[music playing]

OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Andrea Willis: So thank you so much for joining me. I'm really excited to be here with you. And I feel very honored to be a part of OTAN's Technology and Distance Learning Symposium 2021 conference that's happening March 3 through the 5th, as you know. And today we're going to be talking about US Learn Citizenship, which is a FREE online course. And that of course, is located at usalearn.org.

And let me introduce myself briefly, I'm Andrea Willis. I'm the Director of Internet and Media Services and USA Learns at the Sacramento County Office of Education. So just a little tiny bit about me, I've been in this job for about 20 years, just over 20 years. And I love what I do. I have the wonderful opportunity of managing a small technical development team, and, of about 10 people.

We're multimedia developers, and videographers, and artists, and voiceover artists, and instructional designers, and teachers. And we get to build really wonderful projects for various clients, including the California Department of Education. Lots of clients with insight into my-- within my organization. And don't tell my other clients, but USA Learns is, I think, the most amazing thing I've ever had the chance to work on. So nice.

So that's a little bit about me. And, Jennifer, I'm going to let you introduce yourself.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Hi, my name is Jennifer Gagliardi. I'm with-- excuse me. I'm with Milpitas Adult School. And I teach ESL and citizenship there. And also, I work with OTAN as a subject matter expert. And I usually present on topics of the intersection between citizenship, ESL, and computers. So looking, at the kind of intersection and matrix.

Andrea Willis: Wonderful. And I'm always excited when Jennifer can present with me because I can speak about the website, and how it was built and-- but she really brings that real-life teacher perspective of how she has used it, and can share some really great tips with us. And I think my yard guys have joined us for the presentation.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Oh, that's OK.

Andrea Willis: You might hear them outside. They thought they would come too. OK, so today we're going to be talking about various topics. I'll share with you a brief overview of USA Learns. And Jennifer will share with us a bit about some recent happenings related to US citizenship and she has some really great info for teachers.

I'll give you a little tour of our USA Learn Citizenship course. We'll talk a little bit about how the course can help with some of the challenges faced by teachers and learners. I'll show you how your learners register. And I'll also show you how to create a teacher account in your very own free USA Learns courses.

OK, so just a little bit of history and overview about USA Learns. So the site-- the project was originally funded by a grant from the Federal Office of Vocational and Adult Education. And the feds wanted to know if adults can learn English online. And after having after having had so many people come to our website, we think the answer is yes.

So the site launched originally in 2008. And at the end of that grant, my organization, the Sacramento County Office of Education, was given ownership after a competitive process. And we are so happy that we were able to take it over because it's truly been a labor of love for us. And we have thoroughly enjoyed being able to maintain it and grow it.

The site has been upgraded several times. So when you say, whoops, 2008, that's a really old website. We've actually updated it under the hood quite a lot. We have some other really exciting upgrades happening right now as we speak.

And one thing I always like to share is that we are totally committed to keeping this site always 100% free. And so the way we do that is we do have some ads on the site. And you'll notice those as I give you the tour. And I mention it because a lot of times people say, ads, that's bad. But actually, when you see the ads. I want you to think, Oh, ads, that's good, because that's how we were able to pay our programmer to keep this thing alive, and do tech support, and creating classes, and things like that.

And we're very-- we hesitated for a long time to put the ads. We keep them out of the learning area. We try to keep them as-- we don't want them to be confusing. So anyway, there's my little pitch about, Why Ads? And I have created a view-only version of this presentation. And at this URL here, which is https://tinyurl.com/y77b, as in boy, ztma. So anyway, I invite you to check that out later if you want to.

OK, so let me share just a little bit of usage statistics with you. We've had 1.8 billion web pages viewed. And 15 million visitors come to our site, which to me that's just huge. I love those numbers. And when people come, they stay for quite a while. They stay for on the average 23 minutes, which is a really long time for websites. And our site has been accessed by every single country in the world. Oh, my goodness, the yard guys are right outside my window.

OK, so here we're looking at a map of the United States. And the stop-- the top states that use our site are Florida, California, Texas, New York, and Massachusetts. OK, a little bit about the top cities using USA Learns. And I'm just going to read these in order. Of course, Los Angeles is number one. They're always the big thing no matter what, right? Followed Lake Elsinore, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, Fresno, Stockton, Sacramento, Ontario Fremont, Santa Clara, and Oakland Hawthorne, Kiowa. I don't even know her Hawthome is, do you? Carmichael, Wildomar, Hacienda Heights, Irvine, Garden Grove, and Chula Vista. So anyway, those are the top cities. You just might see your city there. And if it's not there, now, maybe it'll be there next week after you use it a lot.

