Comment

Comment by Darin Hamm on October 22, 2009 at 2:14pm

James,

People who are willing, committed and excited.

The individual who started ours felt called to do so. She has been taking some courses offered locally by a Christian who is very dedicated to this ministry. I would guess this exists in most major areas.

We set them up in a classroom. We have a computer and projector for PowerPoint. We purchased books from New Readers Press at www.newreaderspress.com.

We did a survey of those coming to our Clothes Closet to measure interest then set dates and times and signed up people to attend.

You will need to find out what level they are at with English and determine what you can do. We had two distinct groups, those with little English and those with pretty good English that needed some work. They don’t go well together. We have another volunteer that wanted to get involved who works with those who have more English skills.

You will probably find that they are usually late. If you schedule it at a time when other ministries that you use are working don’t expect them to stop going to those to come to ESL. You will probably also find that they don’t come every week and you will have different people come and go.

You will also need to be mindful of children, in our case they go to classes with our kids during that time and it works out great.

That is just what comes off of the top of my head. I can get more info if needed.

Comment by James Nored on October 22, 2009 at 9:34am

Thanks, Darin, for the update. We have a lot of non-English speaking Hispanics who come through our clothes closet and food pantry. We also have a hispanic church plant. What does it take to run ESL?

Comment by Darin Hamm on October 22, 2009 at 9:07am

Just an update, we are up and running with ESL.

Comment by Darin Hamm on April 21, 2009 at 11:24am

Jason, what is the inexpensive resource that you are using? Where could I find it?

D'Anne, thanks for your comments. I guess I didn't think about using LST in groups because that wasn't what they were created for.

Thanks again. I hope I can get some details on material because that would really help.

Comment by Jason on April 21, 2009 at 8:33am

We have been doing ESL in our congregation for more than 18 months now with a very high retention rate. We are blessed to have some teachers with public school/secular experience in teaching ESL.

Our students started with no English background so the Let's Start Talking materials were unhelpful. One of the best resources that we have used is It's relatively inexpensive and allowed us to print out cards and handouts with practical words that students wanted to learn.

We've learned a lot about our student's culture, and in the last two months we've started reading the Bible with students in a parallel NIV/NVI Bible. Pray for our group. We are hoping that the love and knowledge of Jesus can shine in their hearts.

Comment by James Nored on April 20, 2009 at 10:51am

D'Anne, thank you for shaing these thoughts and potential resources with Darin. Does anyone else have any contacts or ideas for ESL?

Comment by D'Anne Blume on April 20, 2009 at 9:36am

Darin, I too have used the LST materials. I have used them in a group as well as individually. I'm not sure why these won't work for your group. It is Bible material with a few questions. You will need to add many many questions but you have to do that with an individual as well.

Many of the materials out there for teaching ESL will take you more toward teaching English and away from teaching Bible which I suppose is your main objective.

You might contact Antioch Church of Christ. They are currently using a different book geared more toward teaching English to a group. You could contact Shirley Scarbrough at sscarbrough2.1@ juno.com to get more. Shirley is one of their teachers.