Curriculum for Church-Based ESL Class

Proposal for Northside Community Bible

Yue Dong, Madison MacMath, Krista Schuh

Wheaton College Graduate School

Spring 2017
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Program Philosophy (Krista)

The Northside Community Bible Church is offering an Adult ESL class for the purpose

of offering both formal and informal ESL class setting for members of the nearby communities

to increase their English proficiency (task goals) and connect with one another and members of

the church community (relational goals).

The ultimate purpose of the church’s program is to serve the needs of those who live in

our community (within the proximity of the church). As is highlighted in James 2:15-16, meeting

the physical requirements of someone in need is a way to act out a faith proclaimed: “If a brother

or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep

warm, and eat well,’ but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it?” As a need

of daily clothes and food is present in this passage, there is a great need surrounding the church

community for English language learning, and help amidst transition. As a result of this, we wish

to develop a program that truly meets the needs of those in our community the church wishes to

serve- namely, Hispanic and Southeast Asian refugees living roughly within a mile radius. We

view this learner-centered program as an opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus by

providing quality English instruction with purpose and structure.

In order to offer as high quality instruction as possible, we will offer basic training for the

volunteer teachers. We have also identified a prevalent need amidst the community is in passing

the U.S. Citizenship test. Tuesdays and Thursdays will thus be focused on the skills necessary to

pass this exam. Even for those who have already taken the exam, the emphasis on and practice of

the 4 language skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening) will be beneficial.

Stemming from a desire to make the course very relational and welcoming, there will be

an emphasis on communicative competence and a willingness to take risks in language learning.

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This will be prevalent both in the Tuesday/Thursday classes, as well as the Saturday gatherings.

Since some students will be able to attend both the Tues/Thurs and Saturday, while some others

will only be able to attend only the Tues/Thurs or Saturday, we have decided that the structure of

the program will best serve the needs of all if we offer a different emphasis on T/TR than on

Saturday. Saturday will focus more on family-friendly activities that serve to increase the

comfort level and life skills amongst members of the community. Saturday will have a variety of

options to meet the needs of various families.

Program Goals and Objectives (Madison)

Based on the perceived felt needs of the students and the particular context, we’ve

identified the overarching goal of the program as follows: to develop students who are gaining

increasing confidence in their English proficiency, ability to communicate, and overall transition

to life in the United States. This broad goal can be parsed into two separate veins of intended

ends: task goals and relational goals. Part of the reason for differentiating the two sets of goals is

due to the dual nature of the course, in both a Tuesday/Thursday classroom format and more

informal Saturday sessions. We also wanted to grasp more fully at both the goals of the church

(which may tend towards being more relational) and the goals of the students (which may tend

towards being more task-based).

In terms of the relational goals, we highlight the following:

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Speak English with one another with increasing confidence

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• Participate in building a safe environment by which to process their experiences and

cultural background

• Know one another and feel comfortable approaching one another as members of a

community

Since the class is only focused on developing community bonds and interpersonal relationships,

it is a learning-based ESL class, we have also highlighted task-based goals to evaluate student

progress and proficiency:

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Utilize basic conversational skills in order to successfully complete daily tasks

• Demonstrate progress through assessment in all four English domains (reading, writing,

speaking, and listening)

• Grow in their English skills so as to be ultimately able to pass the U.S. citizenship test

Structure of the Program (Yue/Madison)

This eight-week course is designed for students who are interested in becoming better

adjusted to speaking English, life in the United States, and preparing for U.S. citizenship. The

course will be offered in two formats: Tuesday/Thursday mornings and Saturday mornings. For

the Tuesday/Thursday class, the structure will be more formal, including structured curriculum

based on the Ventures textbook. The Tuesday/Thursday class would be specifically for adults

seeking more specialized practice in ESL. Childcare could be offered on a volunteer basis, for a

minimal fee, or pulling from additional church funds. Alternatively, the Saturday class will be

more informal, geared more towards family proficiency and drop-in style assistance. Since
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students will need to be assessed for proficiency levels before beginning Tuesday/Thursday

classes, we would advise a basic examination, unintimidating and covering the four domains, to

accurately gauge student needs.

