Thanks to the support of our new intern, Julie McNamara, Mission Graduates will begin offering additional ESL support for parents at Marshall Elementary School. Earlier this year, the Tutoring Center at Marshall Elementary purchased 40 Rosetta Stone licenses for parents to learn English on their own time and at their own pace. During the first semester of the year, however, it became apparent that some parents were not taking full advantage of this valuable resource because they either lacked the necessary computer skills to navigate the program or because they preferred to practice English with other parents rather than with a computer.
As a result, the Parent Partner Program, with the help of Julie and Greg Arias, the Marshall Elementary ELD/Science Coordinator, will begin in January to offer weekly classes for parents that will feature a unique combination computer skills building and English conversation practice. In addition, Julie is helping to recruit volunteers to staff daily open lab hours at the Marshall Elementary Computer Lab (4-5pm, Mon-Thurs) so that parents needing additional support navigating Rosetta Stone will be able to get that help. Please contact Julie directly (julie@missiongraduates.org) if you are interested in volunteering.
Julie is graduating this Spring with a Bachelors in English Literature and Spanish at SFSU. Passionate about education and hispanic culture and relations, she has taught ESL conversation classes in Spain and works to reach out to the Latino community in the Mission through ESL teaching and volunteering for a non-profit newspaper also based in the Mission.