Community of Learners

Adult ESL Program

Promotores

 

Adult ESL Program

The Adult ESL program teaches English as a Second Language to families, in particular the parents, of children attending schools in the Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto.

Our approach to language study is a content-driven, context-driven one that places the students and their needs at the center. We believe that students are language users rather than language learners, that instruction must connect the classroom with their lives outside it, and that, in American society, English language acquisition is a necessary aspect of empowering immigrant adults to take action in their lives. Because the acquisition of language takes place in a social context, language teaching takes this context into account and builds on it in the classroom. Our approach to language study is deeply contextual – it revolves around the organization and discussion of themes like Education, Community, Health, and Work. Classroom activities, like role plays and conversational practice, are drawn from students’ real-life experiences and present them with the tools that they can use in real-life situations.  

From the beginning of 2005, Nuestra Casa has provided three eleven -session ESL classes focusing respectively on health, work and education to between 200 and 250 students each session.  In the spring, we provided three different levels of classes in the morning and three different levels in the evening, with six hours a week of instruction, and coordinated two additional classes that are provided locally through Cañada College. Our six teachers, mentored by Dr. Gail Weinstein from San Francisco State University, developed a creative context-based health unit based on original learner stories which has become part of the official Nuestra Casa curriculum.  Our graduation event in June honored the 250 students who participated in the program and showcase their accomplishments to the community as well as to about thirty of their children who watched their parents receive what were in some cases their first diplomas ever.

A volunteer continued to work with a small group of students over the summer on literacy and English skills in general. In August, through an agreement with East Palo Alto Charter School , Nuestra Casa established a seven week ESL course for forty-five parents of children at that school. After the first seven weeks, the fifteen students in the Level 2 decided to join the Cañada College for-credit class that had just begun under the auspices of Nuestra Casa at Cesar Chavez School . Thanks to this class’s decision to accept the challenge and join Cañada’s class, EPA charter can afford a third seven-week session of English for the other thirty Level One parents.

In September, Nuestra Casa began its regular multi-level eleven-week sessions both in the morning and evening. Level one and two are provided in the morning at Green Oaks Academy and Level one and two as well as the for-credit Cañada  class are happening at Chavez in the evening. Classes finish at Thanksgiving.

All of the above-mentioned classes elected representatives or promotores for a total of eight in the 2005-6 school year (one class instead of electing one person elected a couple to share the duties). Promotores received training and direct experience in facilitating class discussions, assessing and addressing the needs of students, communicating with teachers and administrators, and connecting their classmates to community resources and events.  In addition, we have been seeking out and contacting representatives from organizations in the community, and they have visited the ESL classes to give brief presentations on the services that they provide.  This, in addition to the promotores making announcements of community events to their classmates, has helped to make our students more aware of the services that are available to them in the community; many students have taken advantages of these services.  They have also suggested the process of creating Nuestra Casa ESL Program ID’s (which will also help immigrants prove that they have been residents and taking part in productive community activities) and plan to raise money to cover costs. They coordinate the program’s snack program, conduct teacher and program evaluations and act as informal case workers for their classmates.

The ESL Coordinator completed curricula and assembled materials for each of the three units taught during the school year: Education, Work and Health. She has conducted teacher training and scheduled twice-a-month professional development workshops to develop their skills at delivering participatory ESL. The ESL Coordinator also provided pro bono training from the state for the childcare workers and organized the childcare and homework help services that we provide during the ESL classes to make them more safe, structured, and worthwhile for the children. This fall, the Quest tutoring program began providing professional on-site twice-a-week homework assistance to the older children.

Finally, we have recruited, oriented, and retained thirteen skilled and responsible volunteers who have been matched with a class and a teacher and who help in various ways to keep the program running optimally.  Besides working as classroom aides, the volunteers have tutored individual students in English and literacy, organized language-exchanges, recruited and coordinated other volunteers, and assisted with childcare.

Read an article on Nuestra Casa's Adult ESL program published in Palo Alto Online

Read about Nuestra Casa's Talking with the Police Program

Read an article published in EPA Today by our former ESL Coordinator, Claire Morgan, about Nuestra Casa's 2006 ESL Graduation.

Read an article published in EPA.Net by our Community Board President, Doroteo Garcia about Nuestra Casa's 2005 ESL Graduation.

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Promotores Program

The second activity area in our Community Leadership Program is the Promotores Program. The Promotores are leaders elected by their ESL classes (See the ESL program above) to assist in administering and evaluating the program and to receive further structured leadership training. After they are elected in the fall, promotores meet with Nuestra Casa’s Parent Organizer twice a month for practical training in running the snack program and evaluating teachers and the program and in basic leadership such as facilitating group discussions, eliciting the feedback of their classmates, public speaking and event organization. They receive a stipend each semester.

Nuestra Casa’s overall mission is to develop the quality and quantity of Latino immigrant leadership and participation in the community. While we have determined our priority in the next years as the improvement of K-12 education, we also know that the community faces many diverse challenges and many of the leaders we develop will be moved to work on issues in addition to education. We are beginning to facilitate their participation in other endeavors as well.

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