04 Oct 2012

Puente gets schooled – in teaching ESL

Throw out that old textbook: Puente has adopted a new approach to teaching ESL to adult students, on the advice of one of the country’s most prominent experts on English-Spanish bilingualism.

Stanford Prof. Guadalupe Valdés has spent years documenting – and trying to solve – a problem most ESL educators try not to acknowledge: that -grammar-based ESL doesn’t teach students as much as it is hoped.

Guadalupe Valdes and ESL students

“The TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) profession has generally agreed that it’s only native speakers who can teach English, and English can only be taught in English,” says Prof. Valdés. “The teacher doesn’t need to use the students’ language because they’re trying to teach them English. Prof. Valdés uses TESOL scholar Robert Phillipson’s catchy name for that kind of approach – ‘linguistic imperialism.’

In grammar-based approaches, students learn words and grammar, often without a clear understanding of what they’re repeating. And because the teacher doesn’t speak Spanish, he or she has no idea how much students are actually progressing.

Puente Academic Director, Suzanne Abel, and Executive Director, Kerry Lobel, invited Prof. Valdés to re-make Puente’s ESL curriculum this summer, using her techniques with a pilot class of adult learners. Puente offers the only available ESL classes to adults on the South Coast. Those who enroll are often parents of children who grew up in Pescadero and speak English as well as Spanish. The parents are locked away in linguistic isolation, even as their jobs often require them to know some English. They also can’t generally help their children with homework assignments. “People get so hung up in the correct way to speak English, that they never speak,” says Lobel.  “That really handicaps them in their ability to communicate with teachers.”

Prof. Valdés used the pilot class to work with Learning Center Associate, Kassi Talbot, to develop a set of instructional videos and a handbook for Puente’s use. Going forward, Puente will employ four ESL teachers who speak both Spanish AND English.

Kassi Talbot leads a class

“People who have never taken ESL were able to speak more quickly and confidently this summer,” notes Lobel. “It’s exciting to witness how much more engaging it was for the students.”

Rather than going sentence by sentence with a focus on grammar (“The cat sat on a fence,”) Puente ESL students in fall classes will learn useful phrases tailored to the context of their lives (“I’d like to order the ham sandwich.)Students will spend a lot of time developing listening comprehension meta-cognitive strategies by listening to how English is spoken  and watching specially recorded videos that reflect real-life situations and can be played back to develop their comprehension.

“We want them to be able to produce personal information, shop, return things, even complain, and understand what is said around them” says Prof. Valdés. And someday, perhaps even be able to help their children with their homework.

04 Oct 2012

Students soon free to work, study, and dream

For Azura Aguilar, receiving an envelope in the mail from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would normally evoke a feeling of terror: the fear of being deported to Mexico, which she left when she was 8 years old.

But on September 17, she ripped open her envelope with a mounting sense of joy. Inside was a notice that her application for the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was being processed by the USCIS. It was cause for celebration at the Puente office, with hugs all around.

It meant that Aguilar’s dreams may actually come true.

“I can start driving to school with no problem, getting to work. And after my major I can actually work somewhere I want to be,” says the 20-year-old.

Under DACA, successful program applicants (all aged 30 or younger) are guaranteed the right to remain in the U.S for two years and work.  The paperwork must be renewed every two years.

David Pasternak leads Deferred Action workshop at Puente

Aguilar, of course, has already been living and working in the U.S. for some time. She has two part-time jobs in addition to her coursework at community college. But now she also has the hope that, when she graduates, she can start a career in her chosen field – child psychology.

Aguilar is one of 14 young people from Coastside communities who got help preparing their applications under DACA in early September with assistance from Puente, Community Legal Services of East Palo Alto (CLSEPA) and other private attorneys. (Across the country, some 82,000 individuals did the same). Herrera was one of the first to have her package processed.

Rosa Gomez is the CLSEPA lawyer who handled their applications. She hosted two informational sessions at Puente in August along with David Pasternak, a private attorney, as well as a workshop to apply in September. She has mixed feelings about DACA, which presents such incredible opportunity to undocumented youth – but can be revoked at any time on a political whim.

Left to right- attorneys Jessica, Rosa, and Helen enjoying some fresh Portrero Nuevo produce after their hard work

“Before this, I had to tell these young people – who have lived here all their lives, have babies, who are smart – that they couldn’t work here legally,” says Gomez.

“What I dislike most is there is no path to citizenship or a Green Card from this program. It’s a memo.”

Gomez did not sugarcoat the risks of the program when explaining it to South Coast youth. President Obama used his executive powers to establish DACA, but it could be revoked if Mitt Romney takes over the White House (Romney has sidestepped questions on DACA so far). Perhaps that explains why just 7 in 100 eligible undocumented youth have applied – or 7 percent of an estimated 1.2 million eligible applicants.

Gomez predicts more South Coast youth will apply in the next round.

“I think people are really excited to see what will happen. I think people are also in desperation, in a sense,” she says.

 

To learn more about Puente’s efforts around DACA, contact Program Director Rita Mancera at (650) 879-1691 or rmancera@mypuente.org.

04 Oct 2012

Why we give to Puente: Potrero Nuevo Farm and Blue House Farm

Puente’s commitment to providing fresh, local produce to the people who can least afford it has always been contingent on the cooperation of local farmers and ranchers – passionate food advocates who donate produce or sell it at Puente’s Pescadero Grown! Farmer’s Markets.

And nowhere has that vision found more bedrock support than with Potrero Nuevo Farm and Blue House Farm, two small farms a short drive from Puente’s headquarters in Pescadero.

Half Moon Bay Catholic Worker volunteers harvest at Potrero Nuevo Farm

This year, Potrero Nuevo Farm (which means “new pastures”) will donate a staggering 6,000 pounds of fresh-picked farm produce to Puente (and another 6,000 pounds to Catholic Worker House of Half Moon Bay) – food that Puente uses at program events and distributes to individual Program participants.

“They’re basically growing food so that other people can eat healthfully,” says Puente Executive Director Kerry Lobel.

Potrero Nuevo Farmer, Suzie Trexler, holds lettuce

Bay Area philanthropists Bill Laven and Christine Pielenz founded Potrero Nuevo Farm in 2008 in the spirit of the social justice work they’d done together for many years. They wanted to feed struggling South Coast families and educate children about the value of farming. Today, the farm donates 85 percent of the food it grows.

“It’s great to feed people who can’t even afford food from Safeway sometimes,” says Laven.

Founded in 2005, Blue House Farm was at the vanguard of a group of small, organic cultivators who started tilling plots along South Coast at that time. Co-founders Ryan Casey and Ned Conwell heard about Puente’s efforts to locate affordable, nutritious food for local Mexican families – people who could often only afford processed foods, or couldn’t make the trip up to Half Moon Bay for fruit and vegetables.

Blue House Farm

Blue House Farm started distributing their weekly CSA boxes (Community-Supported Agriculture – a seasonal selection of produce) to Puente, which gave the boxes to local mothers who had completed a nutrition education course.

“I think giving people in Pescadero some broader food options is an important thing,” says Casey, who now owns Blue House Farm alone and runs it with members of his staff.

Blue House was among the first farms to participate in Pescadero Grown! when the markets were in a germination phase and Casey is one of Puente’s most stalwart supporters.

Blue House

“I’ve really enjoyed working with Puente at the farmer’s market. I hope it continues,” he says.

Both Potrero Nuevo and Blue House Farm will be honored for their contributions to Puente and the South Coast communities at Puente’s annual volunteer appreciation event, to be held on October 21.