An ELL Collaboration between Moraine Park and Fond du Lac School District

Written by Amy Jacobson, ELL Instructor on Moraine Park’s FDL Campus

This spring, Amy Jacobson, a Moraine Park ELL Instructor, enjoyed a beautiful cultural celebration at her student’s daughter’s quinceañera. While there, she connected with the daughter’s K-12 English Language Learner (ELL) teacher. As the two instructors watched their students celebrate together, they recognized an opportunity for collaboration.

In June, staff from Moraine Park Technical College and the Fond du Lac School District began meeting regularly to identify needs that could be met by working together. The goal was set to build collaborative partnerships between Moraine Park and the Fond du Lac School District ELL programs to provide education and support to our growing population of English language learners in the community.

One of the needs initially defined by the Fond du Lac School District was to increase parent involvement at the K-12 level. ELL families in the district were surveyed, and an ELL class for parents of K-12 students was developed. The content of the class would include the English vocabulary needed to better understand the school experience and increase participation in school events—such as open houses, parent conferences, etc.   

Based on the survey results, the class is being offered at Chegwin Elementary School in Fond du Lac on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30 – 3:00 pm. The class is open to all MPTC ELL students, though the content is most useful for K-12 parents. The class will run from September through December. 

The next steps for the collaborative group include defining additional goals, including the expansion of this program into additional schools and school districts within the Moraine Park Technical College District. 

For more information, visit morainepark.edu/academics/ged-and-adult-education/english-language-learners/.

Our ELL GED class is up and running at the West Bend campus! In our ELL GED class, students are given the option of preparing for and taking the GED tests in English or in Spanish. All five GED tests are offered in both languages.

“I want to get my GED because I want a better job and it’s good for me personally,” said Apolinar, an ELL GED student on the West Bend campus.

Preparing For the GED Tests

As with our regular GED program, students choose an area of study to focus on first. The five GED tests consist of Civics, Social Studies, Science, Math, and Reading through Language Arts. Students choose a topic that they would like to study first. We work through the different units, focus on areas of need, work on test-taking skills, and take practice tests to prepare for the GED. There is a bilingual instructor on the West Bend Campus two nights a week to provide support for students in both English and Spanish. MPTC has study materials available in English and Spanish in the SSC at all three of our campuses. Books and study materials are able to be checked out from the Moraine Park Campus libraries as well. Many of our students choose to study on their own at home in addition to here on campus in order to move through the material more quickly. 

Benefits of Spanish Language Materials

Having the GED test and test prep available in Spanish is a helpful tool for our Spanish-speaking students. By having the content in one’s native language, students are able to show their knowledge base without having to face a language barrier. “I want to take the test in Spanish so I can understand everything. My first language is Spanish and I can understand [the material] better,” Marlene, an ELL GED student. Students are often able to read faster in their native language and with all of the GED tests having time constraints, offering the tests in one’s native language helps in this area as well. 

The SSC on all three campuses helps support our ELL GED students. Spanish language instruction is offered on Mondays and Wednesdays from 4-6 p.m. on the West Bend campus. If you or someone you know is interested in taking the GED in English or in Spanish, please have them contact our ELL Program Support Specialist Tony Rodriguez at 262-306-5302 or arodriquez@morainepark.edu.

David Block has worn many hats here at Moraine Park.  He began working at MPTC in 2011 as an ELL instructor at the Dodge County Jail.  He has taught ELL at the Rosendale Dairy and on the Beaver Dam campus, and he served as the ELL Program Specialist in Fond du Lac.  He is currently our wonderful full-time ELL instructor at the Fond du Lac campus and we are sad to see him retire from his position at the end of the Fall 2021 semester.

When David was younger, he never thought that he would be an English teacher.  According to David, “English was not my favorite subject in school.”  This all changed when he relocated with his family to Peru to do mission work.  There, he served as an administrator and an instructor for a religious organization.  The focus of the mission work was on earthquake relief after an 8.1 Richter scale earthquake caused significant damage to the country in 2007.  He and his young family lived there for 15 years.  His experience moving to Peru with his family has given him great perspective on all the challenges that his students face when moving to a new country.  He appreciates how brave our ELL students are to take on such a big change and to “start a new life where the language and the culture are totally different.”  David “is glad to be a part of their process [to help them] to better integrate into their new ‘home.”’

One of the things that David enjoys most about his job is getting to know his students and learning about their cultures and individual stories. He appreciates being able to connect with so many students from different countries and cultures and to foster friendships amongst his students through English classes.  David has found joy and gratification in “helping students take next steps towards achieving their dreams [and] watching as they stretch their wings and fly.”  And his students are very grateful for the time and support that David has given to them. We asked his students to describe David, and here are some of the words that they used: warm, patient, tolerant, responsible, awesome, and excellent. He must be an excellent language instructor to have taught his students such dynamic vocabulary!

