I don't want to forget to mention the amazing Emily Griffiths 
Opportunity School in Denver. This is a century-old ESL school for 
adults that has a large program for non-literate refugees. They do a 
wonderful job--and when I visited in November, the director described a 
program for non-literate Somali women that was highly successful in 
getting the women to speak, read and write English--very gradually and 
gently. Perhaps someone can contact the school and find out more about 
how they do it. 
 
Thinking about the writing question also made me think of the Sudanese 
I have worked with and another cultural issue--I think I mentioned that 
in the article-this was the situation where the learners were not 
interested in answering what they considered to be obvious 
-ridiculous??--questions. When given a different set of prompts about 
topics they were interested in, they did very well. 
 
 And finally, I cannot emphasize often enough how important it is to be 
sure your adult learners can SEE. Adult ESOL learners typically do not 
give vision care very high priority-- yet many have vision challenges. 
It is very hard to write clearly and form letters accurately if you 
cannot see. Wherever possible I urge that you facilitate eye exams--and 
urge the optometrist to check for binocularity problems as well as 
acuity problems. Binocularity is the ability to focus both eyes on one 
object and keep them there--then move them smoothly together. A 
suprising number of adults who struggle to read and write have this 
problem. To help your learners in the meantime, provide colored paper 
to write on, and larger than usual figures to copy or trace. The 
reduced glare and larger figures make it easier to see to write. 
 
Robin