 Okay, so good morning. I'm so tardy. I'm so I this is not like me I'm usually very early, but um, I did not know so many things were gonna happen today, and I'm Hilda Lopez from Santa Clara Public Library in the city of Santa Clara and I'm here to tell you about our little ESL club that we have had now for maybe Three years. I've been in charge of it for maybe Almost two years of that. It was kind of handed down to me Which was a great hand down one of the best hand me downs ever because it the foundation was already set So what I did was just take my ESL class and tweak it to what I wanted it to be And it has now become into this crazy fun 70 plus person a week attendee Program to where I'm thinking now of bumping out our children's program to the smaller room because we need the space It gets so hot in there from everybody yapping. It's great And everybody's walking around and meeting and it's it's fabulous. It's such a great turnout The the only problem with that is that they take their conversations outside into the library I'm like, I'll just keep it down. So it's a great thing, right to have to tell them Please keep it down because you're having too much fun at the library, but that's what we're all about So we have a program a volunteer coordinator who screens All our volunteers that we get in the building for L for all of the library programs and She's already been told heads up that we do prefer to have the native speakers It's what the people want. They've actually come up and told us. Do you have somebody that only speaks English with no accent? I mean Completely understandable. I mean they are there to enhance their English to speak well to You know to hear a native speaker. So now we've we do have some What do I how do I call this some some life or volunteers that do have an accent, but they speak English very well So how can you say no? You can't be in our, you know, we love our volunteers We call our volunteers partners because volunteering sounds like you're getting your hands in there, which they are but they're Partners so what we have is in our community room. We set up these tables eight tables eight seats per table And at 1030 we're already set up I am not a librarian. I am a pair of paraprofessional if I could even say the word and I have an assistant Who also is a library assistant and she helps me with the setup. So now I'm in charge of also Preparing idioms so every day we have an idiom. We present them with the birthday suit idiom or you know You know the grass is greener on that side or whatever and everyone's so interested So the element that I have brought into this is that I actually make them work So we don't have a curriculum, of course. We don't have a Any homework involved ever our only homework is when we do have a potluck? So they are the best potluck. You're like, wow Korean beef tacos. Whoo But they do bring in the best food They pride themselves in bringing something from their countries. So when you can talk about food, that's always a great subject So we set up and prep the tables. We meet and greet the students. We always meet them We don't make them sign up. So I guess in the beginning of our program They did have a sign-up list But sometimes people want to just go somewhere and not have to have that set curriculum like oh god I have to put down my phone number and everything. No, you don't have to it's a it's a first-come-first serve You know if there's space you're more than welcome if there's no space. We have another little separate room where we have the Advanced English speakers with another partner that sits in a separate room because there are different levels So we do have a table that we used to put beginning beginners level We've now I've now said you know what there should be no beginners level because it just makes them feel a little bit inferior So let's mix it up with the group You know if you're gonna learn something you have to learn with people who are at different levels So it's nice to mix it up and it's worked out wonderful in our advanced group What's really nice is that at Santa Clara we have the reading program, which is read Santa Clara the literacy for Adults and so from there I kind of screened them and then I say you know what I think it's time for you to move on Let's get you a personal tutor. Let's get you enrolled in read Santa Clara Let's you know get you you know assessed for whatever's coming up next in your life Whether it's GED prep or citizenship or just helping out your child that with homework And we have had a lot of graduates from the ESL program on to our read Santa Clara, which is what we're there for So we present the idiom or special items, you know library events or you know different holidays coming up or Just different things coming up in children's lives. I know that People sometimes don't read their children's calendars from school since I'm a an old mom with young kids I know that those school calendars can be tricky I know that most of the people thought yesterday all the kids had no school because it's Columbus Day Well, guess what kids do have school. So when I told them last week I said don't forget on Monday take your kids to school. No, no, we have we have they have vacation I said no and so just little things like that. It makes them more aware, which is really nice And then what happens is they sit down with their partners. We also have a Lot of icebreaker games that are really nice Francis my assistant has been we make them bigger size I brought some samples. That's kind of silly. I don't know where I would put