Sunday, December 28, 2014

Azusa Library :: Grassroots ESL Presented at State Conference

Grassroots ESL Presented at State Conference
Azusa Library
Literacy Update: Nov/Dec 2014

City Librarian Reed Strege and Adult Literacy Coordinator Cathay Reta traveled to Oakland, California to present a session on Azusa’s Grassroots ESL Program at the 2014 California Library Association Conference on November 8.  The session was well-received by approximately 40 library professionals who are interested in meeting the English needs of English Language Learners in their communities.  Attendees were especially interested in the unique community partnership model developed by Grassroots ESL. A few people have already followed up with requests for more information about it.

Another highlight of the presentation was the snapshot of student statistics from the first full year.  From October 2013 to October 2014, 130 students received 3064 hours of instruction from 28 volunteer tutors.  Since the program seeks to not only teach English to non-English speakers, but to also encourage them to practice English outside of tutoring sessions, we also collected information from students regarding how many English-speaking people they know and how often they speak English, along with their education levels and number of years living in the United States.

For more information on our Grassroots ESL Program, visit our YouTube page.

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