Excerpts from Reflective Journals | Excerpts from Literature | References

Students who show interest and enthusiasm enough to commit to learning English typically are also those students with whom family literacy teachers have much success. Many family literacy programs have ESL classes already established as part of the curriculum. For those programs without, it is very helpful to try and find a way to coordinate with those offering community English classes. Students who show a pattern of successfully attending English classes will also show healthy patterns of attendance in family literacy programs, if their needs are being met.

• April 4th, 2002 (for Wave II) – “So, Amy and I decided that we’d offer a new round of PACT at the school, but only to the students who are already enrolled in the evening English classes. We will offer it once a week for an hour, so it doesn’t conflict with their English classes, and I would just do it for seven weeks—and see how it goes! Okay—I am pumped! So, I came home…and made a flyer with which to advertise this to them—and I will invite them personally on Tuesday evening.”
• April 16th, 2002 (Wave II) – “Okay, so the idea we came up with two weeks ago (Amy, the after-school program director, and I) was a second wave of PACT. We would draw from students who have already shown interest in learning and progressing, those students who come three nights a week to the two-hour Basic English classes offered at Wood's End School.”
• May 2nd, 2002 (Wave II) – “I have noticed a definite difference between those who are also enrolled in the Basic English classes, as opposed to those with little practice ever trying to learn English (and even low literacy skills in their native language of Spanish)... She [one student in particular, Leticia] stayed afterwards talking for nearly 15 minutes about how she really feels like now is the time for her to begin a better and more serious study of English. She has signed up for the Basic English classes they offer during the summertime at the school, and she was telling me how anxious she is to progress and move forward.”

Excerpts from Literature

• Arrastia, 1995, “To carry out the [FIEL] project, we expanded our existing program… To our class schedule of three weekly three-hour sessions, we added an additional three hour session on Friday mornings for 13 weeks. This was open to all currently enrolled [Adult Basic Education] ABE and ESL students” (p. 102).
• Auerbach, 1995a, “Whereas some family literacy projects provide joint parent-child instruction, this model targeted adults and established ESL (and, in one case, Spanish) literacy classes at each of the three sites” (p. 63).
• Shanahan, Mulhern, and Rodriguez-Brown, 1995, “English classes not only motivated parents to attend the program and learn English, but extended their visions of how learning takes place through social interaction with family, friends, and community” (p. 590).

[Previous] | [Next]