ONE-TO-ONE

Limited Language Proficiency as a Wicked Problem (Punti & Henderson Vazquez, 2016).

This specific community collaboration project has not been worked on previously. The Rochester Public Library had been receiving requests about English language assistance from community members, which sparked the idea of an English conversation group. Limited language proficiency is a wicked problem in our community for several reasons:

• Multiple factors play a role in this problem 

  • Education barriers

  • Lifestyle limitations

  • Transportation

• There is no easy solution to this problem

  • Financial support

  • Reaching limited amount of population

Qualitative and Quantitative Research

To tailor our project, we needed to understand our issue. To do this, we conducted some quantitative research and contacted several other organizations;

• Diversity Council of Rochester MN

• IMAA (Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association)

• Public Schools  and Hawthorne Education Center

Once we had a general idea about our target population from this research, we began researching similar programs.

We formulated interview questions and prompts so that we were getting the necessary qualitative information (Litchman, 2013). The goal of this was to better understand how to set up our program, what times worked for the target population, and what subjects to discuss in conversation. Some things we learned:

• Childcare program within facility is helpful as people often bring children

• Evening and day times work best

• Lively tutors work the best

• Sign-up process works well

Organization

Once we had solidified our goal, we worked to set up times. The schedule was as follows:

• Tuesday - 6pm-8pm: Ellie, Philip, and Robin

• Thursday - 11:15am-1:15pm: Emma, Sabrina and Robin

Our team used various books that were related to ESL (English as a Second Language) learning in addition to online resources for ESL learning. These resources provided us with prompts and discussion topics to guide our conversations.

Promotion

While we were in the organization stage, we worked rigorously to promote our program. We did this is several ways:

• Advertised in the Rochester Diversity Council's newsletter

• Constructed reminders/business cards that were placed on desks around the library 

• Created a unique logo to use on promotional tools

• Designed flyers and distributed them throughout Rochester

• Incorporated a running-banner on the library's website with our information on it

Action

After many advertisements and promotional techniques, we finally implemented our program and had our volunteers available for the launch of our first English conversation group. Initially, not many people showed up, but this changed very quickly. Suddenly, we had more people than we ever expected, showing us that there is a high demand for ESL services. Some services that were needed by community members include:

• Addressing pronunciation problemsPractice for the TOEFL

• Familiarization with the United States' culture and slang

• Help with grammar and pronunciation

• Practice for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language)