Since there are currently eight volunteer teachers and approximately sixty adults

interested in the Tuesday/Thursday class, a proposed organization is as follows:

• Four classrooms: preliterate/beginner, high beginner, low intermediate, high intermediate

• Classrooms will be taught by two paid ESL teachers, comprised of approximately fifteen

students each.

• Class sessions will last approximately 2 hours.

The Tuesday/Thursday class is focused on the vocational, practical, and citizenship needs of

the students. The Ventures curriculum, since already owned by the church, will provide the

backbone structure of the course. Supporting the relational goals for the course, students will be

put into small groups and encouraged to study and speak with one another in these groups, both

inside and outside of class. Since the church has access to a variety of different technology and

media, classrooms should incorporate as much media, workshops, lecture, and discussion as

possible (within appropriate cultural boundaries).

For the Saturday class option, the structure should look different, to meet the different

objectives and felt needs of the community. A proposed structure is as follows:

• Classrooms will be open for families, tutorials, one-on-one work, and drop-in citizenship

test practice

• Space will be open for approximately two hours on Saturday morning.

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• The paid ESL teachers can choose to participate in the Saturday sessions on a rotating

schedule or participate on a weekly, volunteer basis.

Saturday sessions would be focused more on workshops and tutorials, pulling from members

of the congregation who may have skills outside of ESL but within another specialty (for

example, a staffing manager coming in to do résumé editing). The format should innately support

intermingling among proficiency levels and languages, further aiding in the repetition, in

addition to community development.

Because the majority of the ESL teachers from the church are untrained, they will need to

attend teacher training sessions. We’re proposing two Saturday sessions for teacher training,

spanning several hours and including basic TESL preparation. Since we are hoping to provide

teachers with more structured curriculum, they should be trained in adapting the lesson plan

based on the daily responses of the students and executing the lessons effectively.

Recommended Resources (Madison/Yue)

Since the Ventures curriculum is already owned by the church, we’ve based the

majority of the lesson plans on these materials. Assuming that the student needs come back at the

current four classroom level divisions, we’d propose that each teacher be given a corresponding

Ventures workbook and teacher manual (i.e. preliterate/beginner teacher should have Ventures

1). Because the needs of the students are going to need to be evaluated on an ongoing basis,

meaning that some lessons or activities in a dated version of Ventures may vary in applicability,

and the budget is somewhat limited, the use of reproducible worksheets would be helpful.

Instead of requiring each student to purchase of copy of a Ventures workbook, teachers or

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volunteers could run-off copies of worksheet pages prior to class time. This would also enable

teachers to rely as loosely or heavily on the Ventures curriculum as they feel comfortable with.

Since our students do want to become U.S. citizens, we want to ensure students will be

well prepared for the Citizenship test. Therefore, a certain amount of class time will be put in

preparing students for the test. We would love to recommend the use of a series of textbooks

designed for this purpose. Amnesty: A Real-Life Approach helps beginning-to-intermediate

level students get to know the topics covered in the citizenship test, while Handbook for

Citizenship helps higher proficiency levels students to get prepared for the test. We would

suggest that the teachers get the teacher’s version of the textbooks while students get the

student’s version. Considering the fact that the budget for this program is somewhat limited,

teachers or volunteers could run-off copies of certain pages in the student’s version of textbooks

ahead of class to help save the budget and to give them more freedom in choosing what to teach

to students.

We also might recommend investing in additional ESL recourses, such as picture

dictionaries, adult ESL book translations, and ESL videos. Beginning to establish a church

TESOL library, regardless of how small, would be helpful not only in providing additional

materials for classes, particularly Saturday sessions, but would also demonstrate a larger sense of

commitment to these students and their learning. Students could check out materials or visit the

church to utilize them. Developing a small library in a place of familiarity to the students would

likely feel less overwhelming or intimidating than the local, public library. While not required to

start an ESL program, additional resources might provide an extra layer of support and

enjoyment for both the teachers and students.

