Montebello Community Adult Schools

Montebello Adult School consists of 4 adult schools: Schurr Community Adult School, Bell Gardens Community Adult School, Montebello Community Adult School and Ford Park Community Adult School. They are the 6th or 7th largest community adult school in the state. They have a multi-ethnic makeup that serves approximately 32,000 students. One of their goals is to always show respect for the students and to continue to look at fresh ideas and new ways to teach. Their teachers attend workshops to improve their skills and gain new ones.

In the ESL program, one of the students’ biggest challenges is having the confidence to think they can achieve their goals and learn a new language. So teachers like Phyllis Butland work hard to inspire confidence in their students and bring out the best in them. She tries to determine each student’s area of need and then devise a plan of study to focus on the need, thereby making their educational experience a personal one. In class, the students often do group work or they work in pairs doing problem solving. Phyllis and other teachers in the school take advantage of many opportunities to go out on field trips into the community to learn the language first hand. They visit stores, restaurants, banks, offices and community services to try out their English and listen to someone besides their teacher speak English.

ESL students not only learn the English language, but they learn about American culture too, which is just as important. They are taught the origin of many of our holidays as well as how they are celebrated today. Several times a year, the class will have a potluck with each student bringing a dish from their native country. They share about the dish (in English of course) and whether there is a special significance to them about this dish. In this way students also learn about the environment that their classmates came from and build relationships outside of the classroom.

Montebello Community Adult Schools Web site

http://www.montebello.k12.ca.us/schools/Adult/moa.htm