OK, so, hey, Jennifer, maybe you could tell us about some other recent happenings related to a citizenship that would affect teachers.

Jennifer Gagliardi: I guess--

Andrea Willis: I am going to give you up to five minutes.

[laughter]

Jennifer Gagliardi: I'm going to share my screen. OK. So I'm going to share my screen. Hopefully, this is it. OK. Very good. So, yesterday I presented in Citizenship. I'm sorry, if this is a repetitive.

OK. So, one of the big things last summer is that USCIS updated their website to make it much more mobile-friendly. They added some new tools so they people can check their case status online, and more importantly, submit a case inquiry. With a case inquiry is that if their case is out of-- if it's gone on too long. So for instance, they applied in March. And they still haven't gotten any response from USCIS. They can submit application and query and say, please take a look and see what's going on with my case.

Also, they made some more updates to the USCIS Citizenship Resource Center. So all the lovely lesson plans that were so dependent on happen updated how and but more importantly, the links have been updated. So the old links that you've embedded in your Google Classroom, or Canvas course, or whatever the case may be. Those are now all obsolete. And you have to go back and update them. But it's really worth it because the quality of the stuff that USCIS has.

I want to talk a little bit about the 2008 test versus the 2020 test. Last November, they announced that they were going to implement the 2020 tests on December the 1st. And in February 22 they basically rescinded the test. There was a lot of push-back from the community because they did not like the test. And truly, the test was not through the vetting process that they would normally have, or they would roll out into the communities and do a lot of pilot testing.

They did, were able to pilot test it, but with a very, very small number of people, not representative, I think, of the American immigrant population. So USCIS did listen and did respond and did rescind that test. And I want to share four screenshots from the March 3 webinar. I want to just explore this stuff that I have about the-- no, I'm going to do one.

One of the biggest problems with the test was that people were really upset about these questions. Who does a US Senator represent? And they're saying the citizens of their state. These questions here, these four questions were very much in parallel to the attempt by the previous administration to include questions related to citizenship on the Census. And then also related to the push that they wanted to basically not count undocumented people within the state. And documented or undocumented people, those people are accessing our public services.

So anyway, the USCIS was able to respond to the cases that came down from the Supreme Court and respond to the community and basically rescind this. If you want to see some further information about that you could take a look at it. This is one of the slides from the March 3 webinar when they talk you about the risks of taking back the test. They're talking about some people. If they've studied those 128 questions, they still can be tested on that.

Here's a comparison of who can take what test. So if you've studied, or if you apply between December the 20th and March the 1st, you can choose to take the 2020 test or the 2008 test. Continue on from there. Again, they were doing a comparison of how people did on the 2008 test versus the 2020 test. They're saying that a lot of people were still passing. However, I think that was a really small sample size and really not reflective of the American immigrant population at large.

And I'm going to do two more updates. American or, sorry, preparing the Earth from Smithsonian has updated the website. They're no longer using flash, which is really great. So if you need students to study civics, there's one video for every single one of the civics questions.

And I want to talk about CASAS. I would say that the COAPPS Civic COAPPS 54 above the 2020 Census is still followed because it's related to apportionment. The Census needs to publish their findings from the 2020 Census. We need to prepare for the American Community Survey, where there's 30 questions on that survey. And it does ask things about citizenship or legal status.

And this is very important because they're taking a look at how best to apportion money for hospitals, and schools, et cetera, et cetera. Second take from CASAS is that the CIT can be administered remotely. So the way I administer it is I have a fillable PDF of the CIT test. I have a Zoom call open with my students or Facebook-- FaceTime call. And I basically ask the questions and mark the questions on the fillable PDF. And then send that into my office. And they're very happy with it.

And right now CASAS is field-testing Citizenship listening test. And that's really great. So that's it for my updates. And I'm going to turn it back over to Andrea. There you go. Does anyone--

Andrea Willis: Thank you so much.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah.

Andrea Willis: Does anyone have questions for Jennifer? Feel free.

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK, real good. Thank you.

