Please encourage your students to be careful when purchasing pre-paid phone cards.  My office has an 800 number.  For over a year we received up to ten calls a day from persons thinking they were making long distance calls using a pre-paid card.  Most folks would hang up before we could ask them who they were trying to reach.  Finally I was able to have a conversation with a gentleman who called.  Someone in California was selling bogus phone cards that just by chance had our 800 number on them.  We reported this to both our phone company and the local police but they said there was nothing we could but change our phone number.  I am sure a great deal of money was lost by those people who bought these phone cards.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryan Woerner" <bwoerner at cal.org>
To: "The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List" <englishlanguage at nifl.gov>
Sent: Monday, February 4, 2008 10:58:58 AM (GMT-0500) America/New_York
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



-- 
Hallie Carr, Director
Adult Education and Adjunct Programs
250 Reserve Ave.
Roanoke, VA  24016