weird seeing students not only being successful in community by just maybe making that first step and go into grocery store by themselves, or being able to make doctor's appointments without having somebody else to translate for them. But on a larger scale, we are seeing more students transitioning into college, they have the long term goals. Now they see that they need to go into credit classes because they have that goal of I have a dream, I know what I need to do in life and I'm going for it. We had a student who was sworn in as a normal police department police officer, we have a student who owns her own business, we have a student who works as a bilingual liaison and unit five school district, so they are becoming more established in the community.
Imagine you're in a room with a bunch of boxes, in one of those boxes is something you desperately want. But every box has a combination lock. For some people education is that way, learning the skills to unlock the boxes of achievement isn't always easy. The right teacher or program can help a student crack the code of that combination lock. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Today we'll talk with three people involved in adult education English as a Second Language classes. Each one has a different perspective, from administration to teacher to learner.
Hi, my name is Christina Sanborn. I am a Assistant Director of Adult Ed instruction here at Heartland Community College.
Hello, my name is Angelica. I have six kids, three girls and three boys. And I have a five grandkids three voice and to gross. are
you originally from this area from the Bloomington rural area
and no long government from Mexico? And I live in Bloomington for 29 years.
So 29 years in here. Yeah, what brought you here 29 years ago,
working very busy working out the house and in my house store for the last year aren't working anymore for my health. So this is why I tried to go to the the English class. And this helped me a lot. The English class. This helped me a lot. Because I tried to do some steps to myself, I live alone a couple times to my family. And I try I tried to learn something every single day.
What prompted you to go to this class and to be involved in this class?
One day I read the newspaper or unlock the newspaper. And I look the pitcher the one day my friend Chase and the English class and I say well, I tried to go to english class. The English is very important.
Did you know that they were taking the class already? Yeah. What made you think, okay, that could be me too.
When you go to some place, and you'll recognize two or three different papers, you'll fill in much veil. See, when you go somewhere and don't recognize Nobody. Nobody says hi, how are you? And where's your name now that you'll fill in Betsy, right when you walk someplace and say hi, how are you? I didn't see you. You're feeling good. It
makes you more comfortable? Yeah. Uh huh. Christina, I want to ask you a little bit about the program itself. And not just Angelica. But all of the students. What sort of barriers do the students that are attending this type of class face that Artland and Adult Education is trying to break through?
If we're talking specifically about Western Avenue class, it's the comfort level, you know, Western Avenue Community Center is known in the community. And a lot of students go there with different questions or issues. So in knowing that they could also go there and learn English and other skills. I think that that was a big point there.
We talked about the English skills, what are the types of things that tie in with both the functional English but also the skills that are related to it? How did those things work together?
In this particular class at Western Avenue, we use a curriculum called Ida, which is integrated digital English acceleration curriculum. So our director carrier key, so our enrollment coordinator at that time Heather Hofstede and I went to Washington State for a training for this particular curriculum. And we thought based on the training and everything we learned about this program, that it would be perfect for our students. So by using this curriculum, our students are learning not just reading writing, listening, speaking in English But they're also developing career specific vocabulary. They're learning workplace skills. They're learning certain cultural skills and civics is helping them better integrate into community be able to even help their families for things like going to a doctor, schoolwork, registrations and all that, but it also gives them life skills to prepare them for career and future academic pursuits. So this particular class is called a bridge to workplace technology. It is heavier on technology use. However, we already see the benefits of that.
Angelica you mentioned your kids. Yeah, and your grandkids? Yeah. Do you often need their help with things in English or things that you didn't have any opportunity to learn about it in Spanish?
Is something funny in my phone because the vase or my grandkids this stack Inglis, morning, listen to this plan is when I pick it on his plan is to my grandkids say, I'm sorry, grandma, I don't understand why you say. And one day, my grandkids, he's nine years old. He said, Grandma, I can dish to you. And then I say, I know that is but I need more English for the good conversation. I say, oh, okay, Rama, maybe later.
Let's talk a little bit about some of the things that language has been a barrier or frustration for you just in everyday life, you say you might need help from somebody just in everyday life, that computer
because every time when you go to someplace you can refuse for yourself and not know anymore. And the paper. They said in a computer? And I say I'm sorry, I can use the computer. Oh, and I feel with
with the class in the group. You mentioned that you're comfortable. You know, people Yeah. It's more of a community you're familiar with? Yeah. What's your teacher? Like?
Oh, my teacher, I love my teachers, because I'm so lucky. I have two teachers, one American in one Latina. So sometimes when I don't understand why you can say excuse me, yeah, yeah, I don't know. What is this? Can you explain me a little bit and it's Paris? Oh, sure. And she's speaking Spanish a little bit. And I catch sometimes I catch in. This should be a call teacher. She's making a song. The way you can say, this is the animada. Okay, okay, I got it. I got it sometimes. Laugh, everybody, but happy feeling very happy. And that gets
to Christina. Let's talk a little bit about that diversity that you'll have amongst the students, because you probably have a lot of native Spanish speakers, but also people that speak other languages as well. What types of different backgrounds are we seeing in this class?
