At University Village Thousand Oaks, Thousand Oaks, CA, a language barrier has been turned into a bridge.
Many housekeeping and custodial staff members at the continuing care retirement / life plan community speak English as a second language, so resident Paulette Merkel wanted to give them an opportunity to learn on the job with the help of residents. The community says that the resulting ESL program, in partnership with Conejo Valley Adult Education, has been a huge success both in the classroom and in the community.
“When we started this program, we were trying to implement three goals. The first was to improve their oral skills and they’re all at different levels. The second goal was to build their self-confidence, and then the third was to foster relationships between the residents and the staff,” Merkel said. “We’ve been doing this for about a year and a half now, and I think we’ve reached those goals. We’ve also had success in that one of the students wanted to be a certified nursing assistant, and she was able to get promoted to the CNA program across the way at Oakview Health Center.”
The ESL program at Thousand Oaks has 28 students paired with 21 resident tutors. Many tutors are retired teachers and professors, whereas others were engineers, financial advisers or had other careers before retiring.
Staff members are given an hour a week of their work time to take the lessons. Most of them come from Mexico or other parts of Central America, so the classes also have been a fun cultural exchange for the tutors as well.
“[There] was a ceremony we had at the end of the year just to show our appreciation for how hard they work,” Merkel said. “They all got a certificate of participation, and then we had a little party, and they brought homemade food for us to try from their home country.”
Merkel said she hopes that participating in the courses will help students grow both personally and professionally. The students and teachers may have different mother tongues, but when it comes to buying into the program, they are speaking the same language.
“I found out from some of their supervisors that when they’re through with their classes, they get together before they go to work, they talk about what they’ve learned and they share their information,” Merkel said. “I think that’s the part that I like the most about this program — trying to help people get ahead and improve their skills so they can move forward with their lives in the future.”
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