0:05
Are hosted by Infopeople this webinar is part of the library's helping immigrants series and our topic today is all about USA learn citizenship a free online course before we get started. I'm going to turn it over to Katie as a Vado from the Butte County Library.
0:24
Thank you, Mary and welcome to all of you. Thanks to a California State library library services and Technology act Grant libraries helping immigrants continues to bring library and literacy staff together to explore best practices and providing free support and resources to libraries across the United States.
0:45
Today we are pleased to welcome our friend Andrea Willis director of Internet and Media Services at the Sacramento County Office of Education. She applies more than 20 years of project management experience to ensure that complex technical projects are completed on time within budget and that they meet the unique unique needs of their target audience by pulling together a skilled team of content experts multimedia developers programmers artists and videographers.
1:14
So she harnesses the power of technology to build high quality educational websites online databases and multimedia projects. Her Flagship project is USA learns a free website that teaches English to adults around the world and helps immigrants prepare for US citizenship. She especially enjoys building large scale educational courses that benefit adult Learners across the state the nation and the world welcome, Andrea.
1:43
Thank you so much Katie for that nice introduction. I really appreciate it. So as Katie mentioned, I work at the Sacramento County Office of Education and I have a really fun job here. I get to have the pleasure of working with a team of very smart very talented and creative people and we get to build cool things like USA learns and today I'll be telling you about USA learns ipsum chip, which is our free online course located at USA learns.
2:13
Dot-org and before we move on I'd like to ask Katie just to tell us a little bit about what she does in her job at the Butte County Library. Thanks. So libraries helping immigrants began three years ago. Thanks to a Butte County development block grant we go to the Gridley Farm labor camp in particular, but throughout View County to provide digital literacy to the folks who don't have easy access to broadband. We found the folks there mostly.
2:42
Wanted English and Naturalization support. That was a lot more important for these folks than Excel and Microsoft Word and that was when USA learn USA learns saved my day Andrea. We are so excited. I think that's enough about me. Let's hear about the citizenship course. Alrighty, let's do that. Okay.
3:06
So today we'll be covering a few topics and let me share with you what those are so will be having Overview of the Naturalization interview. I'm not sure how familiar you are you all are with what happens during that interview, but I'll give you some info on that will take a tour of the USA learns citizenship course, we'll talk a little bit about how to make a free teacher account inside USA learns and we'll also brainstorm some ideas about how you could use it in your library.
3:40
All right. So let's let's chat about some basic statistics. So USA learns originally launched in 2008. And since that time we've had 1.8 billion web pages viewed and that's a lot of web pages. If you ask me and we've had 13 million people come to our site to learn English and prepare to become a u.s.
4:05
Citizen and when they come they stay for quite a while on the Folks are there for about 24 minutes which is really a long time in website time. It's kind of like dog years and every day we have about 9,000 people coming to the site and it lives on a server that's just around the corner from my office. We have a team of really smart developers that keep that server up and running 24/7 and USA learns has been accessed by every single country in the world, which I just love that.
4:36
All right, and as you can guess the top states are the border states, Florida, California, Texas, New York, Massachusetts, etcetera and the top cities in California are Los Angeles San Francisco, San Jose Sacramento Stockton Fremont, Fresno Oakland and Sunnyvale probably see her. You just might see your city's name there.
4:59
Okay, so I I often get to go around the nation and present about USA learns citizenship and always feel really proud when I get to go and do that because it's really very special site and people always ask me. Hey, so what makes it so special and I think that what makes it unique is that it helps people prepare for all aspects of the Naturalization interview and it's free and it's very high quality.
5:28
t Okay. So since the citizenship course itself launched in November of 2017 through the end of December we've had about a hundred and seventy-five thousand Learners register in that course and start studying for their naturalization interview and they've completed at this point about two million activities inside our course.
5:56
All right. I think I mentioned earlier the the content inside the citizenship is a very high quality and I say that because it was developed in partnership with expert ESL and citizenship teachers also input from immigration attorneys that the Immigrant legal resource center and program specialist at USCIS. And if you're not familiar with that term, it's United States citizenship and immigration services, and I had absolute pleasure of working.
6:26
At the folks in the education Department's both in Washington DC and here in Sacramento and they were very helpful.
6:35
And the course also utilizes high quality resources the content aligns with the USCIS adult education citizenship education content standards and Foundation skills hoof. That's a mouthful and we also use USA learns best practices.
6:53
And when I say we use our best practices, you know, when you've had 13 million people come to your site, you know, you know where they get stuck what's easy for them what's hard and so over the years we've been able to Refinements to make the navigation very easy make it really easy for them to move from page to page and understand what to do without being computer experts.
7:16
Okay, so let's chat a little bit about what happens during the Naturalization interview and you may have heard it referred to as the citizenship test. I think the Naturalization interview is where the official way of referring to it. And so let's talk a little bit about that.
7:33
So let's imagine that you have your an immigrant and you've applied you want to you want to be a citizen. So when you go to your interview, they're going to ask you several things. Well, first of all, let me kind of set the stage a bit.
