Understanding the Context

Over the course of the last four months and throughout last semester, I have been

teaching at Gregory Middle School (pseudonym) Parent ESL program in the Oak Park

(pseudonym) community of San Diego. The Oak Park community is known for its diverse

immigrant population including, but not limited to, Vietnamese, Korean, Mexican, and

Guatemalan residents. For the first time last semester, Gregory Middle School and the University

of San Diego TESOL department collaborated resources and efforts to provide free ESL classes

and childcare to the parents of the students who attend the middle school. This program was

created in order to help support the low-income immigrant population in the community. ESL

sessions are on Tuesdays from 5:00- 7:00 p.m. with many of the students attending class right

after work. The program includes open enrollment throughout the entire semester, which means

participants can join classes at any point and time. Enrollment and attendance have been one of

the main issues with this program, as many students do not attend classes on a consistent basis.

All of the participating teachers have been personally reaching out and contacting students every

week in order to help address this issue, but have had little success.

The kinds of students that attend these types of community-based ESL programs tend to

be working class immigrants who have come to the United States with family members in hopes

of a better life. The Gregory Middle School Parent ESL Program differs from typical community

colleges and language school settings in that the students attend classes for personal growth and

survival English skills. We do not grade our students and students do not receive any sort of

academic credit for attending classes. This program was designed to help its community

members learn English, help participants integrate into the American culture, and assist them

with any personal issues they may have that involves using the English language. For example, I
have personally helped students write letters to their employers with questions and concerns they

could not express themselves.

My students ages fall between the range of thirty and fifty years old, and they are all

immigrants from Mexico who have lived in the United States for over ten years. The majority of

my students come to class right after work and often bring their children to the childcare

services. However, due to the nature of the program childcare services are not always available,

and sometimes the children have to sit with their parents during our sessions. This has become

another challenge we have faced, this semester, as the students attention and focus is divided

when their children are present in class.

I co-teach the beginner level class with a peer from my cohort at the University of San

Diego. We have an average of two to three students per session. These three students have been

the most consistent when attending class only missing about once a month. Although, one

student stopped attending classes after the first month of sessions. The following is a brief

description of the students and their background.

Grace (pseudonym) is a working mother who cleans houses and attends classes in order

to communicate with her employers and help her three-year old daughter learn English. She

typically attends every class and only until recently missed a couple of sessions. Grace always

arrives to class at 6:00 p.m. and is only able to attend the last hour of each session. I have had to

change the way I design and present my lesson plans so that this student does not miss any of the

new material introduced in class due to her arrival time. Betty (pseudonym) is a working mother,

who cleans houses and attends classes in order to communicate with her employers, landlord,

and childrens teachers. She attended every class session last semester, however this semester has

stopped attending after the first month. I have tried to call and speak to her but have not been
able to reach her. Jessica (pseudonym) works at a nursing home washing and folding laundry and

is also a caretaker for her grandchildren. She attends classes in order to communicate with her

employers and sometimes the patients at the nursing home. She attends every class on time and

has not missed any sessions.

This demographic of adult ESL learners attend classes for purposes other than

educational advancement or academic success. Adult ESL learners reasons for attending classes

can vary significantly between students. Although, overall they tend to include learning English

for communication purposes (both oral and written): at work, with family members, with their

childrens teachers or staff at the school, at medical facilities with personnel, with housing

landlords, and integration into American culture.

The students that I teach come to class in hopes of learning survival English skills. Some

examples of the survival English skills I teach in my classes include learning how to give or read

directions using words such as left, right, straight, up, down, on the corner, in front of, next to,

across from etc. Also, teaching students the names of places they frequently go to such as the

grocery store, bank, school, church, bus stop, community center, doctors office, restaurant etc.

After the initial lesson introducing the names of these frequently visited places I cover the details

on typical conversations, words and phrases used at these locations. For example, during the

doctors office lesson I presented material related to body parts, symptoms, common illnesses,

and questions asked when speaking to a doctor or nurse. Students learned key words and phrases

so that they are able to go to the doctors and explain how they are feeling or if a body part is

hurting and bothering them.

These are just a few of the survival English skills that I focus on in our sessions. The

lesson topics are picked by the students during the first two weeks of classes. The students
choose topics through a needs assessment which asks them to describe their needs for the

English language. Then I created the rest of the curriculum based off of their responses. This

semester my students asked to learn about basic conversational phrases, cooking vocabulary

words and phrases, how to read and give directions, cleaning vocabulary words and phrases, and

the doctors visit including body parts and vocabulary words.

The highest completed level of education of all my participants is the sixth grade (middle

school) in their hometown of Mexico. They heavily rely on community members, some family

and friends to help them communicate in English when needed. In addition, many of the

participants have expressed their status in the U.S. as not legal, which presents some ethical

issues in my research that I would like to address.

