Robin, thanks for these important reminder about children’s books.  Another one of my concerns is that if they dominate a curriculum, the students aren’t exposed to other types of texts.  Too much personal narrative and low-frequency vocabulary which don’t necessarily meet students needs.  

 

That said, I used “Jambo means hello: Swahili alphabet book” by Muriel Feelings with a group of older Somali and Oromo teens with LFS in a beginning ESL class.  I like it because of the following:

 

1.       Pictures are adult

2.       Content resonates with students

3.       Many students speak Swahili so the bilingual nature of the book worked

4.        High quality – Caldecott winner

 

I photocopied the book for each student with a sticky note on each page which left a white blank.  Students used this blank on each page to comment on the content of each page.  This works because there is not a story line – just a word in Swahili and English and a sentence or two in English matching the picture.  Students who could were encouraged to find out the spelling and write the word on each page in Somali, Amharic or Arabic, which they did.  It was exciting to see them debate the spelling of the words and seek the help of educated adults in the community to confirm their own spellings.  Assessing their L1 writing resulted in me having various positive interactions with elders in the community.  This was good for me and affirming because they were happy to see their native languages used at school. (Note: although the students in this school are almost all East African and L1 use is common, it is not necessarily part of the curriculum). 

 

Jane Kurtz offers some great books about Ethiopia or Ethiopians that can inspire adult conversation.  There are also many non-fiction books about African countries that kids pour over.  I get all of these books used off of Amazon.com.

 

But THE BEST one yet for promoting discussion and writing is The Somali Diaspora: A journey Away by Abdi Roble and Doug Rutledge.  It is a book of photographs of the Somali Diaspora and has many photos of the refugee camp.  A kid who never said much saw one of these and told me how he knew how to build the homes in the picture and how he’d built many. 

 

Martha Bigelow

 

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of robinschwarz1 at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 9:18 AM
To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3606] Re: ESL software

 

This conversation makes me think of trying to learn to read Italian using Italian children's books-- it was VERY difficult because of the depth of grammar and vocabulary in seemingly simple stories.   As an ESOL teacher, I am extremely vigilant about these issues in children's websites and literature.  Few words to a page and cute drawings do not make for transparent meaning.  I looked at the story about "Lemonade Girl" on starfall.com and was blown away by the amount of hidden meaning in the future sentences about apparently "present" pictures.   

Many years ago, when I worked both at a remedial reading tutor of children and a teacher struggling to figure out how to help ESOL students who had difficulty learning to read in English, I realized that the "controls' in reading at low grade level in English books written for native English speakers, are very different than for low-level books for English learners. Books for beginning readers of English who are native English speakers are controlled for sentence length and word length, and only somewhat for grammar and vocabulary.   Books/reading for beginning language learners are controlled for grammar and vocabulary as well as sentence length and complexity.   

I have heard repeatedly the argument that ESOL learners "love" children's books-- I know they do--the pictures are cute and the colors bright and print large and easy to look at--and certainly in family literacy programs they are an important part of the picture, but I am very skeptical abouthow much English learning happens in them/from them.   
 
Robin Lovrien Schwarz 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Donna Price <dprice at sdccd.edu>
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List <englishlanguage at nifl.gov>
Sent: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 6:07 pm
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3587] Re: ESL software

Elaine wrote:

"After taking a quick look at this website, I have the impression that it is primarily targeted at kindergarten age children, and possibly monolingual ones at that.  I think we need to be careful not to misapply reading curricula designed for monolingual English-speaking children, to adolescents or adults with low literacy skills who are learning to read for the first time in a second language. The issues are typically quite different for these two types of learners."

I agree that this is a site for young learners.=2 0However, many of our adult ESL instructors are begging for websites that are low enough for some of our refugee and immigrant learners who can't read at all.  This is one of the only websites that we have found that meets their needs.  I get incredibly positive feedback from literacy and beginning level adult ESL instructors on this site.

Donna Price

San Diego

 

  _____  

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov <mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov?> ] On Behalf Of Elaine Tarone
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 1:20 PM
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3580] Re: ESL software

After taking a quick look at this website, I have the impression that it is primarily targeted at kindergarten age children, and possibly monolingual ones at that.  I think we need to be careful not to misapply reading curricula designed for monolingual English-speaking children, to adolescents or adults with low literacy skills who are learning to read for the first time in a second language. The issues are typically quite different for these two types of learners. =0 A

 

 

On Jan 26, 2009, at 11:53 AM, Donna Price wrote:





www.starfall.com

It's a free website for very low literate students.

 

  _____  

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of Barber, Jennifer
Sent: Mon 1/26/2009 8:53 AM
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List
Subject: RE: [EnglishLanguage 3561] Re: ESL software

Thank you for the suggestions. The problem is we have students who are not Spanish speakers. My lowest level student is Korean. 

 

Jennifer Barber

English as a Second Language

 

Grays Har bor College

1620 Edward P. Smith Drive

Office: 2214

Aberdeen, WA 98520

360-538-2516

jbarber at ghc.edu

www.ghc.edu/faculty/barber

 

 

  _____  

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of Ossie Cerna
Sent: Sun 1/25/2009 11:49 PM
To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3561] Re: ESL software

Try pumarosa.com. It's free. Rosetta Stone is good but expensive and requires some basic English.

Ossie CernaError! Filename not specified.




  _____  

Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:52:04 -0600
From: SJensen at hawkeyecollege.edu
To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3560] Re: ESL software

We use the ELLIS software program for our ELL lab---very interactive and many levels, beginning adult ELL to entering ABE/GED.  It is excellent but not cheap.  We wrote a grant to purchase it.


 

Sandy Jensen, Hawkeye Community College

ABE/GED/ELL

Waterloo, Iowa


 

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Barber, Jennifer
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 5:21 PM
To: The Adult English Language20Learners Discussion List
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3531] ESL software


 

Our program is looking at ESL software. Rosetta Stone has been mentioned. We use Focus on Grammar books which I know has software. 


 

Does anyone have a recommendation of a program(s) that would address the ESL needs of students from Level 1 (no English; possibly illiterate in the first language) to Level 6 (entering ABE or Dev. Ed. Classes)?


 

Thanks,


 

Jennifer Barber

20 

English as a Second Language Instructor

Volunteer Literacy Program Coordinator


 

Grays Harbor College

1620 Edward P. Smith Drive

Office: 2214

Aberdeen, WA 98520

360-538-2516

jbarber at ghc.edu

www.ghc.edu/faculty/barber


 

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