7:47
So you would arrive for your USCIS appointment and the officer would go and get you from the waiting room and take you up to his or her office and you would sit there across the desk and the officer would have a conversation with you and do Sets of things so there I ask you questions about your N400 application for naturalization and you may not be familiar with that. So I'm going to try to give you a quick little peek at what it looks like because it's this very long. It's a long 20-page form that asks, really I think kind of difficult questions both from an English perspective and a Content perspective. So it's broken up into Parts part. 
8:33
One is information about your eligibility and asks you questions. Like are you at least 18 years of age? And have you been a lawful permanent resident? I'm going to try not to get seasick here guys, but I'm going to scroll this down just to give you a little more so you'll notice a very long form.
8:51
Information and they ask questions about your contact info and where you live.
8:58
Information about your parents information about your where you work and the school's you attended. They ask you questions about your time outside of the United States. And so you have two folks have to pay attention to when they left and when they entered and they have to be careful not to spend too much time outside of the US or they may not be eligible to become a citizen also questions about your marital history.
9:28
Mystery and we see I'm gonna get down to the part the very famous Part 12, which is the most tricky part from what the citizenship teachers tell me. This is information about you and asks all these have you ever questions. Like have you ever claimed to be a US citizen? And if you say yes, boom your interview is done. You cannot you cannot have claimed that have you ever registered to vote? Hopefully you say no because you're not a citizen yet.
9:57
Anyway, that's a A little peek at at the N400 form. Okay back to the slideshow here. So during the the part of the interview where the officer is asking you questions about the N400 form that you turned in the really trying to determine are you eligible to be a citizen? Are you telling the truth? Do your answers match the ones that you wrote on the N400 application are there are errors in your application? Are there any changes such as a new?
10:28
Dress or a new workplace? Because one of the requirements is that if you move within a certain number days, I think it might be 10 days. You're supposed to notify USCIS so they can get a hold of you. All right, and I'll tell you this and 400 part is the most tricky part of the interview and talking with my citizenship teacher friends. They tell me that is the part that their Learners are most likely to fail because it's very difficult both format language and content perspective.
10:57
Okay, and then the Part of the test that most folks are familiar with is the US history and Civics test. And as you may know there is a list of 100 possible questions that the applicant could be asked during their interview and me. I'm going to show you what that looks like. There are some lovely flash cards. You might have these already in your library the scroll down again will hold your horses. Here we go.
11:25
Maybe I won't there we go. Okay. So questions, like what does the Constitution do right and the applicant needs to be able to answer with one of these possible responses so you can see you know, what is an amendment. And so anyway, so these are great people love the flash cards. If you don't have them you can probably get some from your USCIS office, but I will share with you these questions are all.
11:54
Embedded inside of our inside of our course. And so when it comes to this part of the test basically the applicant will they need to answer six correctly and they'll be asked ten total and it's random which ones they'll be asked.
12:10
Oops, hang on. Let me go back.
12:15
Okay.
12:17
In order to pass the interview. You also need to show that you can read and write in English and you'll need to read one sentence out loud and write one sentence in English and you get three tries at that and there are some official there are two lists. There's one list of possible reading words that you could be asked to read and then there's another list of possible words you might have to write and so let me show you the reading list.
12:43
Okay. So this is this is the list so it's important for our Learners to know how to read all these words. And so we have in very carefully taught these words inside our course and then same goes for writing.
12:58
There is a specific list of words that they need to be able to write and then a big part of the test and also another tricky part that people will often flunk is English-speaking and one thing I learned when I started working on this project was that the the officers assessment of the applicants English speaking skills really begins in the waiting room when they meet their hello. How are you? Did you find parking? Okay. How's the weather that kind of thing? So we also cover small talk in our course and so really throughout the entire interview.
13:39
The officer is assessing the applicants speaking abilities and Speaking English can be tricky right because it's involving listening. They need to be able to listen understand what they're hearing and then be able to respond appropriately.
13:54
Okay, so that that kind of gives you a sense of what's on the test and I wanted to show you that so as I'm showing you the course you will have a better sense of what we have done to help Learners prepare for that interview. So let's take a tour.
14:10
Okay. So here I am on the homepage for Learners at USA learns dot-org and let's say that this is my first time coming here. Let me I bet you can guess what button I'm going to click on right? Oh, will you think? Okay. How about I would click on this start now button and I'm going to fill out a really easy little registration form. And it basically we just collect first name last name email address and then we have them create a password.
14:41
And next time I come I'm going to click the sign in button for my first time. I would hit start now and in order to make it so you don't have to watch me fumble around and type my password wrong in front of all of you. I have already logged in. So here I am on the my home page and we have the citizenship course, which is this one right here and the one we're talking about today, but we also have four other English courses and maybe some other time I can give you a little tour of those but those are also very popular.
15:10
But for now, let's just start here in the citizenship course. Alright, so here we are on the unit menu. And as you will see here, we have four units the steps to becoming a u.s. Citizen the N400 interview practice Civics reading and writing practice and your interview and new citizenship.