Since many of the participants that I am conducting my research with do not have legal

residency here in the U.S. they are left to work jobs that are considered under the table,

meaning the government has no records of them working. Typically, these jobs involve manual

labor such as cleaning houses, landscaping, construction, working in a restaurant, fixing cars,

babysitting and so on. In my experience working with this student demographic, I have

encountered ethical issues involving employers who use their worker's illegal immigrant status to

take advantage of them at the workplace. Through the needs assessment, conducted the first

week of class, and classroom discussions I have encountered numerous stories on situations

where my students could not communicate or express thoughts to their employers. In turn they

were denied days off work, shorted money in their paycheck, and compensated less than

minimum wage earnings for their work. I would like to provide support and mentorship for these

students through bilingual ESL lessons. Through my mentorship I hope to lessen their chances of

being taken advantage of due to their legal status and inability to fully communicate to others in
English. I have tried to provide my students with the opportunity to learn English in a context

where they feel comfortable and can express their thoughts, feelings, problems, and concerns

though the use of their native language. In addition, to empower students within this context, I

had them select topics for the lessons throughout the semester in order to best fit their learning

goals and needs.

Needs Assessment

The needs assessment was the first piece of data that I collected during weeks one and

two of class. The information from the needs assessments helped me to understand when

students felt they needed to use the English language, under which types of circumstances (eg.

situations, places) did they need to use English, which areas of the English language did they

want to work on in class, and which areas they felt they struggled with the most. I felt that the

needs assessment I created was helpful in providing me with the data that I needed in regards to

students English language needs and goals. The only item that I would add, looking back, would

be a question asking for topics that students would like to learn in our classes. I was able to ask

this question verbally after students filled out the form when I noticed it was not listed.

Students responses from the needs assessment included learning English for use at work

and at the doctors office. In addition, in terms of discrete language skills, two out of three of the

students wanted to work on all four skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. While only

one student listed reading and listening as areas she wanted to work on. When asked which areas

of the English language students felt they had problems with, all three students listed:

pronunciation, writing, grammar, reading, and conversation. The findings from the needs

assessment showed all three students wanted to practice reading and listening skills and felt that
they could improve in their writing, reading, and speaking skills. Figures 1- 3 display the

responses to some of the questions asked on the needs assessment (see Appendix B).

Figure 1

What circumstances (eg. situations or places) do you need

English?

My child's school

The store

At work

The doctor's

Jessica Betty Grace

Figure 2

I have problems with:

Conversation/Speaking

Reading

Grammar

Writing

Pronunciation

Jessica Betty Grace

 Figure 3

What would you like to study?

Community

Health

Work

Money and Shopping

Transportation

Accomodations

Jessica Betty Grace

Overall, the needs assessment helped me to understand what circumstances my students

wanted to use English language skills, what areas of focus they wanted during our classes, what

their English goals are, and what areas of English they felt they had problems in. I was able to

take the information from the needs assessment and create a curriculum based on their needs. In

addition, the needs assessment itself did not provide me with any data on my research question,

which is why I included other data collection tools (eg. language questionnaire, audio

discussions). However, the needs assessment did help inform the content and topics of the

bilingual lessons that I conducted. My lessons each week focused on a topic that students chose

during our class discussion after filling out the needs assessment. Table 2 provides the weekly

lesson plans I implemented throughout the thirteen weeks of my self-study action research.
 Table 2: Semester Lesson Plan

Beginner Level Weekly Lessons

Topics: Let me introduce myself students

Week 1 Theme: Getting to Know One introductions, where are you from, what are
Another your favorite things to do and eat, common
job titles, and what is your job

Needs assessment

Week 2 Theme: Use of Prepositions Topics: Review of last sessions topics,

names of the months, days of the week,
introduction to the prepositional phrase in,
at, on

Topics: review of last sessions topic in, at,

Week 3 Theme: Doctors Office on, introduction to the doctors office
lesson and names of body parts

Topics: review of last sessions topic body

Week 4 Theme: Doctors Office parts, introduction to the names of
common vocabulary used at the doctors
office; common illnesses and symptoms

Week 5 Theme: Review Session Topics: review of last two sessions topics;
body parts, common illnessess and
symptoms

Week 6 Theme: Lets Cook Topics: introduction to cooking vocabulary,

phrases, and recipe directions

Week 7 Theme: Lets Cook & Going to Topics: review of last sessions cooking
a Restaurant topic, introduction to restaurant lesson,
 names of utensils, common food ordering
phrases, restaurant manners

Week 8 Theme: Review & Lets Clean Topics: review of last sessions restaurant
topic, introduction to cleaning lesson
vocabulary, cleaning tools and cleaning
supplies, cleaning actions

Questionnaire on native language use in the

ESL classroom

Week 9 Theme: Review Session Topics: review of complete cleaning lesson

Week 10 Theme: Directions Topics: introduction to giving and receiving

directions, common directional vocabulary
terms

Week 11 Theme: Review Session Topics: review of directions lesson

Topics: audio discussions on my self-study

Week 12 Theme: Native Language Use action research questions, discussions on
in Our Classroom the overall ESL class and how I can
improve the class next time, discussions on
how students felt about their progression
and learning

Week 13 Theme: Overall Review of All Topics: review of all the material covered in
Sessions the semester through final oral assessment