So far in this class, it's been mostly students from Latin American countries. We had a couple of students from I want to say Congo Democratic Republic of Congo, because Western Avenue Community Center is more known as a resource center for students from Latin American countries. That's why we're seeing predominantly students from those countries. But I always thought that having students from different countries in the same class is a great benefit to everyone. And we do have in every ESL class, we have two teacher and tutor. So Yaya is our teacher who is originally from Nicaragua, and Bergen, as Angelica called her a teacher B. She is originally from here from this area. So I honestly do think they are the best combination of teacher and tutor we could have found because they work so well together. And they truly give students what they need in class.
How are we seeing students that start at Western Avenue and get up to the skills where they enroll here out in our credit program,
that's the hardest part about this class, because they love the location, they love the instructor and the tutor. So we have to really, really encourage and kind of push them out of there when they're at the point where they can come here and take classes on campus. But we do encourage students to come to campus, take the higher levels of our programs and eventually transitioning to college courses because we have a very good support system for our students who are transitioning to college courses and even when they transition there, we still support them and help them get through any barriers or obstacles they have.
Well, can you talk a little bit about how programming like this that is community based out in neighborhoods benefits the overall community, in this case, our district 540 Blue mean to normal? How do these classes offer a benefit of service not just to the students that come in, but to the entire community.
One of the things I would say, you know, there are other community members who come to the center. And I think it gives them that chance to meet people from other countries. It's a good cultural awareness for other people in your community. I also think, having class that is accessible to students, that it's easier for them to go take classes, learning English and other skills we offer, it helps them to have that convenience of the location and time and we're helping them become more productive in the community function better in a community. So I think I mean, I think there's a benefit on both sides, for students and community members.
I think it's interesting that there's this combination of language skills and things have to do with technology, there are very simple things that if you don't have a comfort level with technology, or you can't even necessarily understand the instructions and the technology, you know, buying groceries is a lot, sometimes you'll go to a place and there's one checker and then a bunch of automatic machines, little things like that, that's not going to decrease any it's going to increase. So using computers using these skills, that's going to be very vital just for everyday activities, especially in the workplace.
Right. You know, the biggest successes I wanted to share about this class is when we started this class, at the beginning of this year, I remember going there the first week of classes and just helping instructors and helping students set up and a lot of the students were afraid to touch the laptop, and mainly was because they were afraid that they're just going to break something or mess it up or they're not going to get where they need to. And then about a couple of weeks after that, when I visited the Western Avenue Community Center, again, to kind of check on instructors or check in with students, I saw that students came in open their laptops, hooked up the cables, chargers, everything they needed to do logged in into laptop logged in into Canvas. And then if there were new students, they helped them out. And I pretty much cried there, because I was just amazed that it took them only several weeks to get to that comfort level with that technology. So I think the longer they spend time in that class, the better they are getting that technology which eventually will help them.
And as a group, it's less intimidating if you have somebody else coming from a similar place. Absolutely. We talked about it a little bit. We talked about some of the other students, are there any success stories that you want to share from not just necessarily this Western Avenue class, but other classes that we had going here at Heartland?
I'm afraid we would be here for all day talking about success stories. You know, program wise, we're just seeing students not only being successful in community by just maybe making that first step and go into grocery store by themselves, or being able to make doctor's appointments without having somebody else to translate for them, or getting their first driver's license. But if we're talking even on a larger scale, we are seeing more students transitioning into college, they have the long term goals. Now they see that they need to go into credit classes because they have that goal of I have a dream. I know what I need to do in life, and I'm going for it. But we also see now, every so often I run into a student in the community, either at a grocery store or just on the street or anywhere that event and it is so heartwarming to see our students have jobs. We have students who we had a student who was sworn in as a normal police department police officer. We have a student who owns her own business. We have a student who works as a bilingual liaison and unit five school district. So they are becoming more established in the community. And I feel like we had something to do with it as a program.
Well, Christina, thanks for coming in and talking about the program with us here today. Angelica Angelica, thanks for coming in and talking to
you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Hi, Eric Gonzalez, or Yaya as you just heard Angelica call her unlocked her potential in a Heartland English as a Second Language class. Now, she teaches it
My name is Yeah, Hydra. That's my real name, but I prefer people call me Yeah, yeah. I work here as a teacher, teacher English. Second Language.
Have you always wanted to teach? Actually,
that's a funny story. Because when I came here, I had these dreams, the you know, the you can do whatever you want here in United States. So I was like, okay, so I really want to be You mechanic, or physical therapy, but when I finished my English class because I was a student, this program, Harlan, when I finish one of my teacher, she said, A yay, you can be now a tutor. And I was like a word. No way me a tutor English? No. And she said, why not? You are good with people and everything I say, okay, I can try. And I did. So I applied for a tutor position. While my students that I was helping her. She said, Oh, you know what, yeah, if you can do this, I can do this. And thank you for being here. So, and this moment, when I heard those words, you know, from this person, I find my real job. Since that day, I decided to keep teaching. And then somebody told me, Hey, we had a open position for teaching. Do you want to teach? And I said, No, be a teacher? And I don't think so. And she said, Well, if you're a tutor, if you can be a tutor, you can be a teacher. So I say, Okay, I want to try.
