This is great advice from Phil Anderson.  Helping students understand what 
is involved  (all the costs) when you have a land line or a cell phone 
might be just a useful as learning about calling cards.  Most learners 
from Latin America know how to use the calling cards very well since they 
use them within their own countries. 

*********************************************************
Nancy R. Faux
ESOL Specialist
Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center
Virginia Commonwealth University
3600 W. Broad Street, Suite 669
Richmond, VA 23230-4930
nfaux at vcu.edu
http://www.valrc.org
1-800-237-0178



"Anderson, Philip" <Philip.Anderson at fldoe.org> 
Sent by: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov
02/04/2008 12:36 PM
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Subject
[EnglishLanguage 2108] Re: teaching pre-paid phone cards






The main recurrent piece of "realia" that students brought to my ESOL 
classes was their phone bill.  I found that the ESOL class became one of 
the best ways for saving huge amounts of money for my students.  The 
biggest problem for many of them was at the point of getting set up for 
telephone service, either land-line or cellular.  They often signed up for 
every service offered by the phone company representative without complete 
understanding of the usefulness or the cost of the services.  While it was 
a challenge to develop lessons on practicing how to apply for telephone 
service, we developed various role play scenarios for students to 
practice.  While some students seemed to feel that extra services was a 
way to higher quality treatment from the company or an extra level of 
status among their peers, most were glad for a lower phone bill. 
 
Another concern of the students wasn't so much that they didn't know how 
to use the phone card itself, but that most of the time, the phone cards 
did not give them all the minutes they promised, and were not good for 
using more than once.  Sometimes students brought 4-5 cards worth $10.00 
each to the class, saying none of them gave any time at all.  We did role 
plays on calling the phone card company to demand that the company give 
them more minutes when the card did not function properly.  It was always 
a big boost to their confidence and a good story for the rest of the class 
when students reported how they got the phone card company to give them 
more minutes.
 
Phil Anderson
philip.anderson at fldoe.org
Adult ESOL Program Specialist
Division of Workforce Education
Florida Department of Education
325 West Gaines Street Room 644
Tallahassee, FL  32399
Tel (850) 245-9450

 
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From: Bryan Woerner [mailto:bwoerner at cal.org] 
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 10:59 AM
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2105] Re: teaching pre-paid phone cards

Hello Dottie,
 
I've found that most of my students (and many of my American born friends) 
run up huge bills because they don't understand what they're being charged 
for. Most phone companies usually have pamphlets on "How to read my bill" 
- but they only send those out when you start the service. Here is ATT's 
http://www.consumer.att.com/bill/sample.html.
 
FCC also has an online sample bill 
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/phonebills/samplePhonebill.html
 
Another resource I've found helpful is MoneyInstructor.com. It has plenty 
of materials and lessons you can use to teach money and money management 
skills. http://www.moneyinstructor.com/  Some of the resources are free, 
the rest you have to pay for, but it's worth the membership ~$30 a year.
 
Bryan
Center for Applied Linguistics
 

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov 
[mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Dottie
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2008 2:35 PM
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2103] teaching pre-paid phone cards
 
Colleagues -- I need ideas for a lessons on using pre-paid phone cards!
 
Our agency is having a bit of a problem with a few of our adult refugee 
clients running up HUGE phone bills.
When we have  their phones installed, we get "local access" only, but some 
have managed to get their service changed to include unlimited services 
(including international long-distance).  The agency pays the refugees 
phone & other utilities for 3 mos., but NOT $700 phone bills! 
 
Most of the refugees use international phone cards to "call home".  Now 
the agency bosses want me to cover the issue in our "Basics for the U. S." 
classes (money; drinking/driving laws; carseats; 9-1-1; job safety, etc.). 
 
 
I've never used phone cards, so I'll need to learn the basics myself, but 
I could use some suggestions for teaching.
 
Thanks!
 
Dottie Shattuck
ELT coordinator
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
Charlotte, NC
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