Andrea Willis: OK, can you all see my screen and hear me? Yeah? OK. Great. All right. So Jennifer, thank you so much for those thoughts. Those were great.

OK, so let me share with you a few key things that I think are important to know about US Learns. First of all, there's a learner website. And you find that at usalearns.org. So that's where you would send your students to study. And there's also a teacher site, and it is located at usalearns.org/teacher. So that's kind of important to know.

So just a quick overview about our citizenship course. It is for intermediate-- it uses intermediate-level language. And it-- what makes it so special, in my opinion, is that it helps prepare our learners for all aspects of the naturalization interview. And that's really very special, I think, because there are lots and lots of websites where you can go and study the 100 questions. And that's, pretty easy. And from what I hear from people, the 100 questions is not the hardest part of the interview. Most people pass that part. It's more the N-400 section. And in my opinion, that is the way that we help people prepare to answer those questions about their N-400 application. That's what makes this really special.

So the topics we cover include getting legal help, steps to becoming a citizen, avoiding fraud, preparing for the N-400 application questions, US history and government, speaking, reading, writing, small talk, and lots more. And so far, about 300,000 learners have completed about three million activities in that course. And I just love the way that our website makes that possible, especially during the pandemic. It was great because we were already up and running. And we're a fairly well-known website in the adult Ed world. So teachers and learners were able to just come right to our site and not have a big gap in service, I guess.

OK, so just a little bit of bonus info for you. We also have various English courses. We have the 1st English Course, which is Low Beginning to High beginning ESL. And includes 20 video-based units about survival English language. We have an English 1 Plus, which is Beginning high, intermediate low, and based on voice of America, Let's Learn English videos. And here we have--

Jennifer Gagliardi: My students are using this right now.

Andrea Willis: Are they? Do they like it?

Jennifer Gagliardi: I am meaning ESL 1. Yes, I can I talk really quickly about this?

Andrea Willis: Yeah, please do.

Jennifer Gagliardi: So this was a serious, weekly series originally for VOA News. There ESL component is VOA Learning English. And so there's 52 weeks of lessons. And so you can go to the website and look at the short five-minute lessons about, This Person is Learning to Work, This Person is Learning How To Interrupt, This Person's Learning How to Apologize in a business setting in Washington DC.

However, VOA took the best of that series and added a whole bunch of more of interactive activities. So you could really dig into the vocabulary. So I'd think it's made the course so much better. Because when you were originally doing the VOA Learning English video series, you would just sit there and passively receive the information. Or maybe you would do one of the grammar worksheets from VOA. VOA-- sorry, USA Learns has enabled students to actually interact with the vocabulary and practice a lot of the listening they really like it. So I'm using this now on my ESL 1 class in Zoom. And it's really, really helped up my students.

Andrea Willis: I love that. Thank you. That's lovely. Thank you so much. And yeah, as you mentioned, Jennifer-- you mentioned something that we at USA Learns absolutely love to do, which is we love to find a high-quality video series that we can get the rights to use. And what we do is we take those videos, and we chop them up into little tiny pieces. And then we build instruction around all those videos because-- and the students really get into it. They like-- they get kind of attached to the characters. They want to tune back in watch more videos, see what Ana is going to do. She'll gets herself in trouble at work. And they want to see how she's going to get out of trouble and that kind of thing.

So yeah, great. Thank you for sharing. That was good. All right. Another one is 2nd English Course. I also love this one. We've got our Jeannie and some really wonderful characters that are just really fun to watch. This is intermediate level. And it's 20 video-based units about job and life skills.

And then the last one just quickly here, Practice English and Reading. Also, intermediate level. It's based on real-live news stories that we got from a news station here in Sacramento a while back. It teaches reading, vocabulary, speaking, and comprehension. And for those of you who have been around forever, like I have, you might remember the California Distance Learning Project website. Well, my team built that forever ago. And this course content is actually the content that we pulled from the CDLP site and put website and put in here. Because we love that interactive piece. As Jennifer mentioned, we love being able to let the students interact with the content, not just passively sit there and watch it.

Jennifer Gagliardi: And I think they really like the speaking activities where they're basically repeating back and listening to themselves. They really enjoy that part.

Andrea Willis: Cool. That's good. I love to hear that. And then this is our newest course it's called Skills for the Nursing Assistant, which launched on October 5th. It's intermediate advanced ESL. And it teaches specifically communications skills for the health care field. It covers the language and academic skills to help an entry-level medical workers be successful on the job. So I invite you to check that one out too.

