit, and home mortgages. Doing the math involved in figuring down payments and mortgages gave us an opportunity to work with reading big numbers in English. Overall, there were many chances to learn new words and new concepts and to practice using what was presented. The Navigating Home-Buying Readiness unit provided opportunities for reading comprehension using real-life materials, informal discussions, dramas, writing, and listening." And because Nancy, her colleague Dulany Alexander, and many other adult literacy teachers across the country were able and willing to explore the topic of housing and home-buying with their ESOL and ABE classes and then document the results, we had the exciting task of compiling their work and now presenting it to others.
We also found that home-buying readiness works best when teachers have the support to rely on community-based housing experts, consumer counselors, and staff at social service agencies that know about available housing markets and asset-building resources for low-income families and immigrants. So, in addition to providing discreet lessons and teaching approaches, the sourcebook also includes a section on fundraising for an adult literacy housing-related project, and a section on planning, implementing and evaluating such a project. The planning, implementing and evaluation section is rounded off with case studies of actual adult literacy home-buying readiness projects that existed through the support of Fannie Mae Foundation seed money.
The Money Management and Home-buying Readiness Sourcebook is a free resource. Just call 1-800-665-0012 or order it on-line from the Fannie Mae Foundation's Web site at <http://www.fanniemaefoundation.org>. You can also pick up a copy when you visit us at the A.L.R.I. Though as project coordinator I'm accountable for the sourcebook's flaws and gaps, the richness and breadth of the book is due to the writing, editing and conceptual work of Lenore Balliro, and the writing of hundreds of students, teachers, program directors and colleagues, all of whom are identified somewhere in the text of the Sourcebook.
The remainder of this article consists of examples of the kinds of lessons you will find in the Sourcebook.
Note to the teacher: The following activity (developed by Nancy Coffey, Operation Bootstrap in Lynn) is an example of how a seemingly unsuccessful homework assignment became a way for the teacher to address her students' anxiety about banking and to help them feel more confident as banking consumers. Throughout your home-buying readiness project, you will want to take the lead from your students' actions, stated and unstated anxieties, and strengths in designing lessons. As in this case, when the teacher created lesson material based on her students' needs, you can explore how best to make a seemingly difficult situation into a "teachable" one.
Background: Independent of the home-buying readiness project, a center-wide Student Health Action Team program on stress was being held at Operation Bootstrap. During the course of the health team's project, it became clear that many ESOL students experienced great stress when negotiating with banks.
Original Teaching Goal: Because one of my teaching goals was to help students navigate financial systems more easily and because the ESOL students had revealed how stressful financial negotiations could be for them, I decided that for homework I would send everyone to a bank for practice. I also asked students to collect printed information about different checking and savings accounts at that bank. Those who were feeling really brave were encouraged to discuss accounts with the customer service representative. In preparation for the task, we had an in-class discussion about anxiety and how to cope with it. Students were encouraged to go in pairs to support one another, although surprisingly none did. In fact, the homework activity was not terribly successful, although it did lead to a wonderful discussion about why most people hadn't done the assignment and how the few who had successfully entered a bank had coped with the anxiety. One student got inside the bank and then left without getting anything. Another talked to the customer service representative and opened a checking account on the spot.
Revising the Lesson: I then printed up information from one bank's brochure so that students could compare that bank's offerings with those of their own banks. Several students proved to be very savvy consumers. Some had even discovered the no-cost banking offered by a very reputable local credit union. This discovery led to a sophisticated discussion about the difference between credit unions and banks. Several students changed their accounts as a result of this activity.
Note to the teacher: These nine short pieces of student writing [only two of the nine pieces are included here in this article] can be used in a variety of ways with your students: to generate similar kinds of writings by your students, to stimulate discussion about language use and style differences in beginning writers, or to provide an authentic student text for reading comprehension. Following the readings are comprehension questions you can print out as worksheets. (For more student writings about the topic of Home, see <www.alri.org/fannie/fnma3/studentwriting.html>.)