15:37
So I'm just going to give you a little sampling of some of the some of the activities in the site Okay. So here we have our or on our lesson menu page and we have some activities about becoming a citizen and the first steps to doing that and some ideas on how to be prepared. So let's check it out.
15:59
Okay, so we have these nice welcome videos that I'm not going to play today because I don't think it will come across very well through a webinar.
16:11
But if I will so imagine I hit play We would hear Jean talking about the course and I you'll notice I just click the read text button and up Pops this transcript and she's giving them a little introduction and telling them about what's In this course. All right. So while we're on this page, let me show you my very favorite button in the whole course in a whole website really it's very simple. It's next so I can hit the next button a whole bunch of times and without being a computer genius. I can make it through the whole entire course by clicking that button. Okay. So one thing you'll notice is that we have lots and lots of listen buttons and we've done that because listening is such a critical part.
16:58
Part of that interview, right? We need people to be able to hear and understand what the officer is asking of them. So if I were to click this button, which I'm not it would just read this out loud. So in this lesson, you will learn about the reasons to become US citizen and the requirements for becoming a u.s. Citizen. Okay. So let me show you my second favorite button. It's this button right here the words on the button change, but it always basically behaves the same way each time.
17:26
It always takes me back one level, so I want to Back to that menu page. Okay. Boom. That was easy. Right? So between those two buttons our Learners can make it through the whole entire course and go wherever they want to go. All right. So, let's see here. So here we have some info about why become a u.s. Citizen and so we have a nice little video that we've created about that and so here are some introductory info about some of the benefits of becoming a citizen.
17:58
And I promised I promised my friends I wouldn't actually play the video. So I'm just going to fast forward and show you a few things here so you can stay in the United States.
18:11
There's some of the benefits you can reunite your family, etc. Etc. So you have to check out the videos on your own. Okay, I'm going back. Okay. So one thing we have is lots and lots of vocabulary words because as we were glancing at that N400 form, you saw there were some pretty complicated words in there right and people need to know to start with, you know, am I even eligible because it's not cheap to apply and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of stress.
18:41
So we want people to know am I even eligible right? So let me show you some learn keywords that we have in this section.
18:50
So we have hundreds and hundreds of vocabulary words with definitions and sample sentences this one for example, you know, so USCIS stands for United States citizenship and immigration services and the sample sentences the USCIS office will process your application for citizenship. Now if I were to click this button, we would hear the vocabulary word.
19:15
Naturalization, these are not easy words, right? I mean if you're a rather new to the country, these are not easy words, but there's some of the first words you need to know if you're going to apply so we have words like naturalization and at least and one thing I'll ask you as we're looking through here. I want you to kind of pay attention to all of these images that are in here. I was the queen photo Searcher for all these images and it's really really fun to find those images for about one hour.
19:45
Then it's not that fun anymore because there's just so many of them and a lot of them are very difficult Concepts to show visually like requirement. How would you show that right? Well, that's what I did. I did the little checkbox thing. Okay.
20:02
So I'm going back. Okay, so we also have lots of multiple choice type questions to make sure till that people check their understanding right? So here we are. So the instructions say choose the correct answer. None of these people are married to an American citizen.
20:23
Okay, so which person is not eligible for citizenship and I haven't actually read that in a while, so I'm going to let me see Yolanda Close to her home country every year for two months. Y'all has gone on many trips totaling 35 months in the last five years side leaves us for one week six times a year. Let me see here. I don't know. Let me see. Is that it? Yeah, I got it, right. Okay, good. Well, I'm glad I did. Okay. So right here you see these two stars. That means I got it correct on the first try if I would have answered incorrectly on the first try then I would have only received one star.
21:01
And if I keep if I get it wrong more than the allocated number of tries. I get a message that tells me the correct answer and asks me to click next to move on because we don't want people people to feel too frustrated. Okay. So anyway, you get the idea. All right, let's go to another lesson so first steps. So again, this is going to look familiar to you. Now write the same flow. We've got our learning goals. We've got our various chunks of content.
21:31
At our first thing we have here is about the N400 form. And so let's just take a peek. So here you'll see we have a little introductory info about what it is and we have a link to it. And the reason we have that is because one thing I hear from the field is it a lot of people actually get scammed they go to the wrong website and they pay, you know, five hundred dollars or whatever for a form that is actually free.
21:59
So this is a good place to get get the actual official forum.
22:05
And we have a little info about completing the application.
22:10
And you have to make a copy of it and hang on to it before you turn it in because you may not know this when you go to your interview. You cannot take that copy with you. You have to have studied it and remember all of that info that you wrote on the form. Even those tricky details, like tell me the dates that you left and entered the country and a lot of people leave and return many many times.
22:35
Okay.
22:37
And we have some info about the cost and the cost is you know, it changes and so I didn't want to have to be chasing that number and changing this site all the time. So I just have a link to the USCIS web page where people can find that actual cost. There is financial assistance. There's a fee waiver. I have a link to that.
