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Mission Statement
We promote and support the teaching of English to adult immigrants of all nationalities in Northern Virginia and welcome their active participation in our community. |
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Arlington United Methodist Church
Bruen Chapel United Methodist Church
Calvary United Methodist Church
Centreville United Methodist Church
Crossroads United Methodist Church
Culmore United Methodist Church
Dulin United Methodist Church
First Presbyterian Church & Mount Olivet United Methodist Church (joint program)
Grace United Methodist Church
Graham Road United Methodist Church
Lord of Life Lutheran Church
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church (associate program)
Saint Matthew's United Methodist Church
Trinity Episcopal Church
Way of Faith Ministries |
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Greetings from ESLIM
"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens...." (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
As the fall "season" of English classes approaches, hundreds of dedicated volunteers at ESLIM's member programs are preparing to welcome their neighbors and embark on a new adventure in learning. In this issue, you'll find information about ESLIM's upcoming teacher training sessions as well as a website that contains helpful hints for the classroom. You'll also read about a faithful, long-time ESLIM volunteer who recently answered a call to a new season of ministry in his native El Salvador.
Thank you for your interest in ESLIM's mission and for your continued support! |
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Ed Maldonado Moves to El Salvador to Work with Needy Children
by Doug Herbert, ESLIM Vice President and Volunteer at Graham Road UMC
Ed Maldonado, long-time teacher and coordinator of our ESL program at Graham Road United Methodist Church, and his wife Bersy sold their home in the USA in April 2014 and moved to El Salvador to work with at-risk children in El Salvador.
Ed and Bersy are both originally from El Salvador, but have lived in the United States since the mid-1970s. In 2008, on a visit to El Salvador, Ed learned of a small program run by a local minister. The program had begun when the minister saw two children crying on the street at 8:00 in the morning. The young children had had no breakfast and were without any care before and after school because their mother worked long hours. One of the crying children's father had died of AIDS and his mother was HIV+. Ed and Bersy investigated and learned that there were many children in the neighborhood in similarly dire situations.
Ed and Bersy decided to do something. With the advice and assistance of United Methodist District Superintendent Young Jin Cho, Ed and Bersy established a new charity, King's Palace, to collect funds to help feed and care for these needy Salvadoran children. King's Palace now operates a program that enrolls 32 poor Salvadoran children. The program provides meals before and after school, classes in English, and full medical and dental checkups every six months.
As the King's Palace program steadily grew, Ed and Bersy felt the call to give up their new home in America and return to El Salvador to grow the program and help more children. Ed said, "I never thought I'd go back to Salvador," but his decision to do so was "inspired by faith in Jesus, who is my strength."
Those interested in learning more about King's Palace and possibly making a tax-deductible donation to this worthy cause may go to their website at http://www.kingspalace.org/our-history.
Everyone in our Graham Road ESL program greatly misses Ed and Bersy, but is proud of the selfless path they have chosen. |
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Teacher Training Opportunities
To register for a training session, please send your name, mailing address, phone number, and your ESLIM teaching site to office@eslim.org. |
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Teaching Tips
Learn why to hand out one paper per pair, why to learn about students' countries, how to elicit vocabulary and corrections, why to use groupwork, and more at this website shared by teacher trainer Lauren Lang. (For even more teaching tips, don't miss the teacher training sessions!)
Do you have a favorite website to share? Please submit your ideas to office@eslim.org. |
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About ESLIM
ESLIM's member churches offer low-cost English classes for adult immigrants, taught by volunteers. Students who cannot pay receive scholarships.
To support the efforts of each of the program sites, ESLIM handles a variety of tasks in a centralized way. Its activities include the following:
- Advertising for volunteers
- Placing and training volunteer teachers
- Advertising the class schedule in foreign-language media
- Sending class schedule flyers to local libraries
- Maintaining a voice-mail line in which calls can be returned in English and Spanish
- Producing the Speak Easy e-newsletter three times per year
- Maintaining a website that features the class schedule, a variety of resources for teachers, and information for faith communities considering an ESL ministry
The cost of running ESLIM is normally divided among our member churches in proportion to the student enrollment at each church. However, for several semesters we have placed a "moratorium" on the membership fee so that churches may increase their investments at the local level. We also engage in fundraising efforts to reduce the costs to our member churches. |
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