Hello colleagues, This week we will start a unit on COVID vaccines in my Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education (IELCE) class with ABE-level English learners. As everyone knows, there is a lot of confusion about the COVID vaccines. The learners in my class have safety concerns, and they are eager to learn more about these vaccines.
I recently spent some time reviewing YouTube videos on this topic. The video I decided to use, COVID-19 Vaccine Safety: What You Need to Know (Updated) produced by Denver Health is almost 6 minutes long and was updated on January 27, 2021. This video has a transcript, which always makes me happy since I want students to read and study the transcript after viewing a video.
I also plan to use a video (1 and 1/2 minutes), How do the new mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 work?, to offer learners some information about the science behind these new vaccines.
Let us know what you are hearing from learners about the COVID vaccines and how you are addressing the issue in your classroom.
Take care, Susan Finn Miller
Comments
Susan,
There are a couple of go-to resources I have found helpful for English language learners who are also members of the farmworker community. In recent years, many farmworkers have shifted to working in meat-processing plants, especially turkey and chicken. I have several relatives who are from Haiti who did short-term farm labor and now work year-round in meatpacking plants in North Carolina and Virginia. All of them have caught COVID-19 and have ended up self-treating at home because of the lack of medical insurance. These workers are in great need of information they can understand and use in a practical sense.
One resource is the National Center for Farmworker Health. They put out short readings on many health topics in English with translations in several languages, including indigenous Central American languages. Some of their materials are written as comic books or graphic novels. The link to their website is http://www.ncfh.org/covid_resources_for_ag_workers.html
The other resource is the Rural Women's Health Project, a health justice non-profit. They have a new poster on the COVID Vaccine in English, also posters about COVID-19 in general in English and other languages, including Mixteco. One of their posters announces the arrival of the vaccine in Florida, for example. The link to the COVID resources on their website is https://www.rwhp.org/covid-19-tips.html.
Hi friend! Nice to see you. I appreciate you posting these resources too, because I'm looking to add new resources to our Pandemic page. Here's the link to our page if you're interested. https://tcall.tamu.edu/COVID-AEL.htm Tell everyone who's left over there I said hello. :-)
Hi Susan,
Great information! We have a Pandemic page for students, as well as teachers and I'm going to add these links and your note it so teachers can get some ideas.
Great job!
deb
Hello colleagues, I have found that adult learners in our classes here locally are confused about the COVID-19 vaccines. Accordingly, I have been motivated to address this topic in my advanced English class with learners who have tested out of ESL levels. I'd love to hear what you are hearing from learners about their understanding of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Here's another video I used in my class recenlty, "How Vaccines Work Against COVID-19." Here's a link to an Anticipation Guide students completed in pairs before viewing the video. You'll notice that I also encouraged learners to use academic sentence starters during their conversations.
When using video or audio files in class, I always value also drawing from the transcript for various activities. Here's a link to the transcript for the video which includes the statements in the Anticipation Guide.
Feel free to share your thoughts and your questions about this lesson.
You are invited to share any useful resources you have found on this important topic.
Take care, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, English Language Acquisition