OK, so back to USA Learn Citizenship. One thing I'm really proud about is the high-quality content. We worked with a team of about 30 people to create this course. We worked with expert ESL and citizenship teachers, and immigration attorneys, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, program specialist at United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, also known as USCIS. And it has high-quality resources that align with USCIS adult Ed citizenship education, content standards, and foundation skills. And it uses USA Learns best practices. And when I say it uses our best practices, I mean that when you've had so many people come to your website, you kind of know where they get stuck, what's easy, what's hard, what they like, what they don't like. And so, we try to only use those best approaches, as we develop our new courses.

OK, so for those of you who have been teaching this stuff forever, you probably know this. For those of you who are newer to it, let's just do a quick little rundown. I don't know, Jennifer, do you want to-- do you want to cover this slide, or I can?

Jennifer Gagliardi: Well, I-- one thing that I've been asking myself is, how many people have used USA loans first before?

Andrea Willis: Yeah, hey, Polly, maybe you could watch the chat. If you guys could tell us in the chat, have used USA Learns before, yes or no?

Polly: OK, yes. Yes.

Andrea Willis: Oh, yay.

Polly: No.

Andrea Willis: No. OK.

Polly: Yes. No.

Andrea Willis: OK.

Polly: So it looks like this is some yes and some nos.

Andrea Willis: OK, so let's just go through this site. So what all happens? Let's imagine you were you have applied to be a US citizen. So what happens during that interview? So let's just go down this list. Jennifer, jump in whenever you want or just start.

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK.

Andrea Willis: I'll start or you can, whatever.

Jennifer Gagliardi: So usually, of course, the small talk is super important because this is when the examiner is trying to assess how much English you understand. Then they go through-- they ask you the 10 questions from USCIS list of questions. And we're so happy that it's only 10 questions as opposed to the 12 and the 128 questions. There's the reading and writing a one sentence. And then they're going to ask you the questions for the N-400 application for naturalization.

So what's really important is that a lot of people think that the citizenship interview is only the 100 questions. And they're not prepared for the N-400 questions. That's where they usually fail. So USA Learns basically addresses this problem by putting this matter at the forefront. Also, US-- one of the big problems to US citizenship is a lot of times people get really bad legal advice. So USA Learn puts that at the forefront. So they create so much.

Andrea Willis: Thank you. That's great. Thank you.

Polly: OK, Andrea?

Andrea Willis: Yeah.

Polly: We do have a question.

Andrea Willis: OK, what we've got?

Polly: It's from Christina. Is a student allowed a translator at the interview?

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah.

Andrea Willis: I'm going to let Jennifer answer that.

Jennifer Gagliardi: I can-- it depends on the person. If they notified-- OK, there's two things. Number one, it depends on what's happening with COVID in their County. OK, that's number one. Number two, it really depends if they told the-- if they said before or they contacted USCIS before and said that this person used a translator to do the USCIS application. They're going to be using a translator during the interview.

So they just can't show up with the interviewer. Also, the interviewer has to be a legitimate interviewer. So some people understand Spanish really well--

Andrea Willis: You mean translator, right?

Jennifer Gagliardi: Translator. Sorry. Thank you so much. The translator. But they can't say exactly what the officer is saying in English. And what-- they don't exactly translate what the officer is saying, because they don't understand the technical vocabulary. So it really depends what you mean as a translator. And remember, the people really need to be mindful of the fact that the interview is done in English unless people have been in the United States for-- unless the person is over, I believe it's 50, 55 years old and has been in the United States for 20 years. And it's not only that they've been in the United States for 2020 years, they have to have a Green Card for 20 years.

And so that's-- that kind of stuff can be really problematic. The thing is that a student does not need to speak English a lot during the interview, but they have to be able to understand English. And they have to be able to give short answers. So when the person was asking about the translator, were they thinking of a specific scenario? Who is asking the question?

Polly: Oh, Christina?

Christina: It's me. Hi?

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah. Hey?

Christina: Hey?

Jennifer Gagliardi: What's going on?

Christina: Hey.

Jennifer Gagliardi: What were you thinking of? Yeah, good to see you.

Andrea Willis: Tell us.

Christina: So all my students speak English. But I had a new student, one student. And I had a family member. And I know this student from years ago. And she said--

Jennifer Gagliardi: Sure.

