Hogar Hispano E-Nunciations
A 'Zine for
ESL Teachers and Volunteers
February 2004
In this issue...
1. Newsflash! Job Opportunities at Hogar
2. Did You Know... Immigrant Rights: The Church's Legislative
Agenda for 2004
3. Upcoming Teacher
Trainings
4. Tip O' the Month: Veteran Hogar Teachers Share their Best-Kept
Secrets
5. Teacher Resources: Free Virginia Maps
6. Hot Links: Websites for
Teachers
6. Tell Your Students...
Food Stamp Eligibility; Bush's Immigration Proposal
7. Volunteer Opportunities
8. Wish List
_____________________________________________________________________________
Newsflash! Job
Opportunities at Hogar
We're
expanding here at the Hogar office!
Please pass on the following job listings to anyone you know who might
be interested.
1. English Literacy (EL)/Civics Grant
Manager: Immediate opening for an experienced ESL instructor to develop a
web-based ESL curriculum, recruit and train volunteers, and coordinate a large
ESL program in a team-oriented office.
Spanish helpful. Excellent
writing and interpersonal skills required.
Computer skills necessary, including webpage design. Must have valid driver's license and own
transportation. Some nights and
weekends required. Send a résumé and
cover letter to Sally O'Dwyer at mailto:sodwyer@ccda.net.
2. Paid
Summer ESL Intern: $2000 summer internship available to full-time
undergraduates (rising Soph., Jr., or Sr.) in June-July (dates flexible). Opportunities include teaching adult ESL,
coordinating summer classes for approx. 100 adults, and learning about the
social, linguistic and legal needs of the immigrant community. Send résumé and
cover letter by email or mail to Ginny Callahan at
mailto:gcallahan@ccda.net. Open until
April 15.
3. Immigration Paralegal: Immediate
opening to collaborate with staff to manage a full caseload in a fast-paced
environment. Two years of immigration
law experience or training preferred, particularly in family- and
employment-based cases. Fluency in
Spanish and valid driver’s license required.
Open until March 1. Send a
cover letter, résumé, and three references by mail or e-mail to: Megan H. Mack, Esq., Supervisor of Legal Services,
mailto:mmack@ccda.net.
Hogar
Hispano Physical Address: 6201 Leesburg Pike, Suite 307, Falls Church, VA 22044
_____________________________________________________________________________
Did You Know... Immigrant
Rights: The Church's Legislative Agenda for 2004
Help be
an advocate for your students -- both in and out of the classroom! According to the Arlington Catholic
Herald (1/15/04), the Diocese of Arlington has adopted a legislative agenda
which supports a number of measures to secure immigrants' rights.
Here are
the issues:
·
Many
Virginia businesses depend on immigrant labor.
·
Many
documented and undocumented immigrants living, working, and paying taxes in
Virginia cannot secure driver's licenses.
·
Having
unlicensed drivers compromises road safety and drives up insurance costs for
other Virginians.
·
Many
children of undocumented immigrants may be denied a college education even if
they have lived here for years and graduated from a Virginia high school.
·
Hispanics
are targeted for robberies because they carry large amounts of cash. Without recognized identity cards many are
unable to open bank accounts and cash checks.
·
Recent
changes in federal law have restored food stamp eligibility to many legal
immigrants, but many low-income immigrant families are unaware of this
nutritional assistance program.
Here are
the measures the Diocese supports:
·
Prudent
measures to insure that all resident immigrants in Virginia have access to
driver's licenses.
·
In-state
tuition rates for immigrant children whose parents are residing, working and
paying taxes in Virginia without regard to immigration status.
·
Continued
recognition of identification cards issued by the Mexican goverment
(matriculas).
·
A
multi-cultural state outreach campaign to ensure that low-income immigrant
families know how to obtain food stamps.
Get
involved! Contact your legislator by phone,
email, or letter. Visit
http://legis.state.va.us/ to find out how to contact your representative.
