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From: Eric Bestrom <erichmong@yahoo.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-esl@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-ESL:10941] Re: adult refugees
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Dottie-
I hope these "how" suggestions can be applicable to
your situation. They have worked for me.
1. Build an education, volunteering and employment
cohort.
a. Building a mutually-supportive education
cohort. My students, many of whom didn't know each
other in the Wat Tham Krabok camp, Thailand, have
become friends in class. They help each other get to
class, often those who already can drive picking up
and dropping off the others.
b. Building a volunteering cohort. After class
every Friday, we do volunteer work for four hours at
the local Salvation Army. We are getting job
experience as we volunteer in kitchen, warehouse, and
retail settings. This fulfills some of their
employment counselors' requirements for volunteer work
and provides training for later paid employment. Part
of the training is as practical as it is unofficial;
the students are learning the soft skills needed for
any American workplace culture. Doing volunteering
largely removed students' initial fear of the unknown
situation of working in the U.S. Because I accompany
them and work alongside them, they are reassured.
Even more reassuring is that we all go TOGETHER as a
GROUP, and that they can depend on their Hmong friends
to model an action or translate if necessary. I
organized the volunteering with the help of a
co-worker who is a job developer and belongs to the
Salvationist Church.
c. Building an Employment Cohort. Instead of job
counselors or developers taking my students piecemeal
(and often during class!) to apply for jobs seen in
the newspaper, I worked with the job developer to find
a job which could employ all of my students at once,
en masse. He found a temp agency which could send my
students as a large group to a job in an offset
printing bindery. The temp agency said that it would
waive individual interviews; we brought 30 something
students and employment counselors' clients to fill
out applications en masse. The temp agency said they
would trust our judgement and accept anyone we stood
behind sans interview. We transported students and
clients in a van to and from the distant suburban
bindery facility for about two months. Now the
students who have driver licenses are driving the
others in carpools created at nudge from me. We
skipped the daunting finding-a-job and
interviewing-for-a-job steps (which are especially
hard if one is ALONE and a refugee with limited
English) in favor of doing the application,
transportation to the worksite, and the employment
itself TOGETHER as one group. I couldn't work WITH
the students, as I could during volunteering, but I
rode with them on the early morning van and evening
pickup van on the first day. They were a little
anxious heading out, but were ebullient coming back.
A bilingual employment counselor drove the van and
translated the chatter in the back of the van: they
thought the job was easy and good exercise. Several
students asked me to call the temp agency and sign
them up to work extra days at the bindery. TOGETHER as
a COHORT, students reinforced each others' positive
attitudes and helped one another, eventually to the
level of driving each other to work. I excused
students from FWE class if work conflicted, but the
purpose of FWE class is to get students to work, so
it's no matter that they were gone for this good
purpose. Some students eventually took particular
shifts, or were emboldened to change to new jobs,
which prevented them from coming to my class. No
matter. They enrolled in night classes offered by
other schools. Could some of uncertainty of your
attendance be offset by helping the whole class or
most of it, get steady work as an employment cohort?
2. I hope your grant is flexible enough to allow you
to frequently enroll fresh students. I found that
this is essential. I build a pipeline from employment
counselors and other social service people to my class
by making them aware of what we do and recommending
they refer people to me. I start a waiting list and
enroll students from it whenever I have a vacancy.
There is always some element of chaos in the class
roster. Students are often dropping out temporarily
or permanently due to pregnancy, illness, family
crises, or getting a full time job. (These are very
good reasons to drop out of class. I respect, of
course, what refugee students have gone through and
are going through. I bear this in mind in regards to
the strategies discussed below.)
3. A serious talk from employment counselors about
attendance coupled with threats of sanctioning for
unexcused absence has brought good results. A mental
link should be established between class time and
assistance checks. Nowadays there are far fewer
exchanges such as: "Teacher, I can't come to school
tomorrow" "Why?" "Because I have a 4:00 doctor
appointment!" (School runs from 9:00 to 12:00! The
bus doesn't run THAT slowly. If there are other
complicating factors, they should be explained or
translated by someone for the teacher's understanding)
The threat of sanctions has to have teeth, but it
rarely needs to be executed if students know the
counselors and school are united and serious.
4. Handing in homework should be linked to the
employment counselors' threat of sanction or
suspension from the class. There need to be firm,
fair rules about this, but once in place, the threat
has never needed to be realized. If you can't
coordinate with employment counselors for this, you
can make this simply a rule of the class. Credit
should be given for effort, even despite not finishing
an assignment or doing it wrong. I would rather see a
fumbled, unfinished assignment in a student's own
handwriting than something perfect with their
daughter's handwriting and vocabulary. Sometimes the
latter isn't the worst thing, though, because the
mother and daughter may be working together and
discussing the assignment. Either of these is better
than nothing. The correcting of homework together or
the handing in of homework at the beginning of class
can be a satisfying ritual for some students. They
really like homework and the continuity from one class
to the next.
