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Articles
Multilingual Resource Guide
Multilingual Resource Guide Website
This Guide is a collection of links to worker training materials such as fact sheets, checklists, and other educational resources that are available online and can be printed to distribute to workers participating in workplace injury and illness prevention programs.
WISH Member Training Materials
ESL
ESL resources for health and safety at work:
New curriculum from NYCOSH: Taking Action for the Workplace
On Friday, July 22, WISH hosted a presentation by Marcia Love, author of the latest curriculum on ESL for action, Taking Action for the Workplace. She demonstrated activities from this curriculum, which was developed with New York COSH (Committee on Occupational Safety and Health).
The book includes activities that are focused on health and safety. For example, Marsha demonstrated an excellent exercise for using a picture to identify hazards in the workplace. This lesson combines sentence building opportunities with examining hidden health and safety dangers in a garment factory. Additionally, she takes on a very complicated topic, workers’ compensation, by creating a pictorial storyline of a workplace injury and the process of filing a claim. There are many other activities, and ways to adapt the activities depending on ESL level.
If any of your organizations are conducting ESL classes, or are considering it, this curriculum presents a unique and progressive approach to this work. Marsha left a CD-Rom copy of this curriculum, which we are happy to distribute to WISH organizations upon request. Though the curriculum was designed for experienced ESL teachers, and English language acquisition is a key objective, the activities are also good for basic health and safety training. To take a look at the preface and table of contents, click here. Contact Valeria Velazquez by e-mail at vvelazquez@berkeley.edu for more information.
ESL RESOURCES
Incorporating work related activities into ESL curricula can be effective because it addresses workers’ needs both in terms of language skills and access to relevant and useful information. This approach speaks to immigrant workers’ daily struggles, with respect to navigating workplace culture through communication, as well as exercising workers’ rights on a practical level. For example, SEIU 1877 of Oakland has conducted ESL classes in which building service workers have had the opportunity to discuss health and safety concerns and ways to improve conditions at worksites (i.e. smaller trash cans, better equipment –goggles etc. that workers would actually want to use, better training on chemicals). Workers can use this forum to enhance their skills and collaborate to improve their situations at work.
- We have compiled the following list of ESL for Action resources. Most of these resources center around worker-focused approaches to ESL curricula. If you or your organization has access to any other resources that other WISH members might find helpful, please pass them along so we can continue to expand this list.
ESL For Action Curricula
- Taking Action for the Workplace: Materials for English Learning Teachers. Love, Marsha. (2005) The New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.
- Teens Working in Agriculture—An ESL Curriculum for High School Students, Labor Occupational Health Program, University of California. 1998 For High School ESL classes in rural communities . This curriculum covers basic agricultural health and safety concepts, designed to be incorporated into high school intermediate level ESL classes in rural communities. The lessons provide a way to present farm safety and health information while building language skills. Materials include: video “Teens Working in Agriculture”, six lesson plans, vocabulary lists, detailed teacher instructions, overheads, and student handouts. Labor Occupational Health Program, University of California, 2223 Fulton Street, 4th Floor, Berkeley CA 94720. Information can also be found at
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~safejobs/links/
- Winning at Work; English for Workers’ Rights. Mar, W., & Webber, A. (2003). Berkeley, CA: Center for Labor Research and Education, University of California. A new curriculum guide for English as a Second Language instructors in both community college and union settings that combines language learning with a detailed discussion of legal protections at work and exercises on how to protect those rights. The three chapters presented here, focusing on wage and hour laws, are a pilot project meant for class-room field testing. The authors would value feedback as they revise and expand the materials in a longer, more in-depth publication
- ESL for Farm Safety: AFOP's Working With English Series. Arlington, VA. Silc, Kathleen Flannery and Beth Outterson: Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, 1997. [Student workbook and teacher's manual] http://www.worlded.org/us/health/docs/comp/Materials/Database/c urricula.0024.html
- Harborside Community Center Adult Learning Program Spanish Literacy and Health Curriculum, Year One. Includes a unit on occupational health and a unit on immigrant rights and health ESL 4 Health Curriculum, Year Four AIDS curriculum. http://www2.wgbh.org/mbcweis/ltc/ebos/intro.html.
- Your Rights at Work: And ESL Workbook. Wong, F. & Kellog, L., (1997) UNITE, New York City
- Make Your Mark Series: Job-Specific English. Grebel, R. & Pogrund P. Contemporary Books, 1997. Intended for students working in food services or health services, in retail jobs or the hotel industry. This book (with tape) will help with necessary vocabulary to work with customers or behind the scenes. http://eastsideliteracy.org/tutorsupport/Work/WorkRes.htm#BookList
- Key Vocabulary for Safe Workplace. Ringle. New Readers Press. An accessible picture-dictionary format introduces vocabulary and helps students recognize even complicated or technical terms and relate them to their own workplace. Reviews warning signs and first aid items, safe use of tools and machinery, health and ergonomics, safety information on labels and tags. Components include a student book, teacher's guide, photocopy masters.
http://eastsideliteracy.org/tutorsupport/Work/WorkRes.htm#BookList
Additional Resources
- Problem-Posing at Work: English for Action. Wallerstein, Nina, & Elsa Auerbach (2004). Edmonton, Alberta: Grassroots Press.
- Working It Out: Interactive English for the Workplace by Ronna Magy. Heinle & Heinle Publishers, 1998. Information relating to looking for a job, communicating with your boss, work schedules and paychecks and safety issues. Contains activities and worksheets. http://eastsideliteracy.org/tutorsupport/Work/WorkRes.htm#BookList
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