From a part-time ESL teaching job that she took to earn Christmas money, Christine Taylor has built Framingham ESL PLUS (FAESL) into a 600 student, 500 waiting list omnibus program. The program, which includes family literacy, GED preparation, and citizenship, celebrated its 20th anniversary this spring. Here's how Taylor expanded the program from 30 students in a night program, which met in an unheated building, to a three-site program.

EB: You started your teaching career as an elementary school teacher. How did you get involved teaching adults ESL?

CT: I originally answered an ad in the paper in December 1984. I was looking for part time work for Christmas shopping money. The ad was placed by a group of Town Meeting Members who saw a need for lowcost, centrally located English classes in Framingham. We didn't anticipate 30 students to register the first night! We thought there might be 10 or 12. A lot of students that first year were from the prison release center. I had no idea exactly what students' backgrounds were. Later we used space at the St. Stephens School where we had three classes, four hours a week. We taught without heat with mittens, hats, and coats on.

EB: Who were the other early financial supporters?

CT: About four years into the program, we got a small state employment and training grant. Around 1990 we started getting money from the DOE, who is still our largest funder.

EB: You started with night classes. When did you add the day component to the program?

CT: I was teaching full time in the public schools, so the first three years the morning program was a separate program. We ran it at a loss for a couple of years until people found out about it by word of mouth.

EB: As your enrollment grew from 30 students to over 600, what changes occurred?

CT: We kept adding components: babysitting, citizenship, GED. A former student, Fernando Castro, a citizen, said he'd like to fund our citizenship program.

EB: You eventually made the leap from working full time as an elementary school ESL teacher (plus part time adult ESL teaching) to full time director of the FAESL program. Was that a scary jump?

CT: Yes, that was a tough leap. When we finally found a way to fund my position just for the adult program, I could say "This is my job, it is a viable program, and it's going to keep going." Doing it part time was the really tough part. A few years ago I reluctantly quit teaching in the program. I miss teaching, though. If I didn't have to sleep, I would teach!

EB: Six years ago you hired a curriculum and staff development specialist and an assessment specialist. Why?

CT: The state really has a lot of requirements... teacher preparation time, assessment hours, curriculum hours, and placement hours. If you try to put all those hours on a part time teacher, it's impossible. So we took a lot of those hours and put them into those two positions. We especially needed someone to help us with implementing assessment requirements.

EB: Tell us about the student population. How has it changed over the years?

CT: We have 32 countries represented in the program right now and 14 languages over all. The Brazilian population started increasing about eight years ago. Before that the population was predominantly Hispanic. I remem ber one year that we had more Chinese students than any other nationality. We translated all our materials to Chinese that year. We focused on them, we went out to speak to the Chinese churches and the Chinese restaurants. If you focus your recruitment effort, the people are there.

EB: You have an extensive list of volunteers. How did you recruit them and how do you use them?

CT: We've had a lot of good publicity through the newspaper that was generated partially because originally our registrations were first come, first serve. Now the student population is determined by a semiannual lottery. People were actually sleeping out at night in front of the Fuller Middle School so they could get a spot. People would read about this and they'd start calling and ask what they could do to help. With some seed money from the Junior League of Boston we developed conversation group leader guides that we use today. A number of our volunteers are former students who wanted to stay connected with our community. Many of them help with the lotteries, which we have in the fall and the winter when 600 students show up for 60-70 slots.

EB: In your opinion, what are the key components of a successful program?

CT: 1) Make things easy for teachers. For example, we developed a form for teachers that has the students' names and the total number of hours possible written at the top of each month. Teachers just subtract the number of absences. We put all necessary forms in a large green notebook for each teacher, so instead of trying to collect information from teachers every third night, everything is now together in the green notebook. Now our teachers, who are traveling and have no desk to put things in have everything in one place.

2) Give teachers time to teach. In a part time program you can't start eating up teaching time with too many (nonteaching) tasks. We hired a permanent substitute/tester in the morning and in the evening. It gives us flexibility: if someone calls at the last minute, we have a sub already. And if we don't need a sub we always have other program needs.

3) Give every student a book. Every student in our program gets a book each semester. We try to see that teachers select the text they feel works with the curriculum. I never tell a teacher what to teach from.

EB: What remains a challenge?

CT: The hardest thing is not having our own space. If we did, teachers would have a place to keep things in a central location. Students could drop in, use computers, and borrow books from a lending library. Another big challenge is outside fundraising. When I ask for funding, I ask for the things that DOE is requiring such as counseling, two-to-one prep time, registration time, and noninstruction time. But then a lot of times outside funders say, "I want to give you money for X or Y only." But the community has always stepped up whenever we've needed anything. Experiencing these things contributes to effective management. The danger as a program gets larger is that you stop seeing students as individuals. Admin istrators should still chat with students in the halls and get into every class at least once a semester to introduce themselves and ask how things are going. You also need to tap into your business community. We were very fortunate to have Middlesex Savings Bank and other businesses do fundraising with us.

EB: What is your advice for new programs?

CT: I think it's hugely important for directors to be connected to the classroom. If, as a director, your background isn't in teaching, you need to get in and actually teach a class, because you need to sense the needs of the students and what the teachers are experiencing. You need to experience the very basic things: where the materials and the copy machine are and how easy they are to access, and what to do when students come in late.

EB: What are you proudest of? What are you proudest of?

CT: Students taking initiative: For example, students held a dance and got the Brazilian American Association (BRAMAS) to sponsor it. Students set up, hired a band, and sold tickets. From the proceeds of the dance, BRAMAS will make a donation to our program to support additional classes. We're seeing students moving into positions of authority. We just had our first student elected to town meeting. To see the students begin to move out and be able to express what has been inside them all these years is tremendous.

Ellen P. Boume teaches citizenship in the Framingham Adult ESL Plus program. She can be reached at ellenboume@hotmail.com