Christina: --my mom just does not speak English very well. And she's like a level 2. She understands. But she doesn't speak English. So she said, is she allowed to translator? And other students who just taken the test and come back, and described what had happened said, what well you probably have to notify USCIS somehow and get some kind of approval? So I didn't know if you knew anything about that.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah, it depends. Also, what office? I'm sorry, Christine, I did ask what offices? Are you going to Los Angeles or San Francisco? Where are you going?

Christina: This is San Jose.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Oh, in San Jose?

Christina: Yeah.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Gee. I don't know if anybody going in with a translator a long time. Christina, let me. I'm going to-- you know what, can I connect up with you later on?

Christina: Of course, yes. You have my email or I can send you in--

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah.

Christina: OK.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah. And the other thing-- one other thing about-- because we just moved zones that had COVID-19 restrictions. A lot of people were saying no to translators because of COVID-19. So that's one of the considerations. But seriously, if you're at ESL 2. I've had ESL two students pass the citizenship test because honestly, they do not need to know how to speak that much English, they need to know how to yes, no. And they need to know how to give personal information.

But that's about it. Because remember the test the USCIS interview is not a vocabulary test. So they're not going to be-- so even though they need to understand what a prison is, or a persecution is, and everything what that. They need to be able to understand it. And if they don't understand what the officer says, they say-- they need to be able to say, I don't understand, please explain before they say yes or no to the question. And so those are the kind of skills that they need to go to go into the test.

Christina: How many times are they allowed to repeat the question? Is it twice?

Jennifer Gagliardi: What do you mean by-- Oh, like, if I ask you like, have you ever persecuted anyone?

Christina: Yes.

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK. They don't have a set number of times they have to repeat. But there is a difference between saying, please repeat and please explain.

Polly: Can you say that in another way? Or can--

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah, can you say that in another way?

Christina: I remember when I was going to be a citizen for a test of a CASAS, they somehow came up with, you can only be asked to repeat the question twice.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah, that's for the CIT. That's not for the US citizenship interview.

Christina: OK.

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK.

Andrea Willis: Great. Thank you.

Jennifer Gagliardi: We'll connect up on the translator. That's a really good question.

Christina: OK, thank you.

Andrea Willis: OK.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Thank you.

Andrea Willis: OK, so in talking with various teachers over the years. I'd love to ask people, hey, so what are some of the biggest challenges that your students have experienced during the test? Or what are some of the most difficult parts of teaching this to your learners? So if you want, you could feel free to enter the inner-- any enter any of those ideas into the chat. In the meantime. I'll share with you my list that I have kind of collected here.

So many teachers tell me that it's very difficult vocabulary, right, especially as related to those N-400 questions. And there's lots and lots of that vocabulary. The English-speaking part is tricky, right? A lot of people don't realize that the minute the interviewer or the officer meets the applicant that officer is already, listening to the small talk in the hallway and determining, hmm, does this person speak English?

Part 12 of the N 400 is also very tricky. All those words like have you ever committed genocide, homicide, or any other kind of cide. Questions about, excuse me, illegal activities are difficult because you're speaking about some very personal-- Oops.

Jennifer Gagliardi: You muted. Oops. Oh, you're still muted. There you go.

Andrea Willis: Yeah, I think-- It said the host muted you. Polly?

Polly: I'm not even touching my mouse.

Andrea Willis: Everybody got tired of hearing me? So there like, stop talking.

Polly: I'm sorry. I muted you.

Andrea Willis: Oh, you muted me?

[laughter]

I was like, I swear I didn't do anything. That's OK. No problem. Any time you get tired, just mute me. So anyway, you might not have heard me say those questions about illegal activities are difficult, right? They're personal questions. It's difficult words to explain. Oh, gosh, what did I do that was not legal?

Those questions about the time spent outside of the US. Those are tricky, too. I personally, if someone asked me, tell me all the dates in which you left and entered the United States over the past five years, I couldn't tell you that off the top of my head. I would need to prepare for those questions. And then just the general stress of the interview, right, those unknowns.

So anyway, hey, Polly, did we get any comments in the chat about other things that are tricky?

Polly: No, we did not. Not yet.