22:59
Okay, and then here we have some questions to check their understanding.
23:05
Okay, let's see and then a little bit about Biometrics and basically meaning getting your fingerprints done and your photo taken and I think submitting some other papers. Okay, so let's continue on okay, and of course we must be prepared. So we have a thing in here about how can I study because there are various resources for studying and of course, we always pitch USA learns and the USCIS website.
23:35
Site has some really wonderful educational materials in their study for the test section that we highly recommend.
23:45
Citizenship and English classes at a local adult school is wonderful.
23:54
As our resources found at your local library, we always pitch the library because we love libraries and I will share with you. Sometimes people say to me how my students don't have a computer. And so we often tell them go to your library. That's a great place. So so we're sending them to you guys. I hope you like that. Okay, so we have a section here about you know, do I need legal help? We had a lot of involvement from The Immigrant legal resource center. And so they had some great.
24:24
Points, they wanted us to communicate with people because there's so much fraud that goes on and so many people accidentally get themselves into legal trouble.
24:34
So we have a whole thing on red flags and I don't know if you're familiar with that term red flags, but let me just give you a little peek. So a red flag is basically if you answer yes to certain questions on the end 400 then it means you really should get some qualified legal help and we're going to not watch that video.
24:56
Okay, and then Avoiding fraud is really critical doesn't this guy just looks like he wants to scam you he does and there are a lot of people out there that are taking advantage of our immigrants, you know, taking their money giving them no service or even doing things to get them in legal trouble. So, so anyway that we have a big pitch in here about avoiding immigration fraud and let me see if I can just show you a couple little pieces of this thing.
25:27
Okay, there's one called the 10-year green card. Scam. You don't want your people falling for that one. Basically they say if you've been in the US for 10 years or more you audibly automatically qualify it for a green card and that is not true. There's a credit card scam where they say. There is someone on the phone calling from USCIS and there's a problem with your application and you need to pay them money with your credit card. But again not true don't fall for it.
25:56
Okay.
25:58
Let's continue on all right clicking the unit menu. I wish I could see your faces and see if you have questions but I'll just assume you're all still awake and I'm hopefully providing you some helpful info. Okay, so gives me Andrea on that point. I will I want to remind folks that they can put a they can type in a question anytime and we can address it right there on the spot. Excellent Katie and reminder. Yeah. I did have a question come in. Oh, well, was it is it now? Okay.
26:29
How do you recommend we implement this instruction? Should we go through the website with the measure doing with us? What is the best practice for teaching this participants? Yeah, that's a really great question and I will share with you that if in my in my slide deck here in a few slides, I have some ideas on how you could use it. But I think if I were in your shoes, I would probably want to get familiar with the course itself myself.
26:58
And then once I felt comfortable with it, I think I would probably sit down if I'm doing with one less. I have one person. I'm trying to help I might sit down and see you know where their interests are what parts they think they want to study and then do a little bit together and they could do some at home do some on their own but nice thing it's a really flexible model and you can do it.
27:19
I just about any way that works for you and your learner's And Andrea if I can I will follow up on that. Please do because I'm actually going to talk about that in a couple of minutes to that person, you know, your learner best whether you have 1 5 or 10. I have actually gone Page by page with Learner's people who are practicing for citizenship.
27:45
I have done this with small groups where they're all on a like two or three computers going at one time and we're all looking at the screens together I have Presented to a classroom of 15 people where we went through things one at a time. They had their own computers. I was presenting up above both one of the best things I think about USA learns is that flexibility because you really can adapt that to your learner your group your situation anytime. Perfect. That was very nicely said Katie. Thank you. And I love when Katie's on a call with me because she's like a real live person in the library doing this.
28:23
I'm just like the project manager Geeks sitting in my office. So I love I love to having Katie be a part of this conversation. So thank you. Okay. So here we are in the N400 interview practice. And as I shared with you, this is probably the most difficult part of the whole interview and it's the thing that really makes this course a shining star because I don't really think this is available anywhere else and it's free. So hey, how can what can be wrong with excellent and free?
28:53
Okay, so we're going to just pop around and I'll show you a few things in here. So here we have a section called questions and short answers because the interview is all about the officer asking some questions and the applicant giving some short answers, right?
29:07
And so we want to make sure people are really comfortable with things like question words, like who what where when and why because if your fuzzy on those words and they at the officer asks you a question and you can't remember if what which one if you let's say you get confused between what and what Are your answer is not going to be correct? And they're going to realize who this person doesn't really speak English. Okay, so we have some nice stuff on the question words. Lots of listening activities the instructions say select. Listen choose choose the how question you here. Let's see. I can't remember what the question is, and I'm told audio doesn't come across well and webinar so I won't push it. So let me just guess me.
30:35
Andrea we've lost your audio.
30:49
Let's give her a couple seconds. Yeah, we're not hearing you Andrea. I don't know if you're hearing us.
30:58
I think she's rebooting. So I'm going to go back for just a second while we're waiting for her. Oh, here we go. Okay, we'll talk for you. Thank you because I am obviously an advocate of this program. So as Andrea can forward through her slides because I do not have that control.