For tips
of contacting legislators and more information on the Legislative Agenda, read
the full article in the Arlington Catholic Herald. Go to http://www.catholicherald.com/articles/04articles/legagenda04.htm.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Teacher Resources: Free
Virginia Maps
Bob
Sutter of St. Anthony's ESL uses free Virginia maps to teach his advanced class
about the geography of our state, and how to locate cities, highways, etc. This can be used in lower-level classes as
well. Call 804-786-2838 to get your own
free Virginia maps from the Department of Transportation.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Hot Links: Websites for
Teachers
Puzzlemaker, quizmaker
and other tools for teachers http://school.discovery.com/teachingtools/teachingtools.html
Teach-nology http://teachers.teach-nology.com/web_tools/work_sheets/
More quiz makers; word searches -- more tools for creating worksheets,
word searches and other.
These links courtesy of VALRC. For more info, visit their homepage at http://www.aelweb.vcu.edu/.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Upcoming Teacher Trainings
Free training
opportunities to community volunteer ESOL teachers, provided by Fairfax County
Adult Ed Program. Held at Marshall H.S.
near Tysons Corner, Saturday mornings from 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. Advanced reservations are required. Call 703-714-5560.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Tip O' the Month: Veteran
Hogar Teachers Share their Best-Kept Secrets
If you
weren't able to make Hogar's Swap Meet, you really missed out! For those of you who aren't familiar with
it, this workshop is given by our volunteers, for our volunteers. Experienced teachers share activities that
work well in their classes. The
language used in the activities should always be pre-taught first. Here are just a few great ideas:
Picture
Dictator: The teacher has a simple picture that she
does not show to the students. Instead,
she describes the picture to the students and they have to draw it. After they draw it, the teacher shows the
picture to the class, and students check to see if they got the picture
correct. (You will have to pre-teach the words of the items in the picture, and
probably words such as: next to, beside, above, below, to the right of, and to
the left of, etc.). ~Shared by Leslie
Buckley
Rhymes
and Songs: Try simple, funny rhyming poems or songs in
class. The beat and the rhythm help the
students get going while emphasizing syllables for them, and making them
pronounce every sound. A silly rhyme
also helps break down barriers between student and teacher, and gives everyone
something to laugh about. Need some
simple rhymes? Try searching google for "rhymes". Avoid poetry that is complicated or has
strange word uses. Our presenter, Carol
O'Connor demonstrated her technique with "Rain Rain, go away, come
again another day…" and "It’s raining, its pouring, the old man is
snoring". Have fun demonstrating
to your class what snoring means!
Sound
Off: After teaching the alphabet, ask your
students to line up and say every other letter in the alphabet. Its HARD.
Or, after teaching numbers, get your students to sound off in a line-up
saying every other number. Or, have them count backwards. Very challenging! ~Shared by John Burke
Dialogs:
Use prepared dialogs that you, the teacher, make up for the class. Make it fun by using names of persons in the
class in the dialog. Students will
listen closely if they are the subjects in the dialog. This is a great way to give high interest to
your teaching. ~Shared by John Burke
Ain't
Slang Fun? Our intermediate teacher, Gwen Kjellberg,
teaches her class a new slang word every class. She uses short phrases or
words, such as to “be broke”, “give a hand” or “luck out”. She teaches these words by using them in
context, and by acting them out. Go for
it and try this out in your class!
Taming the Grammar Monster: Help your students learn key grammar by having them write down verbs and their tenses on an index card. To teach the present tense of “to be”, have your students write down: I am, you are, he is, she is, etc. on an index card. Have students carry the index card with them to study it whenever they have a minute or two -- waiting for the bus, standing in line, etc. By providing a few key grammar elements in bite size pieces on index cards, the students are less likely to be overwhelmed and more likely to learn the essential grammar rules they need to know to speak the language with success. ~Shared by Christina Eliffe-Odum
_____________________________________________________________________________
Tell Your Students
Food Stamp Eligibility: Good News for Refugees and Asylees
As of October 1, 2003,
all refugees and asylees are eligible for Food Stamps on the same basis as U.S.
citizens. There is no time limit, as long as they meet the other program
criteria. Note that this does nothing to change the regulations for SSI - a
major concern for refugees and asylees who are elderly and/or disabled. It is still crucial that they begin from day
one to learn English and prepare for the citizenship test, which they can take
after they have had their green cards for five years (four years for refugees,
whose cards are backdated to date of entry.) Otherwise, they will lose their
benefits after 7 years.
For more information, visit the Food and Nutrition Service at www.fns.usda.gov.