David has been a wonderful leader and mentor to our team of instructors in the Adult Ed. department.  He has been an invaluable asset to Moraine Park Technical College, to his many wonderful students, and to the greater Fond du Lac Community.   We wish him the best in his retirement and throughout the next chapter of his life.

The Ell classes at the Beaver Dam Campus are up and running in person this semester. It is so nice to have the students back on campus! The evening class is very popular and there currently are 13 students attending on a regular basis. We have a very diverse population this semester. We have students ranging in ages from 18 to 74. The students all have Spanish as their first language, but represent many countries and cultures. We have students from Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Guatemala. It is quite interesting to talk about dialect differences, beautiful locations and specialty food from each country.

The majority of the students work all day and come to class at night. They are exhausted, but really motivated to learn English in order to get promotions at work and make life easier here in the United States The students work at a variety of different business such as local farms, a foundry and cheese factories. The teacher, Jennifer Lang, tries to connect the curriculum to their work and daily lives as much as possible in order to keep the classes relevant, instantly applicable, and engaging.

What makes the classes successful is that it is a balanced mix of fun and hard work. The students build an instant community and there is a strong sense of teamwork and comradery. Jennifer gives strong encouragement to the students and reminds them that they are all on a different path and to not make comparisons. She shares many of her embarrassing language learning stories to help put the students at ease and to laugh at their own mistakes. She likes to share the story of how she tried to order two pounds of soap instead of ham. Soap is jabón and ham is jamón-easily confused. As for the two pounds, well, she needs a little help with the metric system.

If you are ever on the Beaver Dam Campus on Tuesday or Thursday nights, stop by and say !Hola! If you are interested in registering for classes, please reach out to Tony Rodriguez at 920-887-4496 or 262-306-5302 arodriquez@morainepark.edu (Beaver Dam and West Bend) or Becky Melo 920-924-6339 rmeloenriquez@morainepark.edu (Fond du Lac).

!Hola!: “O-la” Means “hello” in Spanish.

Meet our English student Eliud Justo. Eliud is from Ixtapaluca, Mexico. He has been living in the United States for seven years.  In Mexico, Eliud worked for Coca-Cola for over 25 years. Here in the United States, Eliud works for the Elbe family at the Golden E dairy farm helping with the milking process.

He has been working on the same farm for the past seven years. Throughout the day, Eliud helps to milk 2,500 cows. That’s a lot of milk! Eliud lives in Fredonia, Wisconsin, and often makes trips to visit family in Sheboygan and Milwaukee. He enjoys eating seafood and highly recommends Tsunami in downtown Milwaukee.  

Eliud has been taking English classes here at Moraine Park for two years. In his job, many people speak Spanish.  He wants to learn English so that he can better communicate with people outside of work and hopes to teach English to others when he retires and moves back to Mexico. He is always encouraging his coworkers to try English classes and to embrace the language.  

If you are interested in classes, please reach out to Tony Rodriguez at 920-887-4496 or 262-306-5302 arodriquez@morainepark.edu (West Bend and Beaver Dam) or Becky Melo 920-924-6339 rmeloenriquez@morainepark.edu (Fond du Lac).

สวัสดี : “S̄wạs̄dī” means “hello” in Thailand!

Meet our English student Suchanat Buckman, known by many as “Kate”.  She is from Roi Et, Thailand and has been living in Wisconsin for a little over 2 years.  In Thailand, Kate worked in jewelry design and designed both her and her husband’s wedding bands.  She is a very talented seamstress as well.  During the pandemic, she has been designing, creating, and selling beautiful fabric masks.  What an entrepreneur!  

Kate recently started a job working at Goodwill Industries pricing clothing.  Her coworkers and managers love her friendly and positive attitude.  In April, she was awarded with Employee of The Month.  Way to go Kate!

Kate  is an ELL student here at Moraine Park.  She has been taking classes here since May of 2019.  Kate also participated in computer classes in our Student Success Center (SSC) with Shannon Huberty.  Using the skills and language learned from these classes, we were able to help Kate apply and interview for her job.  

If you are interested in classes, please reach out to Tony Rodriguez at 920-887-4496 or 262-306-5302 arodriquez@morainepark.edu (West Bend and Beaver Dam) or Becky Melo 920-924-6339 rmeloenriquez@morainepark.edu (Fond du Lac).

Moraine Park Technical College, in partnership with the Specialty Cheese Co., worked to develop a training to benefit employees. Harley Lemkuil, Training Specialist at Specialty Cheese identified a need for English Language Learning (ELL) classes and began seeking out options in 2019. 

