The theme of parenting in the US is one that invites all of my students to participate by sharing their knowledge while challenging themselves to use their second language. The parenting theme emerged in one of my ESOL classes where my students are parents of Boston Public School children. Parents of disparate language abilities shared their struggles and concerns about caring for their children in a new country, which often presents very different challenges than those in their native countries.

McKay and Weinstein-Shr (1993) discuss the practice of employing “parent circles” in their classrooms where immigrant adults discuss the dilemmas of caring for children in the US and build strategies to better cope with these issues. I became interested in taking this one step further by encouraging my students to share what they learned from each other with other immigrant parents facing similar issues. As I discussed ideas for a class project, creating a video appealed to students and seemed to be the perfect vehicle to allow them to share their findings with others.

Building on the Parenting Theme
I elicited parenting issues in weekly journal entries where students were free to read aloud to the class. When I posed the question, "How is your family changing?" many students responded with poignant, heartbreaking responses such as: My son speak English in my home. My husband work full time. He isn’t in the dinner with we. While another student laments: Job changed. Kids attitude changed. Here they don’t pay attention. They fight... too many friends.

As students read their journal entries aloud, others would comment with stories and concerns of their own. Soon we had a list on the blackboard of the ways in which their families were changing. We condensed the list to reflect the six most problematic issues for them. The class posed questions to address these issues. The questions included:

• How can we help our kids with their homework and help them in school?
• How can we encourage our kids to speak their native language?
• How can we best discipline our kids?
• How can we find time for each other when parents work too much?
• How can we help our kids avoid the violence in our neighborhoods and in the media?
• How can we learn English?

Developing Strategies Together
Students broke up into groups according to the issue that concerned them the most; they then devised strategies for handling these issues. The conversations, in both English and Spanish at this point, were lively as students argued about the best ways for parents to respond to these concerns. As the lists of strategies were completed, I copied them onto a master list and made duplicates for everyone. We then spent several class periods revising this together as a large group until students felt it was complete.

Preparing for the Video
After much discussion about how we would organize the information for the video, students decided to present a series of vignettes in which they would pose as parents seeking advice from other parents. They then reconvened into their smaller groups to write dialogues.

The dialogue writing was one of the most difficult tasks of the entire project. Many students struggled with ways to make the dialogue seem like a natural conversation between friends as opposed to simply presenting a list of information. If I were to do this type of project again, I would model a dialogue for the class beforehand or ask several students to do so. However, after several class sessions each group was able to compose a dialogue to act out. When all of the dialogues were completed, I as well as some of the more advanced students helped to edit scripts. These scripts often served as mini-grammar lessons for the class.

Students worked for several days to memorize their scripts. They then recorded themselves into tape recorders and listened to their pronunciation while critiquing it in their groups. Most students seemed to consider clear pronunciation the most important aspect of their role in the video and spent considerable time rehearsing both in and out of class.

One of the final steps, where students rehearsed for the entire class before filming the video, was the most fun for me; I watched many weeks of intense classroom work come to fruition. Students listened intently to each other and cheered loudly after each group performed.

The students also spent time writing text that would appear on the video, creating a title, and choosing background music to be played during the opening and closing credits of the video. A professional cameraperson did the filming. However, an interesting component to this type of project might be for students to do the filming and editing themselves, something I would be eager to try in the future.

The video was a great success for several reasons:

1. It presented significant issues and problems for immigrant parents living in America and, through thoughtful discussion, explored ways in which they might attempt to handle them.
2. Through a participatory approach to language learning (Auerbach, 1992), students gained significant exposure to and practice in both spoken and written English by using it as an authentic means to communicate about personally meaningful issues.
3. Although it was a multilevel class, students were able to challenge themselves appropriately. For example, a student might assume the role of the group scribe if they wanted writing practice, or as a consultant on pronunciation if their oral/aural abilities in English were particularly strong.
4. The video later served as a vehicle for students to view their own effectiveness as second language speakers as we watched their performances numerous times together.

Students' efforts throughout the video project never ceased to impress me or other colleagues and students to whom I have shown the video. Many viewers have suggested that the video raises important concerns for all American parents and caretakers as they struggle to work and raise families in a culture that presents so many challenges.

A copy of Hopes and Wishes of Parents will be made available at the Adult Literacy Resource Institute in Boston, 617-782-8956.

References
Auerbach, Elsa (1992). Making Meaning, Making Change: Participatory Curriculum Development for Adult ESL Literacy. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

McKay, Sandra Lee, and Gail Weinstein-Shr (1993). “English literacy in the U.S.: National policies, personal consequences.” TESOL Quarterly, 27 (3), 409.

Lynne Anderson currently teaches ESL at Bunker Hill Community College and Brighton High School. She may be reached at: landerson10@hotmail.com