31:22
Taking the tour again. I definitely depend on the audience for how I present this information.
31:33
Let's see what we get next.
31:38
I'm so sorry. Thank you all for your patience.
31:43
When you sit down with your learner, the first thing that they do is create their account using an email address. That could be the very first time. Your learner has created an email address sidenote digital learns by a la gives a step by step instruction on how to do that.
32:02
It's a great resource to hold on to After they fill that in I always remind people they can use any name on the planet. I will help just I will walk them through creating their own email account. They do not have to tell me their real names. I find I do work mostly at a farm labor camp and a lot of these folks are a little bit hesitant about about internet and about privacy and about security. So I try really hard to be respectful of that when when we're creating this account.
32:33
When they go through answering these questions.
32:36
They are able to really practice what it is. They're doing along the way so I asked Andrea to mention to you the Small Talk part our USCIS community resource officer.
32:51
Really presses on the importance of having some sort of conversational English when they come in like Andrea said earlier when they walk into the room. Well, what's the weather like did you have problems parking there? Just looking at that adeptness so often people think all they need is the 100 questions and to know the answers to all of those but it's not the case. I think that when they're learning the history of our country the civic's of our country.
33:19
It makes for a more well-rounded American To be honest, it's bringing people in most of them want that but if they don't they'll tell you all they want to do is practice their hundred questions and when you say to them because you're practicing name to Native American in to Native American tribes. This would help Angie. Are you back? No, I'm sorry with my co-workers headphones. Oh, good. Good. Good. Well, I'm going to finish you quick.
33:45
So you will you will encourage them to answer those questions as best they can and just find them they have to understand what those things are. The other thing that USA learns does that I really appreciate with their citizenship practice is going through that application. It's really important that folks do understand what those terms mean it case they get a question about what do you think about genocide? What is that? Give me an example something like that. Those are questions that we'll just in conversation come up with the person who is hosting their their interview process.
34:20
Okay, I hear me. Yes, we can. Thank you, Andrea.
34:28
Oh, okay, and I will when they go through this program also, I'm not quite sure where we will be in the presentation. But I want to encourage you to look at the app that goes along with this program. A lot of times people have this misunderstanding that a phone and a computer are the same. I think we realize there's a difference different kind of maneuvering different kind of way.
34:57
It through things in addition to all the programming but the app is brilliant folks can stand in the grocery store line and practice their citizenship skills. They can go through nap time with their little children and read things and practice things and have it at all times the app is of course free and they can download it through their app store which is possibly something you as the provider or the tutor would offer folks showing them how to get that.
35:29
What else can I tell you I'm kind of trying to look ahead at the slides. I don't want to go too far. So if you have a phone in front of you pull it out take a look USA learns, you'll see the Insignia you'll see the very low go I have it on my phone and when I'm working with people again at this Farm labor camp, I will pull my phone out and just start start working with them.
35:57
Okay, there's still there's still settling things. I think I would I would like you to know also, you can really do this anywhere whether you're in your library with one person at a computer with many people in a group or with for themselves at home.
36:24
It's going to work for everybody wherever they are.
36:28
One of the questions Andrea asks us is if you sorry I'm getting distracted a little bit too. When you go to the as we go one quick the phone number call Button. What is that?
36:46
Mary Ellen, yeah, we are hearing me right now, Andrea.
36:54
She doesn't hear us. I think that's the problem. Yeah.
36:59
Looks like she's going to switch over to to the phone so that should this so. So going back to the one question that we had was how do you use this? I will tell you and you will see a little picture here. I did start this as a grant to provide digital literacy. Most of the folks didn't want to learn how to use a computer. They wanted to learn how to use English how to become a citizen. I'm fit into their Community confidently.
37:28
So I take a van on the road. I have a charging station. I have 17 laptops in it that get charged up as I drive there I go out to this camp and any Outreach location. I can if you were invited to a public park you could bring a laptop on a laptop your hotspot charge it up and show people how easy it is to use this this program anywhere from anywhere else. Yes hear me Katie.
37:57
Hear me? Yes. I'm okay. Thank you. Lord had said approach. Thank you all take it away. Okay, I shall thank you. Okay, I think we're back in business gotta love technology sometimes right? Alright. So here we are. We were talking about question words and verb tenses and let me pop back up here. Okay. So you'll recall the N400 form. We looked at you've got things like contact.
38:27
Vo people need to be able to talk about and understand questions related to their phone number like you might be asked. What is your daytime phone number? What is your evening phone number?
38:40
You get the idea. All right, and then one thing that the teachers tell me that their students just absolutely love our these stories. For example, we've got Carla's story and you know, we have some information about her and where she lives and then we go to the next slide and we listen to the question. And here we are asked.
39:05
How will Carla answer the question I think it might say What is your Or what is your address? Yay. So, there we go. There's my address.
