September 2008

Hello!  My name is Laurie Cozzolino, and I have been following the many great discussions on the list for some time now, but this is my first time contributing.

I have been an Adult ESL teacher for more than 25 years, but before that I was a health educator working in community public health.  

For the past 5 years I have been involved in a project called "Eating Well, Living Well" that has sought to integrate nutrition education into adult ESL classrooms.  This is a slightly different take on 'health literacy' as generally thought of, yet I think that the ideas and goals of our project are very much in line with those that I see discussed here.  We have developed classroom lessons with health content and language and literacy instruction, aiming to provide both critical health information to ESL populations and literacy/language skills development.  

To make a long story shorter, I just want to let you know about a new online resource we have just launched, called Lessons for Living Well: Fast Food Healthy Choices.  This is a student-accessed, stand-alone interactive lesson with health information, vocabulary review, life skills reading and listening practice in a fun yet challenging context. It is best for ESL learners intermediate level and above.  The basic reading level is around 4.0 on the Flesch-Kincaid scale (I have been following with interest the discussion on reading level!). In field-tests  we saw the most success with learners with at least basic keyboarding, mouse and navigation skills.  In the classrooms, students were interested, engaged and successful in completing the lesson.  The lesson includes audio and video and can be used as a whole class lesson, in lab settings or at home if people have Internet connections.  While we only tested with an adult ESL population, my hunch is that native English speakers with literacy challenges would also find the lesson interesting.

I know some people may not like the focus on Fast Food.  The main focus of the lesson is to present health information about fat and salt and encourage students to think about and make healthier choices when eating out in general, all in an interesting, interactive and accessible format.  The mark of success for me was when one young man, after finishing the lesson, said "Wow, that meal has 45 grams of fat?  I will never order that again!'

For more ideas and information and for a link to the lesson, go to Hot Topics on our website.

This project was funded with a grant from the USDA Food Stamps Program through  California Department of Public Health's Network for a Healthy California

Please feel free to post our links on your websites if you find the materials appropriate for your audience.  And thanks for the great discussions and resources on this list.  Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Thanks!
Laurie Cozzolino
cozzolino at pacbell.net

Eating Well, Living Well
San Diego Community College District
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