Return-Path: <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id i74JZL118082; Wed, 4 Aug 2004 15:35:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 15:35:21 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <2F5D2098AAA6B44D9984BFEEF2369335011B186B@lstcexchange.linnstate.edu> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Karen Jones" <Karen.Jones@linnstate.edu> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:2798] RE: ESOL Customer Service Skills X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 5470 Lines: 140 New Readers Press has a few materials about workplaces that are developed for ESOL students. They are not a full curriculum, and they are more general than customer service, but they might be a useful resource for your course. There is a new picture-dictionary of sorts that comes with tapes, a beginning English book called something like "At work in the US" and an intermediate book called "On-the-job English." There is also a small reading anthology that tries to put work in a larger context and would fit activities with role maps as well as interpersonal and lifelong learning skills. I think it is called "More than a Job." One thing I might suggest is a few field trips or homework assignments structured to observe how customers and people who are making requests habitually act in the USA; cultural ways differ. Often students I have worked with on workplace English thought they were observing rudeness when it wasn't rudeness by USA standards, just brisk, casual, passing contact. Other times they thought the customer service person should be teaching the customer a lesson, something most native born USA customers are not expecting. "Slow service" is a cultural construct, as is precision in opening and closing times. We also worked on what to do when the customer couldn't understand them - rephrase, write down, use gestures, point to an ad, call a supervisor, etc. "Speak so others can understand you" is an issue even when customers are trying to be cooperative. And we did have to work on what to do when a customer is rude, but helping students distinguish between rude and "that's just how Americans do things" always seemed helpful. Karen Jones Missouri -----Original Message----- From: Melinda Thomsen [mailto:mthomsen@lagcc.cuny.edu] Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 11:38 AM To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:2796] Customer Service Skills We are starting up a Customer Service Skills course for ESOL students. I am looking for curriculum that would be appropriate and with a focus (naturally) on EFF standards. The students are intermediate level, BEST / NYS levels 4,5 & 6. Thanks very much for your help Melinda Thomsen Vocational ESOL Instructor Center for Immigrant Education and Training LaGuardia Community College New York >>> MWPotts2001@aol.com 7/29/2004 8:03:56 PM >>> Colleagues, This is a cross-posting from the AAACE list. The discussion has been focused on the public understanding of literacy. Regie Stites is the author of this post. All the Best, Meta Potts, Moderator 4-EFF List Glen Allen, VA In a recent posting, John Comings notes that: "NCSALL research that is still in progress is providing some tentative findings that indicate that: for some of our students our programs can help them increase their literacy skills as measured by standardized tests but for others we can help them expand and broaden their reading practices. That is, we can help them use their existing skills to more effectively, or even begin to, accomplish literacy tasks that are important to them." John goes on to suggest further exploration of the question of whether two types of services might be needed: one type "builds literacy skills" and "might be better organized around a components-based skill building curriculum" and another type "builds capacity to accomplish (literacy) tasks" and "might be better organized around an EFF-like curriculum." The NCSALL research that John describes will undoubtedly have important implications for adult literacy services, but I think the distinction that John makes between a "skill building curriculum" and an "EFF-like curriculum" needs some clarification. Over the past several years, the EFF Assessment Consortium and the EFF Reading Project have worked very hard to integrate evidence-based research on the teaching of reading (including "component-based skill building") into our guidance for standards-based teaching and assessment on the EFF Standard Read With Understanding. The aim of EFF is to integrate the teaching of skills with the application of those skills to real world tasks. The best "EFF-like curriculum" for reading that I can envision balances a purposeful and contextualized approach to reading instruction and assessment with research-based strategies for skill building in alphabetics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. For more information on teaching and assessment on EFF Standards, see the EFF Teaching/Learning Toolkit at http://eff.cls.utk.edu/toolkit/ and the EFF Assessment Resource Collection at http://eff.cls.utk.edu/assessment/ More detailed information on the EFF Reading Project can be found on the Web at http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/family/eff/effrp.html Regie Stites, Ph.D. Program Manager, Literacy and Lifelong Learning Program Center for Education Policy SRI International 333 Ravenswood Avenue Menlo Park, CA 94025 ph (650) 859-3768 fax (650) 859-3375 regie.stites@sri.com NOTE: This e-mail transmission may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, employee or agent responsible for delivering this information to the intended recipient, unauthorized disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this transmission is strictly prohibited. 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