39:15
All right, and then at the end of each lesson will find a self assessment where we were asked some questions and we with these we've tried to create an atmosphere that feels a lot like the real interview, right? So they watch a question and they have to speak the answer because one thing people aren't really used to is having an officer like right in front of them and talking directly.
39:44
Lie to them, so we tried to recreate that as closely as we can. Okay. We also have a learning log. And with this we go through and we click all of the words and skills that we've learned after studying this lesson. So click click click click click done. If I click more than 80% of the boxes it I get a message the something like good job.
40:05
You've answered two questions correctly move on to the next lesson, or if I get less than 80% a message comes up that says something like You've learned a lot, but you might want to do this unit again.
40:19
Okay, let's take a peek at one of the more difficult ones. So there are questions about memberships and associations and war crimes.
40:32
Difficult words like persecute and the learner might be asked questions. Like have you ever persecuted any person because of their race religion national origin social group or political opinion wolf and let's say the learner says no because a lot of people talk to their friends and they learn that really should just say no to all those have you ever questions, but the officer can come back and say, oh really, so what does persecuted mean?
41:00
And the applicant needs to be able to explain it to some extent. So the officer knows they didn't just say no. No. No, it's all of those genocide. Were you ever involved with genocide torture? Were you ever involved with torture? So these are very difficult difficult words difficult Concepts and emotionally difficult for people who have experienced any of these kinds of things to military groups.
41:27
And then we have a section on illegal activities because if you've ever if someone has in fact had trouble with the law in the past, they need to be prepared to talk about those things. So here we have learn keywords. Let's look at some of those words commit a crime or offense. Have you ever committed a crime or offense? Have you ever been arrested? Have you ever been cited? So anyway lots of difficult vocabulary that people need to know?
41:57
Here's another one of those stories that the students like so much. This is Paul's story. He was arrested for DUI. So the Learners read the read the the excerpt here and they listen and then they click next and then they have to decide. How will Paul answer the question.
42:16
Okay.
42:20
Let's take a look at our next unit which is civics reading and writing practice. Okay, so you'll remember I talked about those flashcards earlier. And when we first started working on this project, the the writer that I was working with she and I said, okay. Well we need to decide how to kind of structure this unit. And so we took those flashcards and we had a big long conference table.
42:49
We made all these little piles like oh, look, here's a question about geography. And here's one about early America. And here's what about the Constitution etcetera Etc. And that's how we came up with this structure here. So let's just take a peek at one of these as an example the geography one. So we're going to have to learn some keywords the border and we've got a nice little graphic that shows a red line for the Border.
43:14
Coast River etc, etc.
43:20
And then we have meaning match where we have the image and various answer options. So, let's see what this one. We're supposed to read the definition and select the correct word. Okay, so a country that is part of the us but is not a state. Hmm thinking I'm going to pick territory. Yeah, I got it, right.
43:40
Okay, so then here's another little sampling here. We have a nice little piece on find your state capital. So we have this table with all the states and all the capitals and people need to know their own States Capitol. So that's good.
43:55
And then in talking with the adult ESL and citizenship teachers as we were planning this project they they said well, you know students really get confused about the words name and state because you know English is such a tricky language and whilst we might say, what is your name? But we also might say name your state, right? So a lot of students will when this question comes up name your state they'll say their own.
44:25
So I might say Andrea. So anyway, so we intentionally teach this tricky wording and same here. What state do you live in or state your name? Oh my goodness. English is just so confusing. I tell you okay, and then we have these nice Civics questions. So, you know, the more ways we can teach this content the better right? Sometimes we do it in text. Sometimes we do it in video. Sometimes we do it is listening.
44:56
All right, so we have all these nice videos that we were able to use from the USCIS website.
45:02
All right. So you'll recall that I mentioned earlier that during the Naturalization interview folks need to be able to read in English. So here we have a piece where we try to get as close as we can to the Reading part of the test. So here I would I would listen I would click this button and I would hear largest state and another button pops up and then I record my voice and then I get to hear the two.
45:32
The native English speakers followed by my voice and I get to listen and see how close did I get? Hopefully I got pretty close. Where is the largest state? And so you'll recall I shared with you that list of reading words. Well, we've done our best to make these sentences use those reading words.
45:51
Anyway, that is reading all right, another little thing here. I'll show you is the writing practice. So when applicants actually go for the test, they're going to be given a tablet. It's basically I think it's like an iPad and a stylus and the officer will read a sentence out loud. And then the applicant needs to write it using the stylus.
46:20
And since we're a computer, we can't really have people do it like that. The closest we could get on a website is to basically we use our dictation template. And this one here if I were to click the listen button, I would hear the United States. Okay, so I need to type indicted.
46:41
Okay. So let's say I do that and punctuation counts. We want them to use capital letters and periods and all that as needed. So I hit check and then I'll man there I got it a little bit wrong. So I have to fix the read write read is wrong here.
46:55
So United capitalizes swim States Okay. We'll see how I did.
47:05
Yay, I only got one star but now I see all black letters. So that means I got it, right.
47:11
So so really if your if your learner's can successfully do our writing activities, I think they'll do really pretty well when they go to the actual interview because we're really tough graders.