“At Specialty Cheese, we treat language skills like any other skill that an employee may possess,” Lemkuil said. “We know that language can be a barrier to personal growth- and lack of personal growth affects company growth. We want our employees to succeed and helping them to build English speaking skills is one way to do that.” 

Lemkuil worked directly with supervisors to identify employees whose English skills were at a point where they could communicate at work but in a limited fashion. Employees could participate if they wished, but the training was not mandated. Once participants were identified, they assessed everyone by asking a series of questions and ensuring that participants were comfortable through the process. Lemkuil then took the data he gathered from employees and worked with Moraine Park’s Economic and Workforce Development (EWD) department to develop an ELL training plan.  

“Moraine Park helped provide good insight into the different learning styles and were very flexible with the training during the Pandemic,” Lemkuil said. “We initially planned for the training to be in-person, but the COVID-19 pandemic halted that possibility. Moraine Park was able to seamlessly transition the learning material to be done over zoom meetings.” 

As with many industries, the transition to an online platform offered some valuable learning opportunities for the organization as well.  

“The online format made it more difficult than usual to keep the employees engaged with grammar material,” he said. “Jennifer Elliot, the Moraine Park ELL instructor, made some innovative changes such as finding a printed publication that included the employees, to heighten engagement. Through that, we learned that the more personal the material, the more likely the students are to engage and practice their grammar skills.” 

The goal of providing this round of training was to help employees who wanted to grow their language skills. For this reason, Lemkuil relied on anecdotal feedback from the employee participants to access effectiveness, rather than testing each participant. However, he is hoping that future ELL programming will include a more subjective analysis of the program.  

Lemkuil is looking at program growth the same way he approached the start of this training- slow, thoughtful, and taking into consideration the needs of employees.  

“It’s very important to not only have the commitment of your employees but to also create an environment where the employees are free to practice their skills,” Lemkuil said. “This is a crucial step in getting the learning process. If an employee uses new grammar topics and is made to feel embarrassed by native English speakers, that employee isn’t going to want to practice their skills ever again.” 

By creating an atmosphere that fosters growth and inclusivity, Lemkuil is opening the doors of possibility for his employees.  

“In the coming years, Specialty Cheese would like to provide this opportunity to all employees who are interested in learning English,” he said. “The goal is to provide a more convenient class location which helps improve attendance to the program. It’s an ambitious goal, but we are confident that this continued training will be a benefit all around.” 

For more information, visit morainepark.edu/training. 

MPTC Electricity Instructor, Gus Boyle-Gustavus, was looking to push her electricity students to think and communicate creatively on the construction site, specifically when working with diverse customers and/or colleagues. Instead of simply reading or discussing this topic in the classroom, she wanted the students to be active in utilizing their intercultural communication skills.

Collaboration took place between Gus and ELL Program Specialist, Tony Rodriguez, to plan an activity where our MPTC ELL students would only utilize their native language to provide a set of directions to the electricity students. Electricity students needed to problem-solve, communicate creatively, and work with their ELL student partner, to understand the directions provided to them in another language in order to complete their assigned task.

There were a mix of emotions as electricity students worked through the language barrier to complete their task. Many enjoyed the experience and cited that they felt frustrated at times that they could not understand. Several students mentioned this experience inspired them to want to take a Spanish course at some point in the future to help them on the construction site. Many students stated that this experience helped them truly understand the barriers that non-native English speakers face, and that they wanted to continue to develop their knowledge and communication skills in the future.

“Tying in an emotional impact to this type of activity will make it an experience we can learn a great deal from and not forget,” commented one electricity student.

For more information, visit morainepark.edu.

This past weekend in West Bend, Moraine Park participated in Fiesta Latina hosted by Casa Guadalupe Education Center.  Fiesta Latina is an event to experience the Hispanic culture through music, food, and activities.  I was able to represent Diversity Relations at Fiesta Latina and enjoyed conversing with many community members, as well as other vendors offering information about community services.  I also had the opportunity to meet and talk with US Senator Tammy Baldwin.

There were many fun kids’ activities such as face painting, games, balloon animals, piñatas, and our own Cosmetology students doing mini manicures.  Many other great activities as well such Latin Zumba, salsa line dancing, and jalapeño eating contest.  Maximus even made an appearance! Special shout out to the Cosmetology students, they did a wonderful job!

I along with everyone else were able to taste authentic Hispanic food, which by the way was delicious!  From tacos and tamales to horchata and jarritos, everything that I was able to taste was phenomenal.  Casa Tequila and the Norbert cooked the delicious food. 

We were also able to listen to mariachi music, see a live performance from Ballet Folklórico Sones Mexicanos, as well as listen to live music from Grupo Masivo Show band and Gigantes de la Música band.

Experiencing these cultural events is essential to bridging our communities and preparing for a diverse and globally connected world.