Andrea Willis: All right. Well, we can always talk about those in a bit. OK, so I would like to now give you a little tour of the course. OK, so here we are at usalearn.org on our homepage. And if this was my very first time here, I would click Start Now, but it's not my first time here. I've been here about a million times. So I'm going to sign in with my student account information. I will enter my email address that I used on the student site. And I will enter my password. And I will sign in.

OK, so here I am on the USA Learns my Home page. And these are all of the courses that we offer. I shared a little info with you about these before. So we won't get into that here. But I am going to scroll down till I get to USA Learn Citizenship. And here we are on the Unit Menu page. And we have four units. They are Steps to Becoming a US Citizen, the N-400 Interview practice, Civics Reading and Writing Practice. And it's all based on the 2008 questions. Your Interview and New Citizenship.

So let's just start. I'm going to give you a little tour of some of my favorite parts. And hey, Jennifer, feel free to jump in any time if there's something you want me to show. OK, so here on the Lesson Menu, for the Steps to Becoming a US Citizen unit. We have three lessons. They Become a US Citizen, the First Steps, and Being Prepared.

So let's just take a little pick. OK, so here we are on the activity menu. And these blue bars here represent the various topics that are covered. So we've got the Introduction, Why Become a US Citizen, and Am I Eligible? So let's just check out a little sequence here. So the welcome video. And we have this here, it says, plays the video to learn about this course. So let's play this YouTube video. And I'm going to click the Read Text button. So that it-- oops, there we go.

[video playback]

Speaker 1: Welcome to USA Learns Citizenship. My name is Jean. And I'll be your guide through this course.

[end video playback]

Andrea Willis: So we won't listen to the whole thing. But we have a nice little intro video that folks can watch. And then let me point out a button that I especially like on the course. It's the Next button. And it might seem weird to get all excited about a button. But I love this button because I can click that button literally and make it through the entire course.

I don't need to be a computer genius. I don't have to have amazing computer skills to go through the course. So I'm going to hit Next. OK, so here we have our learning goals. And here, we are supposed to read the learning goals for this lesson and then select listen to hear the goals. So let's just do that. It's a nice little short one.

[video playback]

Speaker 1: In this lesson, you will learn about the reasons to become a US citizen. You will also learn about the requirements for becoming a US citizen.

[end video playback]

Andrea Willis: OK.

Polly: And Andrea, we do have a question.

Andrea Willis: Great. What is the question?

Polly: Do we create a student or teacher account to access the videos?

Andrea Willis: Yeah, that's a really great question. So USA Learns, as I shared, there's a learner side, and there's a teacher site. So if you want to kind of preview the course like a learner would see it you're going to want to create your own learner account. So I know that's always kind of a point of confusion because it's confusing. And someday, we'd like to change that. But for now, that's kind of how it is.

So if you want to watch the videos and see the content, you're going to create yourself a student account.

Jennifer Gagliardi: You know what? And one of the reasons why you want to create a student account initially is, for instance, if you just send a student to USA Learns course, it's really a large course. And students can get lost in it because there's so much. So what I have been doing is using USA Learns as a quick warm-up for my citizenship classes.

And so I log in as my student-- as a student. I do a demo of one of the videos or the lessons or the vocabulary or whatever the case may be. And that has actually inspired students to sign up themselves, rather than me putting everybody into-- using a teacher account and putting everybody into the course.

So I really would say initially sign up as a teacher. And you may want to use one of your supplementary accounts as opposed to your teacher's email address. OK. So what I started up as a teacher, I mean, it's not as if I demonstrating as a student, I'm going to use uscitizenpod@gmail.com or gmail.org/com.

And then what I'm doing a teacher, and I'm gathering my students together to organize them in a class cohort, that's what I would use-- sign up as a teacher or a teacher account. You can't use both. You can't use the same email for both.

Andrea Willis: Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, that's a great point. So you're saying, Jennifer, use kind of your more standard. The email address you use the most, and that you check the most use that one for your teacher account. And if you have some other email address, you don't care that much about use that for your student account, right?

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yes.

Andrea Willis: Great. Thank you. Thank you. That was a great point. Love it.

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK, homie. OK, Friday 10:00 o'clock.

Andrea Willis: She muted me too. OK. All right. I'm back. OK, so here we are in Why Become a US Citizen? Watch and Learn. So we have some information about why one should become a citizen. And we have a nice little video here that we've created. You'll notice lots, and lots, and lots of videos and multimedia. There's probably thousands of audio files and video files and images and things like that, we've created. So let's just take a little peek at this video 10 reasons to become a US citizen. I'm going to fast-forward. OK, here we go.

