Francisca Goldsmith is Senior Librarian at Berkeley (CA) Public Library and coordinates Teen Services in the system's five-site system. This includes: collection development, program planning, and collaboration with other youth-serving agencies, including schools. She also works in the Central Library's Reference Department and chairs the system's Multilingual Committee that selects materials and plans programs for people in Berkeley who do not speak English as their first language. Francisca and others have designed a wildly successful Earphones English Club for ESL teens.

HOW EARPHONES ENGLISH STARTED:
 
I became interested in the possible use of audiobooks for high school teens several years ago when a happy convergence of events occurred:
 
Having worked successfully with the local public high school's ESL department for a number of years, I had become aware of the students' mismatched abilities between critical thinking (age-appropriate skills and interest evident) and print access (poor English readers who had little experience with literature that was written for a youth audience in any language).
 
At the same time, the State of California was offering a grant possibility to address the needs of alliterate youth. I received $25,000 and invested it in audiobooks specifically for teen listeners.
 
I was also appointed to ALA's Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)'s committee charged with selecting an annual list of notable audiobooks for teens.
 
All of these things together encouraged me to think about audiobooks, their application to the ESL curriculum, and possible public library services to English language learning teens. (We have a history at BPL of incorporating the needs and interests of ESL youth into several program and service functions, as well as collection development; our summer reading program for teens, for instance, can be undertaken in any language the teen chooses.)
 
 
IT WORKS!
So, with yet a new grant opportunity, we at the public library and our contacts at the Berkeley public secondary schools serving new Americans designed the Earphone English program. At the high school, Earphone English is a club, and participation is voluntary. At the middle school, Earphone English is incorporated into students' reading class curriculum, but the program is provided by public library staff. I spend every Friday lunch at the high school and another librarian visits the middle school weekly. With input from the participants, I do the collection development for the program and together the participating kids, teachers and library staff plan other library-based programs relevant to Earphone English participants and their families.
  
 
IT WORKS!
Students complete a brief questionnaire that includes info about their favorite movies as well as books they are interested in reading. At the beginning of each semester, I booktalk specific titles, targeting the interests of the participants.
 
What actually happens in an Earphone English session? It's about book and performance discussion. As the weeks roll by, they booktalk each other, telling classmates/clubmates why the audiobook they've heard is worth another listener's time (or why it's not!). This program is intended to do three things: (1) to expose participants to a range of good young adult (and some adult) literature; (2) to encourage them to think critically about literature; and (3) to place them in a position where they can practice their own oral communication skills by discussing what they hear and what they think about it.
 
TIPS:

	What works best? Most of these kids have little patience for listening to anything longer than 4-6 hours. Genre preferences are for contemporary realistic fiction set in other countries or within school settings. We have occasional fantasy reader/listeners but haven't had more than one or two sci fi fans. We do have fans of mystery and many fans of nonfiction, especially adventure (Lost! On a Mountain in Maine is perennially popular, for instance) and biography.
	What doesn't work? Long books and readers who don't use much expression are both deadly with this group. They don't have as much trouble with accents (British, Australian) as some have suggested they might. Southern dialect, on the other hand, can stump them.

 
IT WORKS!
Success stories: Our original pilot project (2000-2001) had 5 high school graduates in it-four of whom are now happily ensconced in college, one of whom took AP English her senior year of high school. Since then, more than 200 kids have been involved in the program. Many of them have become "attached" to both the public and school library as an outcome. They not only hang out here, but also apply (and get) jobs here, attend other library programs, and introduce other family members to library services.
 
 
PERSONAL STORIES: This year, the rising star is a boy from Yemen who has been here for three years. This is the first year he's joined Earphone English, but in the past 15 weeks, he's listened to more than 15

Earphones English Club with Teacher Heidi Ramirez Weber.

audiobooks, each of which he's discussed with his friends, his teachers and me cogently and insightfully; it's like watching a once-starving child fill out and grow once food is steadily available!
 
We have off-beat success stories too: Before students were permitted to remove audiobooks and players from the classroom, one of the middle schoolers sneaked one he particularly loved (Bolinda Audio's Just Tricking!) on a school field trip. Heretofore, both the librarian and his teachers had thought he was deriving next to nothing from the program (or any other aspect of school) but he got caught because of the excellent audiobook-talk he gave some classmates while on a wilderness trail- complete with outtakes for all to hear!
 
  TIPS:

	I select from a wide number of sources. I read reviews in KLIATT, School Library Journal, and AudioFile. I discuss audiobooks with colleagues around the country (via email). Although we try to make the Earphone English collection one that is simple for kids to find the print version of contents, we do include some for which there seem to be no print parallels, just because the story is important for them and the audio production helps them connect with "story" as a cultural and communication asset. We also go looking for stories and titles that kids in the program suggest or wonder about.   This is the final year of grant funding we can expect from our current source (the California State Library's English Language Literacy Intensive) but we are hard on the trail of other folks to finance our continuing project.
	Ask teens to listen to 30 minutes, or one cassette side, before deciding that a particular book isn't working for them.  Offer them the metaphor of meeting someone new:  you need to give that person a little bit of time before you decide you can't understand them....
	Always check out two to each student for their first audio encounter. If one doesn't work, there's an immediate alternative.
	Give them time!  Let students keep audiobooks for two weeks before checking in with them. Some kids really take a month or more to get through a relatively short book; if we didn't ask, they would move more slowly or stop altogether, so it's a matter of balancing"pressure".
	We've found that some kids NEED the printed book, some need to be FREE of the book, some want the book after the audio, and some want the audio after the book.  Those needs/preferences seem to be hardwired. At the middle school level, teachers require the kids to have the print text in hand when listening to an audiobook.  At the high school, we make sure the print texts are available at the school and public libraries, but it is a personal choice option for each listener.
	Thick accents, especially Southern dialects, give our students trouble -they've  never heard this before and it really seems "foreign" to them.  British accents seem to give them less trouble!

 
 
You may e-mail Francisca at: FRG1@ci.berkeley.ca.us.
 
 

 
EDUCATORS:
If you make good use of audiobooks in your approach to education and feel you have some good tips and inspiration to pass on to others, would you like to be considered for our Educator of the Month feature?
 
If so, contact Heather Frederick, Publisher at Audio Bookshelf at 1-800-234-1713 or audiobooks@prexar.com
We want to honor you!