Memo and Letter Regarding Mayor Menino's Acknowledgement of The
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It takes a whole village to raise a child. TO: ESL Providers in Allston-Brighton; Chinatown; Upham's Corner; East Boston; Fields Corner FROM: CITYWIDE HEALTHY BOSTON ESL WORKING GROUP RE: Developing a Cable TV Program to Teach Beginning ESL DATE: March 18, 1994 Mayor Meninc acknowledged the citywide need for mere ESL classes in his State of the City speech January, and made a commitment to using the City's cable TV system to expand access to ESL instruction. The City's Healthy Boston coalitions have also committed to working on ways to broaden access to ESL instruction, and are exploring the possibility of a cable TV/ESL program. We started this project with an understanding that cable TV cannot help every student needing ESL classes--especially since some neighborhoods are not wired for cable. But cable TV is one way to reach some who are on waiting lists. An additional number of students could be reached by making videotaped copi~s of Boston's cable TV ESL program available at libraries and other neighborhood facilities. Still more students could be reached by setting up satellite ESL study groups throughout the neighborhoods to use the City's cable TV curriculum together, under the supervision of trained ESL tutors--thus reaching students who cannot use either cable or videotaped instruction in their own homes. The attached questionnaire is being used to survey a sample of ESL providers in five neighborhoods that have expressed a particular need for more ESL programs. It is being sent to you by the Citywide Healthy Boston ESL Working Group: Beverly Wing, Chinatown Healthy Boston Coalition; Sue Bartone, Allston-Brighton HB Coalition; Barbara Trybe, Fields Comer-Meeting House Hill-Bowdowin Street HB Coalition; Regina Marchi, East Boston HB Coalition; Alex Monteiro, Upham's Corner Healthy Boston Coalition; Adelberto Teixeira, Healthy Boston; Susan Gracia, World Education; and Laurie Covens, Mayor's Office/Healthy Boston. We hope you will respond, and give us your thinking on what's needed. to make a cable TV/ESL program a success. Please return the survey in the envelope provided by April 1. Thanks for your help. We will report back to you on our findings--probably at an informational meeting we plan to hold at City Hall April 6 (which is Massachusetts ESL Awareness Day). We'll be in touch soon with more information on that event. Room 608 a Boston City Hall • Boston • MA 02201 • Office (617) 635-3140 • Fax (617) 635-3496 It tak~s a who/~ vi/Jag~ to rais~ a child. ESL· PROVIDER SURVEY 1. Please describe the need for ESL in your neighborhood: a) Which linguistic-minority groups most need ESL? Chinese-speaking. b) Which ESL proficiency levels are most needed? ~ Beginner Xnd Intermediate Advanced (' 0 '····) c) When ' are classes most needed? X Daytime; Hours: s,...;;-;..,l~O;..,a_m____ _ ~ Evening; Hours : 4..._:J'-p""m;;;_ ____ d) Is there a particular area in your neighborhood that is absolutely unserved? Where? Not geographically broken down. e) Is there a particular group of people absolutely unserved; ie., elderly, housewives, etc? Men are undersenred f) Is there a particular community facility/center in your neighborhood that could be a resource for additional ESL classes? BUildings on Parcel C. 2. If you use a particular ESL curriculum in your Beginning ESL classes, please identify it: We use our own curriculum. Please describe any television or videotape materials used with the curriculum: 3. Please name any videotape materials you would strongly recommend for use in this program: 4. Please identify any special ESL courses that your agency teaches I ie. I II ESL for health care workers I II etc. Our £SL classes are more general, but have a special emphasis on learning about workers' rights, 5. Based on your experience with ESL students, what features are essential for this cable TV/ESL program to be effective? A cable TV program cannot replace classroom services ; it can only supplement classroom instruction or help those on waiting lists receive :.,o .. -.: some services more· quickly. Should be accompanied by tutoring or instruction. 6. What other initiatives should the Healthy Boston ESL Working Group pursue to expand citywide access to ESL? The Quincy School TAG model is_ a good initiative if accompanjed by training and support for tutors. More funding for classes needed as well. 7. Number of ESL students your agency serves/year: 90'. - 120 trd.:mester slots Number of people on your ESL waiting list: about a dozen How long is the wait to get into a class? usually a few months CITY OF BOSlDN • MASSACHUSETTS OFFICE OF THE MAYOR THOMAS M. MENINO March 29, 1994 Dear Colleague: As you may know, the City of Boston, in conjunction with its Healthy Boston initiative, is exploring the development of an ESL program to be broadcast on Boston's municipal TV station. Two factors prompted this project: the shortage of ESL services consistently cited by coalitions completing needs assessments for Healthy Boston; and Mayor Menino's commitment to having the City do more to help newly-arrived immigrants and linguistic minorities learn English. We are writing now to invi t ,e you and many other ESL providers and health educators to a meeting on the Healthy Boston ESL project on Wednesday, April 13, in the Piemonte Room on the 5th Floor at City Hall. We will meet from 1:30-3:30 p.m. Some of you may already have received an ESL Provider Survey from us, and we hope to be able to discuss results from that at our meeting. We know that some providers are already doing innovative work to address the ESL shortage, and we hope we we can all work collaboratively to meet the needs of Boston's linguistic minority communities. The Healthy Boston ESL Project will be targeted at the many beginning English-learners who must wait months and--in some cases, years, to get into formal ESL classes. Since many of these people also face language-related barriers to health care, our curriculum will emphasize basic health information, access to medical care, and other lifeskills. As currently envisioned, the cable TV program will be supported by a community-ba sed network of study groups led by trained tutors. Our goal is to help people learn English in an immediately useful way. The members of our implementation team to date are Healthy Boston coalition coordinators from five neighborhoods where ESL is a particular need, and staff from the Mayor's Office, Healthy Boston, and World Education. For those of you unfamiliar with Healthy Boston, a program description is attached. As you will see, this ESL initiative is very much an outgrowth of Healthy Boston's broadly-defined public health goals. BOSlDN CITY HALL • ONE CITY HALL PLAZA • BOSlDN • MASSACHUSETTS 02201 • 617 / 635-4000 ®"'·~31 2 It is clear that no television program can substitute for the classroom interaction between ESL learners and teachers. But we are hopeful that this TV curriculum, complemented by a network of study groups, can help some of those waiting for formal ESL classes. Please call the Healthy Boston office at 635-3140 to let us know if you plan to attend the April 13th meeting. We hope you will be able to join us. Sincerely, I . I . Wvv~ U[}vY-v'? Laurie Covens Mayor's Policy Office on behalf of: Adalberto Teixeira Susan Gracia Healthy Boston World Education and the following Healthy Boston coalition representatives: Beverly Wing Alex Monteiro Chinatown Coordinator Upham's Corner Coordinator Regina Marchi Susan Bartone East Boston Coordinator Alice Mills Allston-Brighton Members Barbara Trybe Fields Comer-Meeting House Hill-Bowdoin Street .