them, but they're just like Shoots and ladders type of things we use good old little buttons or little pebbles to do markers for each table And they're questions like silly questions like, you know What was your favorite teacher or what was your subject in high school that you like the best or different things You know, just icebreakers, which are really nice For their tables plus we do some for walking around the room, which is really nice And they start their group discussions and the partners are there to To make sure that that one person doesn't take over the entire table to give everybody a chance Or the partners there also if the table is kind of like a little stale boom you go and you get some Kathy's cards. We have these Kathy's cards, which I also brought or some pronunciation cards We have the atlases that also assist like where are you from Timbuktu? Where's Timbuktu? Let's go get an atlas. They bring the atlas out to the table. We had some Given to us by the friends of the library I had first put in this huge budget that I needed all these things and I did we do need all those things We need the dictionaries. We have The Kathy's cards the pronunciation cards the atlases and those are awesome items to have because when you're trying to meet Someone or tell them where you're from the most exciting thing is talking about yourself, of course So when you someone is able to open that book and say this is where New Jersey is they're like, oh nice You know, oh, I went there and it starts a whole new conversation So we provide them go with just three giant atlases for all the tables because not everyone's going to talk about Where they're from that same day, hopefully and So they start their group discussions and let me tell you at noon We Francis and I will go in there five minutes before and they are like going at a hundred miles an hour And you almost think gosh, I wish I could stay longer, but nope next program's up So they have to leave unfortunately. So, you know, but it's really popular like our colleagues here said but the season electivities is what just I don't know It's just amazing. It even reminds me and it rekindles good memories and it's really nice so you're getting your hands can be dirty but fun and then So, you know last year, I thought, okay, let me ask and see if they want to bring in costumes Oh my gosh, 90 year old women in little devil costumes. I'm like, we scored It was awesome because you don't think people are gonna even consider the option But they do and that's what you know, and it's I don't know It's a bonding time. It really is because those people keep coming back They feel so comfortable. They feel like they're in a club, which they are but it's like a little family club So we have, you know, 72 participants card pumpkins for the first time. We're gonna do it again this year It was such a big hit and I provided no stencils. They all wanted stencils They all wanted to cheat and I said no because when I was a kid We did it just with the knife and maybe a pencil or pen and you're lucky if you got that so Good old-fashioned newspaper laid out on those tables. It takes no No extra money really just the pumpkins I brought all my steak knives from home and ask some friends can I borrow some steak knives? Yeah, yeah, and We did it. They got you know, I showed them a car of your little Thing out put your hands in there. We threw the seeds away. Some people wanted to say I'm like, whatever But it was just so fun and it was beautiful. It really was after that. We just provided some snacks I actually made some popcorn balls. Do not try the popcorn balls Incredibly difficult so messy. It took me like all night to make a hundred And my husband did not appreciate that either Okay, and so winter times come in and of course winter parties and everything. It's super fun What we did I thought you know what? Let's throw the karaoke out. We did the karaoke loved it You would not believe how many people know all the Elvis music. It was amazing We did Christmas Carol and we only did it for 20 30 minutes. Oh my gosh. It was a hit. They didn't want to I mean Karaoke is big. So We didn't do karaoke. We just had the screen. I put a laptop. We did YouTube karaoke It was awesome because we all sang it was it was a hit really fun So try karaoke. It really loosens up those chords and it just gets you going Summer time we do summer picnics I didn't have the tables where we all had it set up because we were so busy setting it up if you do Do the summer picnics outside in the park get help because Francis and I and one more person did it It took us all day, but it was so worth it. It was so beautiful We did it out in this little meadow out in Central Park beautiful and it was it was just nice And there we could stay all day So think of how this is really an improvement and an enhancement for your library if you don't already do it The partners give out ridiculous amount of hours and those are just you know, unfortunately the best statistics for your library ever You don't have to work or anything Yes, and It's just really nice really nice everyone should do it so super easy And I just wanted to say that this year we did get a grant for $35,000 from the pitch the idea and it all came from yes the ESL group Angela O'Connor pitched it for their for our group and we now have an ESL that is a night We are gonna offer it for Thursday nights for an entire year different programming for children families teens All kinds of things and you know what it's $35,000 that we didn't have last year. So it's wonderful Thank you very much