Email from Professor. Gail E Weinstein

2. Background Information on your organization
(Please include any pertinent literature about your organization)

What are the goals and objectives of your organization?

CIRCLE aims to strengthen immigrant families and communities; to support those who serve them, and to engage students deeply in the fabric of their communities with experiences that build their professional and leadership skills in personally transforming ways.

CIRCLE is housed at SF State’s Institute for Civic and Community Engagement.


Who are your Clients?

CIRCLE addresses the needs of four groups:
Immigrant and refugee adults (especially those learning English)
University students from across disciplines
University faculty seeking integrative community experiences for their students
Community workers (especially ESL teachers and health practitioners)

What community services do you offer?

CIRCLE connects English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers, students, and immigrants through three sets of interconnected activities.

1. Professional Development for pre-service and in-service practitioners.
ESL teachers and community service professionals receive training that responds to the language and literacy needs of immigrant communities. Methods include:

Certificate Program
Workshops & e-learning courses
Community Literacy Forums
`Project PILOT (Partners in Immigrant Leadership, Outreach, and Training)

2. Community Service Learning (CSL) in which students combine academic study with community service so that each is enhanced by the other. For example:

Each semester, 200 students from various disciplines coach immigrants in English. Through Project SHINE, Students Helping in the Naturalization of Elders (SHINE), students focus on helping elders prepare for citizenship. In Students Assisting with Immigrant Literacies (Project SAIL), students help a range of learners in basic literacy and ESL classes.


3. Curriculum and materials development to create relevant and timely language and literacy materials for practitioners to help the immigrant populations they serve.

Specifically teachers participating in our professional development efforts are trained to collect narratives from immigrant learners to address their most pressing needs through a community-based curriculum development process, called “Learners’ Lives as Curriculum”.


What geographical areas do you serve?

We work with teachers and other practitioners throughout the bay area, though the training for “Learners Lives as Curriculum” has been given all over the country as well as internationally. It is our hope to eventually make this training available through CIRCLE. Our focus for now is the Bay Area.