5. You can let it be known that fifteen minutes before
every(e.g.)Wednesday class are devoted to bills,
paystubs, forms, children's report cards and other
things students have brought in. Maybe this could be
done during the first part of Wednesday's mid-class
break. Sometimes I've asked students if I could white
out their private information and use their authentic
material as the basis of a lesson later in the week.
Mostly students seem to appreciate individual, private
attention to their questions. Try to get volunteers
to help you.
6. Volunteers, especially in large numbers, bring in
the students. I once worked in a program wherein
student attendance was not controlled by employment
counselors' mandates. Attendance fluctuated wildly.
Wednesday nights, however, featured an experiment
whereby dozens of enthusiastic English-speaking
volunteers from a local college provided individual
attention to the students. Each week, attendance
would spike dramatically on Wednesdays. If you can,
get a professor or other teacher to bring his or her
Intercultural Communication or Sociology or East
African Studies classes to you as volunteers. The
volunteers' behavior and usefulness in class should be
linked to their grades in that class. If the prof.
can volunteer too or at least make an appearance
sometime during each session, that would bring harder
work and best behavior from volunteers.
7. A separate class for less-employment-focused
students, such as a 64-year-old woman who has never
worked outside the home before, is a very good
development. One school I knew created a
kaffeeklatsch conversation group with personable young
volunteers and elderly immigrants and refugees. Food
and coffee became a natural stimulus to conversation:
"Please pass the sugar." "Thank you", etc. Fruit
(acceptable to all the cultures in the class) was
brought by volunteers intially, but eventually gave
way to potluck offerings from the students. Some
students who were shy about using English excelled at
cooking and used a lot more English showing off their
amazing food than they had used in a structured
classroom environment.
Good luck,
Eric Bestrom
Functional Work English Instructor
Hmong American Partnership
Minneapolis, MN, USA
--- Dottie <dottie@shattuck.net> wrote:
> Thanks for your suggestions/responses! However, I
> need to rephrase my
> question(s). It's not so much a matter of "what" to
> teach (except for the
> "crash course" for the new arrivals) as it is "how"
> to organize 3 levels & 2
> work shifts (including seniors who don't work) into
> only 14 hrs/wk -- and
> then actually get people to come regularly.
>
> Anybody have a "magic" formula?
>
> Dottie Shattuck
> Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
> Charlotte, NC
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dottie" <dottie@shattuck.net>
> To: "Multiple recipients of list"
> <nifl-esl@literacy.nifl.gov>
> Sent: Monday, June 13, 2005 5:50 PM
> Subject: [NIFL-ESL:10927] adult refugees
>
>
> > Do any of you work ONLY with adult refugees?
> > I recently began teaching for a refugee
> resettlement program. Of course
> > I've taught refugees before but they were part of
> a bigger program
> > w/immigrants.
> >
> > My program is very small (about 30
> students/clients total, so far). I
> > have
> > funding for only 14 class hours per week & must
> cover 3 levels (Literacy;
> > Beginners/High Beginners; and Intermediates/High
> Intermediates) and 2 job
> > shifts. I've scheduled Literacy (1 hr) 3x weekly
> at noon (2nd shift
> > folks);
> > Beg. (1.5 hr) 2 afternoons; Level 2 (2 hrs/1x wk.
> for 2nd shift); and 1
> > hr.
> > sessions for each level 2 nights/wk.
> >
> > The previous teacher used Longman's Workplace Plus
> series. I'm finding
> > that
> > series not very useful -- Book 1 is too difficult
> in the early chapters
> > for
> > the literate Beginners. I also have senior
> citizen Beginners for whom the
> > book is irrelevant; we're hoping to get $$ soon
> for a citizenship class
> > for
> > them.
> >
> > I never know who nor how many will show up for a
> class session. I also
> > never know when new arrivals will be available --
> class time takes a back
> > seat to DSS appts. and/or employment
> assessment/drug testing/interviews.
> > Most of the refugees go to work within 2-3 weeks
> of arrival, regardless of
> > English skills. They can then attend classes
> before or after work.
> >
> > Anyone have a "MUST HAVE" list of topics to teach
> the new arrivals?
> > I've tried to get everyone through Personal Info;
> Numbers; Money; Time
> > (clock & calendar) & How to Call 9-1-1. Other
> suggestions?
> >
> > I've been teaching adult ESL for nearly 20 yrs.,
> but this juggling act is
> > a
> > new game for me. Any suggestions? PLEASE!
> >
> > Thanks for any help!
> >
> > Dottie Shattuck
> > Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
> > Charlotte, NC
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
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