[video playback]

Speaker 1: First, as a US citizen, you have the right to remain in the United States. You cannot be deported.

Speaker 2: Before I became a US citizen, I worried about changing immigration laws. Now, I feel confident that I can stay here for the rest of my life.

Speaker 1: US citizens can help more family members get legal status in the US and in a shorter time.

SPEAKER 3 : After I became a citizen, my mom came to live with us from Taiwan.

[end video playback]

Andrea Willis: So anyway, there's little sample of some of our video work that we've done for this course. OK, and then here we have a Check Your Understanding activity. And the instructions say to select all of the correct answers.

And the question is, what are some benefits becoming a US citizen? The answer options are, you can vote, you can travel with US passport, you can help family members come to the US, your young children can more easily become US citizens. Check. Yeah. So you see, I got two stars. That means I got it right on my first try. If I would have answered incorrectly, I would have had another try at it. And I would have only received one and that grade would reflect on my Menu page.

OK, so let's see here, am I eligible? OK, so this is a Learn Key Words activity. And let me show you how we teach the vocabulary. So we have an image and an audio file.

[video playback]

Voice Over: USCIS.

[end vedeo playback]

Andrea Willis: And then we have it. There's typically a definition and a sample sentence. So here, the definition is United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. And the sample sentence is the USCIS office will process your application for citizenship. And I will select the Next button. And we have naturalization and at least requirement. OK, so you get the idea. That's how we teach vocabulary.

Let me see here. Let me know now select this lesson menu button. And let me point this button out while we're here. Whenever you see one of these buttons, these menu buttons, and you want to go back level, go ahead and select that button, and it'll take you back a level. And like now it says View the Menu. I could click that and go to either menu. So here we are. Let's see. What are the first steps are. OK, so we have some Learning Goals.

We give a little overview here about the first steps of becoming a citizen. You need to complete the N-400 form. And you need to know what it costs. And there's a big push here about getting legal help if you need it. And we had partnered with the New Americans Campaign, who provides lots of amazing services for our applicants, Citizenshipworks.

OK, so let's see here. So after you submit your N-400, what happens? You might be called to go for your biometrics appointment, which I think just is basically you're getting a photo, you're doing your fingerprints, various things like that. And what do you do if you move and some things to prepare before the interview, a little overview of what happens during the naturalization interview, some info about exceptions and accommodations, what happens after the interview, and then we have a little Check Your Understanding activity.

OK, lots and lots of info about being prepared. We have some really great resources for How to Study. So of course, we always suggest that people study this course because we think it's a very helpful resource for people at USA Learns. USCIS website also has some great learning resources there. And, of course, citizenship and English classes at an Adult School near you. We can't leave those important people out. And there's always your local library.

OK, and then, as I shared lots and lots of info in here about, do I need legal help? And we have a bunch of information about the red flags. And that's basically if you had to answer yes to any of these questions, you may need to get you should get some qualified legal help. Jennifer, if you want to say anything about red flags, I saw you unmuted yourself.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Oh, yeah, I was did want to say red flags. One of the things is this, for instance, if you've had-- a lot of our students have had arrest because for-- maybe for-- what is that called? Drunk driving. Or have done some jail time way in the past, even if they've had their files expunged, they need to come back and take-- and they need to have get some legal assistance to help practice those questions. And also to access the court records.

So it's easy enough to access court records for like traffic. They simply go to the police station and petition for those court records. And down in San Jose, you pay $10. And you get that, but for some people can be very, very intimidating. So even using this opportunity to walk your students or giving them a quick website tour of this is how you petition to get your court records is going to be really, really helpful, and it will give them the confidence to go to do it themselves. So very-- so this is good.

And some of them are-- some of the questions are a little bit more difficult. For instance, I had a student who was really stuck in citizenship, wasn't moving forward and backward. It turned out that she had a prior situation where it was a domestic violence state or, excuse me, child abuse that her child accused her of abusing her child-- being abused. And the thing was, is that there was a new baby in the house, and the mother was working with the baby and couldn't pay attention to the daughter.