47:25
Because it's a computer. It's either right or wrong.
47:29
Okay.
47:32
All right, so let's move on here. So and we also have a bit here of things that happen, you know from the moment you arrive at your interview. We teach the vocabulary word about going through security and directions in a building and in the waiting room because we want people to feel comfortable when the officer says, you know, remove your keys from your pocket put your put your things in the tray that kind of thing. All right.
48:02
We talked earlier about the importance of small talk. We have a whole thing on small talk and meeting and greeting.
48:12
And about starting your interview swearing in what does that mean?
48:19
Remain standing please remain standing raise your right hand and swear or affirm.
48:28
Okay. All right, and then some information about what happens after the interview if you successfully pass your naturalization interview, you'll get a letter and be invited to go to the ceremony which is actually required. Some people don't know that and then once you're a new citizen, you can do the exciting things like a register to vote and apply for a passport update your record sponsor families, and that kind of thing.
48:56
All right, so that's Is it little peek at the course itself?
49:01
And now I want to continue with our lovely presentation here.
49:09
So I always love when I get to go out and talk with people who have used this course before so Jennifer Galley already is a US citizenship teacher who is very well known in the field and I love this quote from her in which she says, I'm not aware of another free resource that is this in-depth and prepares applicants for all aspects of the Naturalization interview. I just love that.
49:33
Okay. So now keeping an eye on the clock here. One of the things I would like to share with you that I think is super cool is that USA learns has both a learner side, which that's what we've been looking at until now and there's also a teacher side so you can in about one minute create your own free teacher account in USA learns.
49:56
So basically it just involves going to USA learns dot org slash teacher and clicking the big red register button and there you'll fill out a form basically just with your email address. And your first name and your last name and your Alias that just means you know, how do you want your students to see you like mrs. Smith or Sally or whatever and then, you know your country and agency type if you're working in a library would pick library and then you make a password.
50:26
Okay, so that's all easy.
50:29
All right. So then you arrive to your my home page and you and the first thing you do when you're right here. It's going to look kind of blank like this and you're going to click on the start a new class button because what you want to do at this point is start a new class. So we cleverly named that button. You're going to name your class title, whatever you want English 101 or whatever and then based on course, that's a drop down menu.
50:54
And if you want to have a citizenship course you would click on that and then you would select USA learns to Ship write a little description doesn't really matter how amazing that is. Just write something there and pick a start date today is always a good day. And I suggest that you don't put an end date because on the end date your class will end and you know what that happen because I know I can login.
51:17
Okay. So here is a very cool part. This is the magic that connects to you the teacher to your learner's. Okay. So each each of these classes that you've created has a class key. It's an eight digit thing and that's the number or the the series of letters and numbers that you want to share with your learner's. Okay. So now let's imagine I'm a learner. I'm your learner. I've made my account I'm logged in and I am going to take that key you gave me.
51:47
Going to click this link. I'm going to enter it. I'm going to click enroll now. Boom. We are connected when you login you can see lots of stuff about what I have done. You can see how many times I tried to do each activity the complete the date. I completed them how much time total I spent doing H1 and my scores and some activities don't have a score. For example, you don't get a score for watching a video is either complete or not complete.
52:16
Okay, so based on what you've seen so far. I'm curious how you all might use this course in your library since I were not in the same room when I can actually ask you that I will share with you what some folks are doing for example, Katie.
52:33
How are you using it? Okay. I've I actually shared this part. I told the folks that I definitely don't know I did because I couldn't move your slides ahead. I just I miss I miss Paris when I miss this part when I was running around frantically trying to find someone to help me. That's right. Okay, I will tell you again. We do take it on the road as can you and do the ads bother the Learners know it helps when there was a comment about some of the advertising that pops out. Oh, yeah.
53:02
Oh, yeah, that makes it free that makes it free exactly how we try to keep I will share with you about a little history on the ads. We didn't have ads for a long time and I was getting to the point where I couldn't afford to run the site anymore and I was just about ready to have to unplug it. I said, okay, I don't want ads but I don't want to lose this resource either.
53:26
So we've been very careful about where we put the ads we try to put them down at the bottom or on the side and I would imagine some of you have probably gone to websites where you see they try to trick the people, right they put ads they mix ads in with the learning content. We don't do that. So the thank you for your patience with the ads but they are definitely what enable us to keep this thing up and running, right? Okay. So now the photograph that you did just see was the camp that I was referring to I loves I'm happy so cute. It is suck on it. John Steinbeck lived there back in the 30s when he was writing Of Mice and Men and that bill.
54:02
Jean-Louis shambles is still at the camp. Oh, that's really amazing. Yes. So that's that's a reason to come to Butte County. I suppose that totally is a reason well, thank you for sharing that story. Absolutely. Okay, so I'm watching the clock. So so one thing in your library, I'm not sure how many of you already have a citizenship corner. But if you don't you might want to consider getting one and at some point if you want to reach out to Katie, I bet she could give you some ideas on doing that.
