Adult educators need to write down and share their lessons that include gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender (GLBT) issues. Published adult education materials that include GLBT people and concerns are incredibly scarce. This lack of resources is certainly true when discussing the topic of the family, which will be my focus for this article. Many workbooks and texts continue to use family trees and to define families as one mother, one father, and various children. Some texts helpfully expand this notion of family to include divorcees, extended, and single parent families. However, even these latter texts usually fail to use any gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender (GLBT) terms. Therefore, it is important for those of us who want to clearly address sexual preference to document our lessons so we have some materials with which to work.

Why Address GLBT Issues in the Classroom?
First, there are gay, lesbian, and transgender students in our classes, whether teachers are aware of it or not. Although I believe curricular topics should arise from students, I urge teachers not to wait until they know a student is gay to begin affirming his or her identity in the classroom, nor to wait until the issues are raised by students themselves.

Background
I am a teacher and coordinator in the ESOL Department at Jamaica Plain Community Center's Adult Learning Program. I am a white woman in a lesbian relationship, raised middle class in New York City, and currently working with a class of Latino, Haitian, and African adult learners. I assume all the work I do is affected by these elements. I teach a beginning level class and the following ideas will reflect my work with this particular group.

I gathered the following activities from class sessions that addressed family issues over the course of a year. For the purposes of this article, I have selected those lessons that involved discussion of gay and lesbian families (not all the lessons did this) as well as activities that allowed participants to define "family" themselves. Each month our class focused on one primary theme in combination with specific grammar and life skills. For example, in April, 1998, we looked specifically at the topic of "family," basic prepositions, alphabet review, and oral presentations.

I present this list as one example of how to include lesbian and gay family issues in the context of teaching ESOL. It is only within the last year that I have been out as a lesbian in class and intentionally included lesbian and gay issues in lessons. While it is relevant to the class community in which I work, I have not yet effectively developed lessons around bisexuality or transgender issues. I am learning more each time how to be inclusive, and I hope this piece helps inspire a broader collection of lessons that reflect all families and that leave the shape and definition of "family" to the individual.

Many of the following activities developed from ideas shared from other teachers and some workshops over the last six years. These activities effectively include students who have step-families, large extended families, gay/lesbian families, and families where there might be different co-parenting or polygamous situations.

1. Define family: I asked students to write down a definition of family and then share the definitions-either aloud or on newsprint. Sometimes I added my own definition or used a dictionary definition. This process allowed the class to reflect on the meaning of family and compare how different individuals might include different circles of people in their definitions.

2. Family wheels: I asked students to draw a circle with their names in the middle. Then they drew lines from the circle and wrote the names of all family -- immediate, extended and other -- in circles at the end of each line. I encouraged students to write the name of the relationship on the line. I demonstrated my wheel first and had them create their wheels. This activity allowed students to add anyone to the circle without needing to fit their family into the traditional family tree format. In addition to excluding some participants, the tradiional family tree structure can be very difficult for some students to understand. They can get too caught up in the format when the focus is sharing information about their family.

3. Family location charts: I had students fill out charts, listing names of relatives in Massachusetts, in other states, in their native country, and in other countries.

4. I encouraged students to write the name of the state, city, or country next to the name of the person: We went around and shared our charts. (For example,"Amina is my sister. She lives in the Sudan.") Students then came up and put dots on a world map, indicating the regions where they had family.

Integrating Gay and Lesbian Vocabulary into Language Exercises
1. Definitions: I gave out the following list of words related to family: widow, lesbian, adopted, divorced, pet, half-sister, step-father, great-grandmother. We had already discussed some words briefly, but some were new. Students worked in pairs or groups of three and were given two or three words on a sheet of paper. They needed to write a definition of each word, while they could come up with answers as a group. Each individual was asked to do the actual writing of the definition using the dictionary. This gave students practice with dictionary skills.

2. Guessing the word: In this review activity I gave each person a word we had discussed before: step-mother, cousin, aunt, great-grandmother, gay, nephew, foster parents, brother-in-law. They needed to explain the word and the rest of us would guess what the word was.

3. Pictures of gay/lesbian families: Photos in particular can be helpful in visualizing real people if you have so far only discussed gay/lesbian families in the abstract. For example, some students had difficulties understanding me when I spoke about my partner and her daughter. I brought in my photos during our family photo-sharing days, which made my relationship clearer to students. One can find photos of GLBT folks and families in gay- friendly magazines and newspapers. Around gay pride day there might be some pictures in mainstream papers.

4. Family Literacy: One month, many students chose to read, practice, and present a children's book to the whole class. They could choose any book, but I brought in many choices that students could pick as well. One title, One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads, Blue Dads, by Johnny Valentine is gay-friendly, and in a light-hearted, entertaining and subtle way, approaches serious themes of understanding different families.

Results and Responses
Introducing gay and lesbian issues to the classroom and being out was easier than I expected. Students did not attack or challenge my identity in a confrontational manner. I did not feel they disrespected me as a teacher. I do believe all these hypothetical responses are possible in some situations, but it has not yet been my experience. The fact that I am their teacher plays a role in their response. There is inherent social power for someone in a teacher position that can prevent students from outwardly disrespecting the teacher. Two students, however, did communicate to a substitute teacher that gay and lesbian relationships were against their religion and they did not approve of them.

On the whole, the positive experiences encouraged me as a teacher to be out in the classroom and gave me a solid starting point for continuing to address GLBT issues in the future. I found that some learners were sincerely interested in asking questions about gay men and lesbians. These learners are now more informed about the gay community and had an opportunity to ask questions and discuss how GLBTpeople are treated in their communities. They have names to put on these "taboo" relationships and have been exposed to them in a way that validates the relationships within regular discussions about family. I urge adult educators-straight and gay-to introduce GLBT issues in the classroom. Sharing the results of these experiences, both positive and negative, will enable us to develop increasingly better strategies and curricula that are inclusive of all people and families.

Charissa Ahlstrom teaches ESOL at the Adult Learning Program in Jamaica Plain. She welcomes questions and responses and can be reached at 617-635-5201.