In January 2016, I joined the staff at Nolley Elementary as the ESL teacher/tutor to help with the influx of non-native English speaking students. Shortly after my arrival, I was approached by our principal to see if I would be interested in creating an afterschool program to introduce the cultures or our new ESL students to the community. This is where the idea for “Nolley’s World” was created.
I created a 5 week, after school culture, language, and reading program. Each of the 5 classes we visited a country or culture of one of the ESL students. The countries covered were China, Hmong, Colombia, and Serbia, with the final week being an around the world celebration. In addition, we discussed what it meant to be a refugee and immigrant and we learned about kindness and empathy.
Each student received a small notebook that would serve as a ‘passport’ during their time in the program. Each week we covered some basic vocabulary, culture differences, and create a craft based on the culture we were covering. We also read diverse books that were either translated stories from the country or written about the culture by a diverse author. We discussed the books and what we learned at the end of every class.
The program was a success and several parents informed me that their children now wanted to know more about the world, how to help others and even created an interest in studying foreign languages.
If you would like a similar program created for your school or organization, please contact Shannon at Shannon.anicas@gmail.com.
Shannon Anicas 
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