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In addition, we believe it would be beneficial for both teachers and students to use online

resources. This could include, but is not limited to, internet sources related to citizenship test

practice. A list of potentially helpful resources are listed below:

• https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Office%20of%20Citizenship/Citizenship

%20Resource%20Center%20Site/Publications/100q.pdf

• https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Office%20of%20Citizenship/Citizenship

%20Resource%20Center%20Site/Publications/PDFs/reading_vocab.pdf

• http://readingenglish.net/students/

• https://www.pearsonelt.com/myenglishlab.html

• http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/

• http://eslcafe.com/

• http://a4esl.org/

• http://www.elcivics.com/worksheets/esl-worksheets.html

• https://www.englishclub.com/esl-worksheets/

Needs Analysis (Madison)

The first needs analysis tool that has already been utilized in the development of this

course was correspondence with the Northside Community Bible Church board. During these

communications, as the program development team, we were able to assess the overall goals of

the church, available resources, proposed structure, and potential needs of the community.

Before getting into any of the specific program structure or needs of the students, we needed a

comprehensive overview of what the church was looking for in terms of an ESL program. Email
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question and answer responses allowed space for overall program development and a general

sense of direction, without having all the specific, necessary student needs analysis data.

One of the first steps in implementing this program and placing students in one of the

four classrooms would be a level and proficiency analysis for the students. An assessment such

as the one used by World Relief’s ESL resettlement classes might be helpful here: ask students

five basic oral questions (Where are you from? Where do you live now? How long have you

lived here? What is your name? What is your job?). If students can comfortably answer these

five oral questions, you can assume a level of auditory comprehension and language production.

Students would then move onto a more specific reading, writing, and listening based assessment

that measured their skills and abilities (either online or written, depending on computer

availability). If students cannot answer the first five questions, they would automatically be

placed in the beginning level class.

While we obviously care about specific ESL needs analysis, that is, what other

assessment tools prove that students know and do not know, we also care about specific student

goals. In order to accurately gauge student goals, we would propose using a sheet that has

student’s circling pictures or words related to what they would most like to learn as part of a

needs analysis. The form could include questions related to what vocabulary students use most

frequently, what they feel is most urgent to learn, or the skills which they are hoping to improve

(reading, writing, speaking, or listening). Our tentative syllabus uses Ventures to move through

basic life skills and incorporates citizenship test practice (a projected need and goal of the

students), however the class will ultimately be most beneficial if it speaks to the circumstances

and daily language use of the students.

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Tuesday/Thursday Syllabus (Yue)

Overall Goal: This eight-week Tuesday/Thursday conversational class, designed for

preliterate/beginner level students, aims to help students to develop basic English conversational

skills to complete primary daily tasks with increasing confidence, and to help them in building

connections with one another as members of the church community. Students will also be trained

in preparing for the citizenship test. As a result, there will be three focuses for every week:

grammar focus, life skill focus, and citizenship test preparation focus. Specific syllabus is listed

below. The different class levels with focus on more sophisticated structures, not necessarily

different content. Students will also be trained and prepared to take the citizenship test.

Grammar Focus Topic Tuesday Lesson Thursday Lesson

Life Skills Focus
Citizenship Focus

Week Grammar: N/A Welcome 1.Teachers 1. Review the

and welcome and greet alphabet
1 Life Skill: Basic greetings students 2. Pronunciation
and spelling
phrases/introduction 2. Teachers of months and
introduce dates
Citizenship: Intro themselves 3. Small group
3.Alphabet and sharing
numbers.
4. Basic
information about
church community
(translators needed)
5. Small group
sharing

Week Grammar: Personal 1. Review 1. Exchanging

Possessive information vocabulary and personal
2 adjectives, Subject numbers information
pronouns, Present 2. Identifying 2. Use greetings
form of be names and numbers 3. U.S. Flag pt. 2
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Life: Reading a 3. Identify

registration form, countries of origin
personal titles 4. Small group
Citizenship: The sharing
U.S. Flag

Week Grammar: Home and 1. Review 1. Review

Prepositions of school 2. Names of the 2. “Excuse me”
3 location, “Where is” furniture and and asking for
question, Singular objects in location
and plural nouns, classroom 3. Statue of
Yes/no question, 3. Asking and liberty pt. 2
Contractions answering 4. Small group
questions about sharing
Life: Reading as classroom furniture
inventory, counting and objects
objects 4. Small group
sharing
Citizenship: The
statue of liberty

Week Grammar: Simple Family and 1. Vocabulary 1.Vocabulary about

present tense, “Wh” friends; about family daily activities.
4 question, Yes/No daily relationships. 2. Asking and
question activities 2. Asking and answering questions
Life: completing answering about daily
applications, using questions activities
family trees about family 3. Small group
relationships sharing
Citizenship: Pledge 3. Pledge of
of allegiance allegiance
4. Small group
sharing

