ESL Literacy Clients Deserve Better

Canadian ESL literacy instruction represents a tiny and often overlooked corner of the world of teaching English as a second or additional language. If you serve these clients, you know how difficult it can be to find appropriate resources and classroom materials of the same quality as what our colleagues teaching mainstream settlement English have at their fingertips.

When I was hired for the literacy class that I now teach, the materials I was expected to teach from consisted of a binder a colleague had put together on her own initiative. Had it not been for that, I would have had nothing but one shelf in a cabinet full of dusty, yellowed, outdated materials that fell far short of meeting what we know today as best practices for working with pre-literate and semi-literate ESL learners.

Slowly, by mining the internet every evening and weekend for many months, I began to curate a decent collection of resources on my computer. I found HandsOn!, Making it Real, and the treasure trove of materials and instructor handbooks at Bow Valley College Centre for Excellence in Immigrant and Intercultural Advancement.

But it wasn't enough.

I began creating my own activity packs to complement the wonderful Bow Valley College readers. I went shopping online, and my employer purchased some of the Talk of the Block sets, a few resources from Grassroots Press, and a few more books each fall at the publishers' expo at the TESL Ontario conference.

Yet even when I was turned loose in Toronto with a couple hundred bucks in my pocket and permission from my employer to beef up the ESL literacy section of our resource library, there wasn't much for me to buy. There still isn't. When I visit my local teacher supply store in hopes of finding an alphabet line for my classroom, I come away having settled for something that was designed with NS children in mind.  I don't want the S word to be star, which begins with a blend. I want a pure S followed by vowel sound. I don't want any of the images to be words my newcomers will not need in their vocabularies for another ten years; I want words that are relevant to their lives now. O is for octopus? How about O is for on / off with a picture of a light switch? Now that's English we can put to use immediately!

On my last post, Cintia Costa left a profound comment. Central to her teaching philosophy is Love. Yeah, big L Love. I also believe deeply in the value of Love. So much flows from Love: respect, growth, trust, community, a safe space.

Love, if you ask me, is in the details.

How can we claim to respect our ESL literacy clients if we do not pay attention to the details? I, for one, am not satisfied putting materials in front of them that are not designed for them. Would you use a magazine containing violent war pictures with a group of refugees just arrived from war-torn areas? Of course not. You would pre-screen what you use and would set aside the resources not appropriate for them. You respect them. You care about the experience they have in your classroom.

So why are we okay with an alphabet line that was made for little Canadian children? To be honest, it's probably because we have no choice. Materials designed for pre-literate and semi-literate ADULT newcomers to Canada are very hard to find. It's a tiny niche market, so what publishing company is going to bother developing these things?

The good news is that it's becoming easier all the time for you and me to stop waiting around for someone else to make these resources. I'm ready to make them myself. A is for apple, B is for baby, C is for a cup of coffee. D is not for dog, but might be for door or doctor.

I'll let you know when the set is ready for free download. ;)

How about you? Do you think we teachers of ESL literacy have to take it upon ourselves to create what we need?

Give Them Something to Touch

In ESL literacy instruction, it is so very important to make learning as physical as possible. ESL literacy classes tend to be comprised of at least three kinds of students who direly need learning to be made as hands-on as possible: refugees, whose recent trauma can make focusing on dry lessons impossible; learners with interrupted formal education, as they are unaccustomed to sitting for long periods at a desk; students with learning disabilities, especially ADD/ADHD, who may be desperate for any excuse to get up out of their seats.

I was reminded of this 'best practice' this week as I was passing by the new literacy classroom that is currently blooming in a former childcare space next door to my classroom. Every time I pass by the door, something different draws me into the space. First there was the welcome sign, then the tea kettle with a collection of herbal and black teas, next the little alcove with a carpet that has already been used by our newly arrived Syrians seeking a safe space to pray.

This week's eye candy was a collage of student work covering one wall. Maria had led the learners through a colour lesson involving leaves and fall colours. One thing she noticed about the lesson was that everyone was so calm afterward. Even the men got into carefully colouring around their leaves.

From role plays to realia, anything that allows them to manipulate objects, move, stretch, sing, drum or dance is going to help create an effective and enjoyable language learning experience for this very special clientele.

What's your favourite way of giving your learners a hands-on learning experience?

The Syrians are Coming

Because I am very busy these days helping to stage a political revolution (Go Bernie!) in my motherland, I am going to take a break from blogging this week and instead point you in the direction of a brilliantly written blog post on the TESL Ontario blog.

Maria Margaritis shares some well-researched insights on how trauma affects our new refugee arrivals in the classroom and how we can adapt our classroom practice to help more than we hinder their language learning and settlement experiences in light of what they've just been through.

I'm pleased to note that I am already doing a lot of what is recommended, such as fostering community in the classroom and providing a set of routines that learners can count on from day to day. But there are many other ideas I will be looking to implement in the coming weeks.

Thank you, Maria and TESL Ontario Blog!