54:32
One idea is to have the you know, the print materials like folks are used to having but wouldn't it also be nice to have a computer sitting there with headphones and a microphone so that your learner's could use USA learn sitting right there in the citizenship corner or in another place to and as libraries are preparing for their citizenship Corners. There's certainly a nice link that people can put on their websites and on the computers themselves and their computer Banks. That's a great idea.
55:00
Another thing that I'm told folks are doing in library sister using USA learns in small groups or one-on-one and Cadia you mentioned a minute ago that that was something you had you had done with your folks.
55:13
And you can use it in a flipped or Blended model where the learner study online at home and then you provide some in-class instruction.
55:24
Tutors can set up a teacher account. That's what I keep wanting you Library people to do is have your tutors set up great teacher accounts and then you know, the Learners can study at home and then when they get together, you know in a face-to-face kind of setting they can go through and see where the learner got stuck where they have questions. And that kind of thing. I'm going to add one quick comment on YouTube is a lot of times when people are studying they're taking an easy way. They're getting things incorrect, but they're not going back and re learning.
55:53
Practicing those specific skills again with your teacher account. You can review that and in the setting where you're working with that person you can ask was there something that you didn't understand. Is there something I can help you with and it gives you the insight to their success. That's really great. I love that. Well, thank you for your thoughts on that Katie. Okay, so I wanted to give you just a bit of Insider scoop on some cool things that are happening with USA learn.
56:20
So first of all, as I mentioned earlier we have For English courses. One of them is really quite new called English 1 plus and it's based on the videos from voice of America's let's learn English series. I'm not sure if you know that one, but it's really great. So anyway, that's exciting. We it's a beginning High intermediate low course. I invite you to check that out.
56:42
Okay. Also USA learns citizenship was partly funded by a grant that we got a while back from the California State Library. So I always like to say thank you to our friends over there for helping make this possible another little bit of Insider info. USA learns is optimized for computers and tablets. Lots of people do it on the phones, but they're very best experience is going to be on a computer or tablet another little tidbit we have for free apps or called USA.
57:11
They learn English and they really support the vocabulary and listening that go along with our first English course, and another thing people ask me about a lot is do students need an email account and the answer is yes and Am I I'm really telling people that you know, getting having an email account is a digital literacy skill, you know, if you're going to apply to be a citizen you needed an an email address and I'm Gmail is a good easy one to get so it's worth helping folks get that if they need that help.
57:47
Okay. Also, we are in the process right now of creating a very Innovative and exciting course called Access America and it will help immigrants integrate into the u.s. Society. So it teaches English and simultaneously covers, you know, the Civic linguistic economic and local integration topics, you know how to get a job how to find somewhere to live and it's built in partnership with USCIS.
58:16
All right. So I think we're at the point in the presentation where I'm curious if anybody has any questions that we might answer and I would like to encourage all of the people who are participating at this time to on the next slide. We're going to give you our email addresses and I will encourage you to write those things down take a look at those. You've got the presentation available to you.
58:39
Andrea is the next slide our email.
58:42
It is there we go. There we go. Well either I'm speaking on behalf of Andrea. I know she always responds to questions. I always respond to questions and the whole point of the grant that brought all of us together today is to provide all of you out there resources. USA learns is an amazing resource while we're waiting for your question. I know we've got one minute.
59:04
I also provide resources with anything you can imagine with partners with Book lists to buy or suggest and go from there. Yeah. Katie is an amazing resource. I'm just so pleased with everything you've done Katie going out there and you know providing these types of resources to libraries that will help immigrants because that's what your project is all about. And that's great. It's been a great great partnership Andrea. Thank you. We have a question coming in.
59:37
Don't be shy we have no questions because I think you were so thorough and fabulous that you answered the questions. We do have some wonderful comments. This has been one of the most informative webinars. I have been a part of thank you all and lots of sweet. Thank you. Ah, here we go real quick. So are there any copyright issues was teaching this course at the library?
1:00:03
No, teach it, please.
1:00:06
Okay this question. Yeah, and okay. Well do this one more before we wrap up. Is there imbedded info about where to get legal help if it is needed contact me call Katie Katie knows a lot about it. That's we also have some sorry idea. I was just going to say we also have some nice videos that talk Jin kind of generically about how to get it. But Katie might have some specifics.
1:00:33
I do. I want to share them good. Okay, like I said, we have lots of thank yous pouring in but it looks like those are all the questions. So thank you for joining us. It was really a really truly a pleasure to talk with you all. Thank you for taking time out of your day. Thank you and Jo and another thank you for me. Great.
1:00:56
Thank you both and for our audience everyone who registered and attended today's webinar will receive a follow-up email to Morrow that includes a link to the archived recording of This webinar as well as a link to a certificate of attendance. We also have a short survey you'll see after you close out of the webinar, and if you could please take a few minutes to fill that out it helps us in planning future training. Thank you again everyone and we will see you at our next webinar. Thank you all bye. Thanks. Bye guys.
RE-GENERATE TRANSCRIPT
SAVE EDITS