by Frances Gray and Roslyn Farmer
On the SOCEM website you will find many resources for ESL teachers. Among them is our series of ESL Bible studies for small groups (see here). Our work started at a meeting with Pastor Nestor Abdon of Peoples Church. He asked us if we would write a series of Bible studies for their Newcomers ESL program. Together we did four series, each with about 15 stories with questions, and an accompanying teacher manual.
Coming up with the themes of each of our books was the most challenging aspect. Originally, we knew that we wanted to use the Bible and that the stories had to be used for adult ESL classes. We first thought of adapting Sunday School material but then had the idea of following the theme of what stories would reflect the experiences of our newcomers and refugees. Thus, “The Outsiders” was born. Later we added “The Travellers” about people who travelled in the Bible searching for the place God was calling them to. This book was followed by “Who is this Man” based on the Gospel of Mark, and lastly “Heroes of the Faith”.
We adopted the format of another Bible study series that we had been using: “From the Beginning to the End” (also available on the SOCEM website); but that material was written for intermediate level, and our less experienced volunteers had trouble adapting it. To make things easier we came up with the idea of writing three sets of questions that had increasing difficulty. The basic questions are largely factual — the answers can be found in the text. The intermediate and advanced questions were designed to be discussion-oriented, sometimes asking the students their opinions or reflections on their own experiences. We included some true/false questions and fill-in-the-blanks (along with a vocabulary exercise) to assist our learners in comprehending the stories.
We divided up the stories but sent each other our drafts for comments and suggestions, sometimes co-writing stories and questions. We used Bible versions that were friendly for ESL students – CEV, NLT, and the NIV. We kept close to the Bible text, but to make the stories shorter and easier for an ESL student, we often mixed in some paraphrase.
Many of our students lacked background knowledge of the Bible (especially the Old Testament) so we included context with each story. For this we used The History of the Ancient World, from the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome by Susan Wise Bauer; The New Moody Atlas of the Bible by Barry Beitzel; and Rose Then and Now Bible Map Atlas by Paul Wright. Other good resources were Bible History Online; online commentaries by John MacArthur (he includes lots of context) and David Guzik; and GotQuestions.org. We also wrote an extended background for each story in the accompanying teacher manual – several of the teachers appreciated this. The outlines for the maps were traced from Google Earth. To add context, we often used the Biblical map as an overlay on the map of the world today.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience adapting these stories for the use of our ESL students. We feel very blessed to have had the inspiration of God and the answers to many prayers. We hope all who use our materials will similarly be blessed.