Project Proposal

Caitlin Geoghan

ENGL C0855: Teaching Adult Writers in Diverse Contexts

Professor Barbara Gleason

March 17, 2015

Adult Education at Neighbors Link

     Neighbors Link in Mt. Kisco NY (northern Westchester) provides education and employment opportunities to immigrant families and individuals in the community. Their stated mission is to strengthen the community by actively developing the skills that new arrivals need (including -- but not limited -- to literacy skills) so that their chances of successful integration into the existing community increase.  Their strategy is to provide education and employment resources as well as a sense of community to a population that might otherwise be isolated.

     Neighbors Link, in partnership with SUNY WCC, offers a range of educational programs including ESL, computer and parenting classes as well as providing vocational training programs like the Eco-Cleaning Training Program which trains and certifies people in the use of non-toxic cleaning products that are not harmful to them or the environment.  In addition, the participants are trained in effective work practices, customer service and business management skills. The center also houses a hiring site for general labor and a separate job bank for more skilled workers.  According to their website, the hiring site and job bank negotiate nearly 8,000 jobs per year. The Worker Center also provides separate educational workshops on a variety of issues such as: improving job skills, health and well-being, legal issues, worker safety, workers’ rights and police/immigrant relations and cultural training.

     My purpose in conducting this fieldwork is to observe an ESL class conducted in a labor hiring hall.  These classes have no attendance or registration requirements, tuition or textbooks.  The students are men and women who are waiting to be hired as day laborers.  The environment is extremely active; men and women come in the morning, are assigned numbers, and then they wait for work. They can be hired at any time via phone call or through pickup—when a contractor or other employer stops by and indicates how many workers they need and what they are being hired for. Once a person is hired, they typically leave immediately. Classes are conducted simultaneously with hiring.  They begin at 9am— after most of the morning hires have gone out—and end at 12pm. Even though the majority of hiring happens early, jobs become available throughout the day. As such, the students come and go throughout the class session. This seems an extremely challenging situation for instructors and students alike.

     All paid instructors at Neighbor’s Link are adjuncts provided by the English Language Institute at SUNY WCC.  The ESL classes are informal. The class is simply called Morning ESL; the curriculum and class materials are determined and provided by each individual instructor. The focus of each class is a practical English language lesson with real world applications.  Visits to the DMV, how to get a state ID, visits to the doctor (answering questions about medical history and insurance or lack thereof) and the Home Depot (English names of tools and associated verbs) are regularly featured in lessons. The purpose is to familiarize the students with the language they encounter in their everyday lives as well as providing practice in conversational English in a low stakes environment.  Reading and writing skills are also practiced; the focus again is on real world material and features employment applications, insurance forms, newspapers, letters from teachers/schools, store flyers and circulars, pay stubs and more.

     In order to complete my research, I plan to visit the site three times. I’d like to observe 2 separate classes as well as interviewing an instructor and the Director of Adult Education and Operations, Luisa Granda-Rodriguez.  I am in the process of arranging my observation and interview dates but expect them to happen between the end of March and middle of April.

     My interest in the Neighbor’s Link site is driven by the sense that this is an excellent use of time that would otherwise be unutilized.  Because of hiring constraints, applicants/students must remain in the hiring hall in order to obtain work.  If they leave, they will be assigned a new number upon their return and so they, essentially, lose their place in line.  As such, many people stay all day and often their numbers aren’t called. In addition, as many of the workers are Spanish or Spanish Creole speakers, they don’t typically speak English although many express a great desire to learn and have the perception that learning English would be a great benefit. Offering an educational opportunity in this setting seems the best way to fill hours with purposeful, helpful activity.

     My learning goals for this fieldwork are twofold. First, I’m curious about the efficacy of education in this setting.  How effective are lessons that are delivered in such a chaotic environment? Are the students able to take their lessons into the world with confidence? And, do the lessons have any other effect? For example, do they decrease affective factors that prevent the people from speaking English both within the hiring hall and outside of it? Secondly, I’m interested in ascertaining the instructor’s methods and practices in curriculum design and delivery. Do they respond to the students’ specified needs when creating lessons or do they anticipate their needs? How do they maintain class flow and order in this environment? What’s the difference between a successful lesson and an unsuccessful one? Are they mindful of and do they utilize communicative language techniques? How do they choose their materials?

Possible primary sources:

·         Interviews with instructor and director of program at Neighbor’s Link

·         Lesson plans

·         Class materials

·         Interviews with students

·         Written materials produced by students

      Website/written materials from Neighbor’s Link

Possible Secondary Sources:

·         

·         Website/written materials from AFL-CIO sponsored education programs within labor centers

·         D'Amico, Deborah, and Emily Schnee. ""It Changed Something Inside Me": English Language Learning, Structural Barriers to Employment, and Workers Goals in a Workplace Literacy Program." Changing Work, Changing Workers: Critical Perspectives on Language, Literacy, and Skills. By Glynda A. Hull. Albany, NY: State U of New York, 1997. 117-38. Print.

·         Darkenwald, Gordon G. "Continuing Education and the Hard-to-reach Adult." New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education 1980.8 (1980): 1-10. JSTOR. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

·         Fell, R.f. "Adult Learning and Action Learning - A Real Workplace Learning Approach." The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension 6.2 (1999): 73-81. Web.