Annual Report: WEA Essex Outreach Programme 2001-2002
Just some information about ESOL in Essex, which may be of help when you are writing your report.
We started with Fay and Christine and Christine went on to incorporate some of Fay’s students in her class. This meant she was teaching not exclusively Chinese students, but also some Asian ladies. All Christine’s students have been resident in Britain for some time. They have varied levels of spoken English and she has worked hard to give them the confidence as build on their knowledge and extend their skills. She has incorporated visits into her class.
Christine has attended the ESOL curriculum Training (3 days) The Family Literacy Training (3 day residential) and recently completed the Access for All Training (again 3 days) Access for All is a document which gives information on making the literacy and numeracy curricula accessible for people with learning difficulties or disabilities. All of the above training is Basic Skills Agency sponsored.
Valeriya of course established the provision at Slverwoods and has now progressed herself to teaching English (not English as a second language) in a secondary school in London
We had a very useful meeting of Bedfordshire and Essex ESOL tutors at Quick House in April. Due to the geographical make up of the district and communication routes Quick House proved an ideal venue as no one had to travel for more than an hour and a quarter to get there! This was especially valuable for Anita the Bedfordshire tutor who works with refugee families and Valeriya to discuss working with refugees.
Melanie Wu has recently taken over the Silverwoods work and also teaches at Chelsea House in Clacton. (These classes take place on Saturday and Sunday, as this is the most suitable time for the students) Both centres have enrolled very well with over 15 at Chelsea House and nearly thirty at Silverwods- therefore we are urgently getting a complete beginners class into place there! As the student population is transitory the 6-week module seems to be an effective delivery method. Melanie is an experienced ESOL tutor with specialist qualifications in ESOL and has also completed the curriculum training
Melanie is using the skills of her group to support our work e.g. by translating publicity material/ posters to promote the classes.
As for next year ..? Continue to develop this first level work with refugees and asylum seeker. Investigate supporting learners for whom English is not a first language within other classes (I wonder if there is a project here to use peer mentors? - some of the refugees in at the centres have better English than other sand are also highly educated – so we could use their translating and subject specialist skills? - I’m thinking of IT at the moment but there could be other areas of work?
Basic Skills…working with families Keeping Up With the Children (as you suggested)- this seems to go well with similar areas of expertise that you have built up in the county.
Liase with existing partners and make them aware that Basic Skills is not just writing your name and address but can be making presentations, committee skills, writing letters to get results, financial literacy etc. – also some organisations may wish to have Basic Skills Awareness Sessions for their workers/volunteers so that they can identify users who might have Basic Skills needs and positively present developing Basic Skills as an opportunity. Some partners may also want to develop peer-mentoring systems- and this is where we could help with training.
…Lots of interesting possibilities to complement rather than complete with the work of other providers.
It’s just the beginning!