(Thanks
to CAIR Coalition and Patricia Hatch for this information.)
What is the President's Immigration Proposal?
Thanks to
CLINIC, (Catholic Legal Immigration Network), we have this handy,
English/Spanish guide to the president's new immigration proposal. If you have students who ask you about the
proposal, you can offer them this information.
To print out the flyer, click on the attachment below (in Microsoft Word
format.)
Free Tax Assistance
Community
Tax Aid (CTA) provides free federal and state tax return preparation services
to low-income individuals and families in the metropolitan D.C. area. Many low-income workers do not see the need
to file tax returns but they can file to have withholdings refunded. They may
also be eligible for the Earned Income Credit or the Additional Child Tax
Credits which the taxpayer can receive even if they owe no tax.
You can download a list of more than 40 additional free tax preparation sites
in DC, sponsored by organizations including CTA, at
http://www.dcfpi.org/eic2003/outreach.htm.
If you have any questions or need any additional information, please
contact Teresa Hinze at ctavol@aol.com or (202) 347-4811.
________________________________________________________________
Volunteer Opportunities
·
Dawson Terrace Senior Center in the Courthouse area of Arlington is in need of an
ESL volunteer for one hour per week in the daytime (usually 11:00-12:00 noon)
·
Sunrise Assisted Living: volunteer needed to instruct Sunrise staff, one afternoon
per week in Arlington (times are flexible).
·
Hogar Hispano's main office in Falls Church is in need of an intermediate
level ESL volunteer on Fridays from 11:30 am -1:00 pm.
·
Nativity Catholic Church in Burke is organizing an ESL program to begin in
March. Classes to be offered Saturdays,
10:30am -12:30 pm.
·
ESL Intern needed to work approx. 10 hours/week at Hogar's main office in Falls
Church. Hours are flexible.
Contact Ginny
at 703-534-9805, ext. 239 or mailto:gcallahan@ccda.net for more information on
any of the opportunities above.
·
Help Others to Become U.S. Citizens. Volunteers needed to help fill out U.S. Naturalization
applications at this Citizenship Workshop. Training provided. March 13, 10:00
am - 2:00 pm. Held at Arlington Mill Community Center, 4975 Columbia Pike,
Arlington. Contact Esmael Husseini at 703-534-9805, ext. 237 or mailto:ehusseini@ccda.net.
Workshops held every 6-8 weeks, so if you can't make it to this one, look out
for the next one.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Wish List
Cleaning
out your garage or office? Keep us in
mind. Hogar Hispano is in need of the
following items. Give us a call at
703-534-9805, ext. 222 if you can help.
1. Refrigerator (full
size)
2. Commercial size coffee maker
4. Chairs for offices and waiting room (not executive style armchairs--they are
too big)
5. Small table to hold fax machine
6. Ergonomically designed computer keyboard
7. Gel wrist rests for computer mouse hand
8. Telephone headset
9. Laptop computers with CD drive (IBM compatible)
10. TV with VCR (should be portable--we will use it for presentations)
11. Camcorder
12. Digital camera/ Passport camera (which can take 2 identical photos at
once)
_____________________________________________________________________________
Hogar Hispano is a non-profit organization that provides
assistance to immigrants of all nationalities and religions. As part of
Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington Hogar Hispano helps newcomers
achieve self-sufficiency and successfully integrate into American society by
offering a wide range of services at little or no cost. Hogar Hispano offers
English as a Second Language classses, legal counseling and representation,
naturalization assistance, and social services.
Workplace ESL: The ESL
Staff at Hogar Hispano is available to set up on-site ESL classes for employees
at your workplace. Contact Sally
O'Dwyer for more information.
Let us know your thoughts!
Sally O'Dwyer, ESL Coordinator
mailto:sodwyer@ccda.net
Ginny Callahan, Assoc. ESL Coordinator
mailto:gcallahan@ccda.net
Leslie Buckley, ESL Trainer
mailto:lbuckley@ccda.net
Hogar Hispano Catholic Charities
6201 Leesburg Pike, Suite 307
Falls Church, VA 22044
ph 703-534-9805, ext. 222
fax 703-534-9809
www.ccda.nethttp://www.ccda.net/hogar_hispano.html
_____________________________________________________________________________
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