Week Grammar: Simple Body parts 1. Names of 1. Review

present of have, and health body parts. 2. Asking and
5 Questions with have problems 2. Asking and answering
answering questions
Life: Making an questions about body
appointment, health about body parts.
parts. 3. Small group
Citizenship: 3. Colonial sharing
Colonial America America
4. Small group
sharing
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Week Grammar: Place and 1. Building and 1. Building and

Prepositions of Direction place names place names
6 locations, Where in town. back home.
question, Imperatives 2. Asking and 2. Asking and
answering answering
Life: reading and questions questions
drawing mas, getting about about
directions, DMV locations. locations.
3. Imperatives 3. The
Citizenship: The for Revolutionary
Revolutionary War directions. War
4. Small group 4. Small group
sharing sharing

Week Grammar: Daily 1. Names of 1. Names of U.S

Count/non- grocery store currency
7 countable nouns, Activities items 2. Asking
How much/how 2. Asking questions
many questions questions and about US.
answering Currency
Life: Class questions 3. Declaration
schedules, related to of
parent/teacher them. independence
relationship 3. Declaration pt. 2
of 4. Small group
Citizenship: independence sharing
Declaration of 4. Small group
Independence sharing

Week Grammar: Simple Food and 1. Names of 1. Names of

present tense, Simple money occupations chores.
8 past tense 2. Grocery store 2. Asking and
vocabulary answering
Life: reading 3. The how
supermarket ads, Constitution much/how
payment 4. Small group many
sharing 3. The
Citizenship: the Constitution
Constitution pt. 2
4. Small group
sharing

Specific syllabus objectives: By the end of the program, students will

• Have learned about numbers, days, months, and holidays

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• Feel comfortable with oral exchanges of information

• Be able to talk about furniture and objects related classroom

• Be able to ask for and clarify locations

• Be able to talk about family relationships and daily activities

• Be able to understand vocabulary related to body parts and health issues

• Be familiar with grocery store items and vocabulary

• Have knowledge of certain topics covered in the Citizenship test, which range from the

U.S. Flag to the Constitution.

It’s worth noting that we will have some volunteers to serve as translators in the first week of

class. This way, we help make it easier for the preliterate/beginning levels students to understand

the lectures. Ideally, volunteers should be those who have lived in the community for at least 1

year and possess higher levels of English proficiency. It’s our hope that we find volunteers that

come from the same cultural backgrounds as our new students, but in the meantime we will use a

series of teaching strategies to help our students to understand.

Saturday Syllabus (Krista)

Each Saturday class will include a classroom or section of the main room in which members of

the community can drop in and seek advice regarding practical issues such as interpreting bills,

paperwork, and any other questions. An English cafe will be open offering drinks free of charge,

with members of the church community willing to enter into conversation with any present.

Parents can stay with their kids, or they can leave to take advantage of the review class, English

Cafe, or “help desk”. Kids will have the opportunity to complete crafts, play games, and

computer games, pertaining to the theme of the week.

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10:30-11:30 Each week, there will also be an optional, slightly more structured review class

from the previous Tuesday/Thursday, running from . This will act as an opportunity for students

to review, as well as teach other through presentations and conversation.

11:30-12:00 The last half hour of each Saturday, we will watch video clips together and then

discuss.

Weekly Themes

Week 1 New Year’s

Week 2 Valentine’s Day

Week 3 St. Patrick’s Day

Week 4 Easter

Week 5 Independence Day

Week 6 Halloween

Week 7 Thanksgiving

Week 8 Christmas

Project Presentation

Paper compiled and organized by Madison.

Presentation designed and compiled by Krista.

Part I: Introduction, Context, Philosophy (Krista)

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Part II: Goals and Objectives, Overarching Structure (Madison)

Part III: Specific Tuesday/Thursday Structure (Yue)
Part IV: Specific Saturday Structure (Krista)
Part V: Concluding Remarks (Madison)

Each section was authored and/or compiled by the name listed in parentheses next to that
section. While everyone contributed to every section, via in-person discussions and google
document revisions, the sections listed were the primary focus of the person listed.