You didn't know starting the classes at Heartland, that that's what you wanted to do that you wanted to teach what led you to take the classes at Heartland? What was your path, your journey that got you started as a student?
I remember, I was at work, because I was working evergreen Baelish. This is a supporting living. And I remember my first day working there, one of my wrestling, she asked me for something that I had no idea. What is this that she asked me for. And I was crying every single day I was crying. Because I want to understand what people asked me for and what they need, I want to supply I want to help. But English, it wasn't my, my language. So after this, when I get home, I just jumping on my bed and start crying. So I remember my wife, she come to the room. And she said, with a strong, and I tell her and she say so if you're so frustrated, because you don't know the language. How about have you take English class? Is it I don't have money? How can I afford this? And she said hotline classes is free for free as what? Because in my country, we need to pay a lot of money for English class. So when I decided to take English class, I was a shy person. Let me tell you, I never talked with anybody. So in my class, I remember my first teacher was Miss Molly Brown. I can see my classmates. They was speaking in English. And I was like, Oh, I never going to do this. I never gone to learn English. And I remember one day my teacher asked me to read and I said, Teach. I'm sorry, I can and to say Yaya, never say that you can do it. You can, okay. Never say can't always say I can do it. And I memorize that. And I always remember those words. I pass for many, many, many trouble in English. Like to pronounce a word. Always. I was afraid to speak English. My teacher told me if you never try, you never go into practice, practice. Always. My teacher said you just need to practice practice. I told my teacher about my experience that I had. What evergreen Baelish you say? Well, Eugen is to be confidence that you can do this. I started like as see my teacher, not just my teacher. Like my family. They start supporting me, they start showing me the love and everything. And they support me and they want me to have a better future. So I decided to stay in English classes.
Talk a little bit about where you came from and why you came to the United States and what brought you here and what your hopes were when you came.
Well, I said before I get marry, so I never thought to come to the United States, actually, but My first week I said, Okay, I, I just need to work here, make a money, send money to my family. And that said, I can be like a professional person here. And in my classroom, as a student, in my classroom, I find the hope, I find the hub, I find the love, I find people there, they support me, and they push me and they say, you can do it. You can be wherever you want to be. I started believe that. I start believing I say, Yes, I believe that I can do whatever I want to do. So I never thought that I want to become a teacher. But now it's like, it's my passion. It's like it. It's like my heart. It's my life.
So when you're talking to your students, and you say that some of them initially anyway, felt that they would have trouble or get started. What kind of backgrounds do they come from? Are they all very similar to your experience? Do you find a variety of different experiences? Yes,
we have a lot of different background. Some of my students, they don't know how to spell a word. They don't know how to write. So because they never go to school, back home. So right now, they are like a little child, they are learning how to ride mother, father song. And when I start here, that was almost me. Because the only words that I know is Hi, how are you? Where's the bathroom? Well, but make a conversation. So I was like, Oh, my God. And I thought the eyes pick English in my country. And here is like, Nope, I can't. Yeah, most of my students, they're like I was. That's why I understand a lot of my students, and I want to push them to believe that they can be a professional.
You mentioned that you were working when you started the program, and with your students, what kind of opportunities are available to them without having these functional English skills? And what opportunities don't they have? Because they have that for a lot of people that don't come from that background and that they just speak English. They've grown up speaking English, everybody speaks English, where they live. I don't think they understand what what barriers may or may not be there. So what opportunity is already there. And what does this program presented them that they'll be able to do afterwards?
My experience for example, I can talk about me, I was doing dishes, I was mopping floors, my first job. And now that I'm part of the program, I can say I'm a teacher and I had a better future. For some of my students. They are working hot hauled and they are working in the restaurant in Soma, then they are just picking Bestival. But for example, I have one of my classmates. She is my friend, she is from Brazil. Now she's a lawyer. So she crossed the English classes. And then we had the GED. So they can study English. And then the GED in taking had a degree so they can have a better job. So they say, Yeah, we want that. We want to speak English. We are going to take our GED classes and we can have a better job in a better life. So this program is awesome.
So what's next for you? Are you going to pursue the next level of becoming a teacher?
Actually, yes, I am thinking to go back to school probably next year. I go for my becoming a real teacher. Like I say like a professional with my degree. Because I have my degree in psychology, but this is from my country. And it's something that you know, sometimes you live need to take a little and in find what is your real life your real job? You yes need to follow you her follow what you want to do every single day. I tell my students you know what Guys, always when you not just open your eyes, open your mind open you are and believe yourself that you can do better.
Yeah, yeah. Thanks so much for coming in and talk to us.
Thank you for having me here.
Heartland Community College offers a variety of adult education classes, including the bridge to workplace technology class for English as a second language students. If you are interested in hearing more about diverse programs of education, or other topics, please subscribe to this podcast on iTunes Spotify for audio boom. Thanks for listening