A place that makes me feel at home would be like a very quiet neighborhood in the middle of the woods where I don't know anybody, but where everybody living there is very nice and helpful. A place where I could sit in my yard and fall asleep without anybody trying to kill or hurt me. I think Puerto Rico would be a good place for me to live. The weather is nice and there is a lot of woods and animals. Out at night, looking up at the clear sky, watching a shooting star, thinking what is the universe really like, and are we the only ones here? --Josue Morales, WAITT House, Roxbury
I always dream about a house in white color, with the red Japanese maple tree in the front yard. I love to have a big kitchen, so we can eat and cook at the same time. A family room is in my dream too; we need that for the kids playing anytime we have family coming over. I like to have a garden. It doesn't have to be fancy, just the place for me to plant something and cut some flowers or pick some tomatoes and peppers. Some of my dream already come true, some still far away, but I still love to dream about my house. --Ha Nguyen, Quincy College, Quincy
Remembering and Understanding What You've Read: After reading the student writings about dream houses, answer these questions: (Note that some questions will have more than one answer (e.g., more than one person mentioned ranch-style houses).)
1. Who would like to have a ranch-style house?
2. Who would like to have a yard?
3. Who wants a three-family house?
4. Who wants a yard where he can fall asleep and feel safe?
5. What style house does Jeannette Mealance wish for?
6. Who wants a balcony overlooking a yard?
Note to the teacher: Invite realtors, bankers, and credit counselors into your classrooms to answer students' questions and to make contact with your students. Please note that it is important to invite bankers and brokers who are certified and belong to the appropriate professional associations. Once teachers and program coordinators are certain of a realtor's or banker's credentials and motives, class visits by these professionals can be a very effective way to link students with services and to help students learn about the home-buying process. In the following stories, teachers explain how they incorporated housing professionals into their home-buying readiness projects.
Dwight Jarrat, ABCD's SouthSide HeadStart ESOL Program, Roslindale: For our final activity we invited a realtor to come talk to the class. He, in turn, brought a mortgage originator from one of the local cooperative banks. Both the realtor and the bank representative are immigrants themselves and have a good reputation in the community. It was a dynamic meeting that took the entire three-hour class period. Not only were students introduced to the complicated Offer to Purchase form and Purchase and Sales Agreement, but they were reminded of the excellent soft-second mortgage programs (refer to Glossary of Home Buying and Money Management, appendix 1) available to low-income city residents. The importance of hiring a real estate lawyer was emphasized, given that even nice realtors represent the seller. Students had a lot to say and had a lot of questions.
Deborah Marquardt, WAITT House, Roxbury: A community educator/liaison from a local bank and trust spoke to the class about finance and money management issues. He is a frequent presenter at W.A.I.T.T. House and a particular favorite with the students. In the past, he has been able to make banking seem accessible even to people who express suspicion about the motives of large financial institutions. Upon hearing of the students' interest in home buying, he offered to explain the loan process from the bank's point of view. He described what criteria the bank deems important when reviewing loan applications, and he offered advice about how to prepare for the loan application process. He also focused on fixing credit problems and how students can obtain their credit reports to begin to do that. As always, his information was clear and practical, and it added another important perspective to the home-buying process.
Sam Bernstein, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, Boston: In early March, a realtor based in Chinatown came to the class to meet students, make a presentation, and answer the questions they had generated earlier in the semester. This particular realtor knows our student population well because he's been a substitute and part-time teacher at our school for many years. He speaks fluent Cantonese and some Mandarin. That day he spoke mostly in Cantonese. He had excellent bilingual materials. He compared the advantages and disadvantages of renting and owning, highlighting the tax advantages of owning a home. He showed pictures of different kinds of homes so students could compare them. He explained in detail how a broker functions. And he presented a monthly payment chart based on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. The students were prepared for and welcomed this new information, and they asked even more questions.
Shelly Rieman, El Centro del Cardenal, Boston: We finished the home-buying unit by inviting a banker and a housing activist from a tenant rights group to come speak to the class about home-buying. These speakers, along with the Fannie Mae Foundation and Adult Literacy Resource Institute (ALRI) materials that I distributed to the students (Choosing the Mortgage That's Right for You/Abriendo La Puerta De Su Propio Hogar, published by the Fannie Mae Foundation, and a list of home-buying resources and agencies from the ALRI's 1997 home-buying readiness project) provided students with a good jumping-off point to begin the home-buying process.
Deborah Schwartz is currently the Project Coordinator of the National Home-buying Readiness Curriculum and Technical Assistance Project and can be reached by phone at (617) 782-8956 x20 or via email at <deborah@alri.org>.