ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the student-centered, creativity-focused and inquiry-based literacy pedagogy of an intergenerational family ESOL class at a faith-based community center. Contextualized within the center’s long-standing ESOL program, it analyzes how the new class maintained overarching pedagogical commitments while serving the unique needs of a new student population, heavily focusing on building community. The pre-existing ESOL program, initiated in partnership between a local university and the center, first established norms for teaching adults that center students’ desires for learning and critical inquiry alongside language acquisition goals. The Center’s ESOL courses had always eschewed an assimilationist and work preparedness model in favor of a focus on the socially situated nature of literacy and honoring students’ individual practices and strengths. The new multigenerational ESOL class described here extended those pre-existing practices to suit the mixed and multiple literacies of a class of parents and their children approximately age seven and younger, striving to honor the knowledge base of students and their vision of what literacy means for their family. Instructors polled the class frequently to determine curriculum content and utilized modes of creativity and play to make the classroom a space for both adult and child learners. Response to the class from students in year one was strong, as measured qualitatively through student reflections at the midterm and end of year, as well as instructors’ observations during class time. The authors ground the success of this class in the program’s history of inquiry-based teacher mentoring, a student-centered approach, and a pedagogy that encourages creative thinking. This chapter may be of interest for instructors teaching a multigenerational class, or administrators looking to add new programming that fits with their overarching pedagogical principles.
