Ruby M. Sisson Memorial Library / Upper San Juan Library District Pagosa Springs, Colorado http://pagosa.colibraries.org Population Served: 12,386 Language other than English: 16.8% Project Contact: Jackie Welch Project Title: Bienvenidos Project Description: Our project serves immigrants and new English learners, the majority of which are Spanish speakers.  We provide the following programs and services to help our neighbors succeed in learning English and attaining citizenship:

• Rosetta Stone ESL software
• English conversation classes
• Bi-lingual story hour
• Our website is available in Spanish.
•  Several of our online databases are in Spanish: EBSCOhost Espanol, Salud en Espanol (Consumer Health Complete Spanish version) and Learning Express, which includes preparation for the U.S. Citizenship Test, TOEFL, and Skills Improvements with Spanish Instructions.
• Varity of print materials in Spanish

Notable accomplishment, promising practices, or human interest stories: Our Rosetta Stone ESL classes have been an enormous success. The ESL instructor from the Archuleta County Education Center facilitates the group and is available to assist students with the software. Although we currently offer two classes a week, attendance has grown so quickly that we are considering adding another class. Of course, as students become more comfortable using the software, they are welcome to check out a laptop at other times.

The ESL classes started slowly but now we have many more students than computers. As students wait their turn on the computers, an impromptu English conversation class has emerged. This is a very non-structured gathering and topics range from the elections to Thanksgiving recipes. Often entire families show up for class. In fact, so many children accompany their parents that we now offer a bi-lingual story hour to keep the little ones entertained while helping them develop their language skills.  This is a wonderful way for students of all ages to practice English in a comfortable and non-threatening environment.

Key lessons learned: Traditional advertising i.e., newspaper articles, radio programs and posters, wasn’t reaching our target population. In our case, we needed to contact churches, pre-schools and other organizations which serve the Latino community.

Advice for other libraries serving adult English language learners: Take it slow. We were so excited when we received this grant that we tried to implement too many programs.  We started with a weekly English conversation group but attendance was very low but due to the popularity of the Rosetta Stone program, a conversation group just naturally evolved while students waited for their turn. So now, instead of one conversation group a week, we have two.