But the thing is the cops did or child services, did come away and take away the kids. And it was one of the most traumatic experiences of my student's life. And she said I mean when she was telling me about it, she was crying, crying. So we, there was a lot of emotions that were involved with that. We worked with her. So she could explain it simply and have the documentation. And she was able to pass that. But sometimes, you need to address those kind of emotions in private with your student. And you have to be sensitive as a teacher. And you have to not only address the English aspect of it, but-- you know I'm not a lawyer. So you're going to say, I can hook you up with the legal services in San Jose, and how they would access your court records, et cetera, et cetera.

So there's a lot of really rich stuff connected with the red flags. But it's going to be difficult to get to that. And you do not want to exploit your students. You don't want to scare them off. You don't want to re-traumatize them.

Andrea Willis: Right. OK, that's great info. Thank you for sharing that, Jennifer. I always love to hear your personal experience of how your students have dealt with these kinds of things. OK, so let's talk a little bit about the-- here we are on the Unit Menu. Let's talk a little bit about N-400 interview practice.

So let's see here. So we have Unit Introduction.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Oh, wait for a sec. Could you go back?

Andrea Willis: Yeah.

Polly:

Jennifer Gagliardi: Can you back to the activity? Is anybody-- I want to just stop and-- so they've taken the N-400. They've broken it down into 10 different sections. Does anybody want to-- or is anybody working with a really problematic section that they would like--

Andrea Willis: Great question. Yeah, great question. All right, well, I think I'll start. And then if anyone has any ideas just let me know.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Well, I have something nice to say about that.

Andrea Willis: OK.

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK.

Andrea Willis: --have you ever?

Jennifer Gagliardi: Had because of the family relations. The person in these later stories like Chen's story and Rosa story, some of them do not have the most-- some people do not have the most perfect relationship histories. They don't-- They may have been living with a boyfriend or girlfriend. They might have a child with one person. They might have a relationship or marriage with another, or there might be divorce and everything like that.

This is when the students really start digging into the course because there's a little bit of drama it's much more interesting for them. So this is one the USA Learns starts picking up interest for my students. If you could go back to the previous ones. If you're talking about 2.7, all the way down to 2.10. This year the part, the sections about part 12. And this is going to be really helpful for your students to go in.

And even you yourself can use this as a demonstration because there's some really clear vocabulary. Some very interesting scenarios, things about arrest, et cetera, et cetera, that will really help you learn the vocabulary. Because if you're talking about arrests, some people have never experienced the arrests but they're interested in reading experiences or listening to experiences about people who have been through that.

Andrea Willis: Right.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Now, this is going to start getting more real.

Andrea Willis: Yeah, great. That's a great point. And Edith had suggested, and maybe we'll check out something that includes the have you ever stuff. And so many illegal activities would be a good one.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah. So anywhere from 2.7 to 2.10. That's where you're digging into the Part 12 Have You Ever questions. So take a look at Paul's story.

So you've gone through the keywords, et cetera, et cetera. Here, you're going to read his scenario, and you can listen to it. And then you're--

[video playback]

Speaker 4: Seven years ago Paul was stopped by the police after he had been drinking at a party.

[end video playback]

Andrea Willis: So we hear a little bit about his story. He got stopped by the police, they took him to the station. He stayed the night in jail. He had to pay $9,000. The job-- the judge did not give him more jail time, et cetera, et cetera. And then we answer--

Jennifer Gagliardi: My students say that he got off cheap, too.

Andrea Willis: He got off cheap.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Much more in Santa Clara County.

Andrea Willis: [laughs]

Jennifer Gagliardi: And somebody says, how do you know if the person did not say anything more?

Andrea Willis: I don't.

[laughter]

Andrea Willis: I'm not saying. No comment.

Jennifer Gagliardi: It happened to a friend.

Andrea Willis: Yeah. So we have some really great listening activities here. So let's see what-- so I think this is just basically going to read this.

[video playback]

SPEAKER 4 : Have you ever committed, assisted in committing, or attempted to commit a crime or offense for which you were not arrested?

[end video playback]

Andrea Willis: So what will Paul say? I think he'll say, No, I have not. OK, I got it right.

Jennifer Gagliardi: And what is really important is you're teaching your students how to listen for key vocabulary because they're going to hear all this vocabulary coming at them. A lot of students finished their initial reaction is, Oh, I hear that, have you I'm going to say no. And it's like, no, you have to actually-- if you just sit there and look blankly into a reactionary, no to the, have you question, the student-- that's when this USCIS officer will actually stop you and ask you to start defining things.