[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER 1: OTAN. Outreach and Technical Assistance Network. 

[MUSIC PLAYING] 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: So welcome. My name is Jennifer Gagliardi. I'm talking about taking up your citizenship class. Basically, it's citizenship prep on the go. My name is Jennifer Gagliardi. I am an OTAN Subject Matter Expert. I've taught citizenship for over 20 years at Milpitas Adult School. 

I also do website podcasts and video series from uscitizenpod.com. And I have written two citizenship books recently. Citizenship for Dummies, yay, second edition. And now, I am a moderator for the new forum at lincs.ed.gov for civics education and citizenship prep. And I would really like to extend an invitation to you to join LINCS and to get involved in our discussions. So let's get started. 

So by the way, the president want to pop in and say hello. So hi, Joe. I know he's busy this week. And this is our objectives. We will identify the latest citizenship resources with mobile apps, videos, websites, and online courses. By adapting and incorporating these digital resources, participants will be able to implement learning strategies appropriate for citizenship online classes, blended learning classes, distance learning environments, or directed self-study. 

I wanted to address the latest news about the USCIS Neutralization Test Redesign. They do have a website. Not too much is on there yet, but we will pop over there. We will talk about-- they're going to have a trial test over the next five months in 2023. They're basically testing two key components. 

Number 1, they're going to do a Multiple-Choice Civics test. It's going to have four choices. No, none of the above, or A and B, or none of them are correct. Those kind of things. Also they're going to do a standardized picture-based speaking test. The topics will include-- they will include daily routines, whether food, shopping, school. And the tests are similar to the picture-based tests from Best Plus 2.0 or the TOEIC Bridge. 

And the prompts will basically be, tell me about this picture. And they're going to be score-based on relevant content and phrases. So let me move forward just a little bit more about this, and then we'll go to the website. First of all, does anybody have any questions about the initial information? Are we OK to move ahead? 

OK. Community-based organizations will be provided with a full bank of multiple choice Civics test questions, correct answers, and educational resources, including the picture prompts. Also a Technical Advisory Group, a TAG, will be selected by the contractor. USCIS has not named the contractor yet. 

Previously, they had used TESOL as the people to organize the TAG group. We'll have to wait to see who they do pick for the TAG group. TAG group will consist of 10 subject matter experts. 5 Adult ESL, second acquisition, or assessment. Experts in assessment design in US. And then five US government civics, American history, and assessment design experts. 

The TAG will review and recommend language levels, scoring rubrics, and educational resources. And nonprofits and adult Ed programs can volunteer at naturalizationredesign22@uscis.dhs.gov. So I just want to take a minute to address you. I was a part of one of the TAG committees earlier. 

One of the things that-- our results were inconclusive. But I really have to say, USCIS brought their absolute A-game to the process, as well as the people from TESOL, world Ed, and the participants from San Diego, to Seattle, all the way to the East Coast. Everybody brought their A-game, very serious doing the work and everything like that. 

So I would feel in complete confidence with what TAG does and how they review and the care and expertise that they bring. So let me continue on. Oh, let me take this opportunity now to actually go to-- I want to go to USCIS, where they had that-- the 22, or they're talking about the redesign. 

So you go to uscis.gov. You go to Citizenship. You're going to the place about-- I think it's-- I think it might be here. Naturalization, yes. Under Naturalization Test and Study Resources, Natural Test Redesign. This is where they're going to put the information. However, what they do, they, basically, have this-- they said that this is the Federal Register, this is where we announced the plans. 

They basically-- when the federal registration notice talks about some of the laws that the new-- or why they need to do the redesign in some of the laws that they take into consideration, there was a presentation on January 12. Yesterday, they had a virtual engagement. I don't know if they put up the test yet. No. This is simply the page where they invited people to participate. 

And later, they're going to be sharing the information or the slide deck from this presentation on March the 3rd. So we're waiting for that to come up. And as soon as it does, we will be sharing that information with you. Let me step back into my presentation for a minute. Does anybody have any further questions here? Yep? OK. 

I have two initial responses to the naturalization test development. We have an article from Lynn Weintraub from Citizenship News. She posted it January the 13th. She talked about more details of the test redesign. It was fairly positive. And then on, I believe, it was March the 2nd, Bill Bliss posted his response. Was really dug into the standards that they were talking about during the test. Has some really interesting critiques. 

So if you take a look at both of these articles, judge the information, but we really can't make a decision about this information until we actually see the pilot itself. Also I want to do a little bit of advertising for LINCS. So this is-- let's see. I need to reshare. Reshare. So this is lincs.ed.gov. We've recently started a new forum for Civics Education and Citizenship. 

I've posted in Lynn Weintraub's article there. We have a really good response from Mary Joan Reutter. Affirming some of the findings or conclusions by Lynn Weintraub. And then yesterday or the-- yeah. Or the day before I posted Bill Bliss's article and then the invitation. I will post the rest of the slide deck there from the USCIS, as well as any further discussion. 

So please stay tuned for that. While we're here at LINCS, I would like to invite you to join the LINCS community. We have a very vibrant community, especially, with language acquisition. We have two new forums-- Civics Education and also Diversity and Equity and Inclusion. One of my favorite forums is Math and Numeracy. And I hate Math and Numeracy. No, no. I hated math when I was going to school. 

However, as I became an adult, I realized that math is really, really important and touches every aspect of your personal and professional life. So let's see. Is Peg here? Can you talk about your upcoming webinar? 

PEG GOULD: Thanks, Jennifer. Again, for anyone who wasn't in our last session with Jennifer, Math and Numeracy strand of LINCS is sponsoring April 17 and 18 in a 2-day online discussion around financial literacy in all aspects of adult education. So my co-facilitator, Brook Istas and I, would greatly appreciate anyone's attendance. Stopping in, post a couple of comments, few sentences, be supportive. And thank you in advance. I mean, it's a great opportunity. And LINCS is a wonderful forum, Jennifer, just for sharing and staying up-to-date. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Yeah. Especially if you-- well, for a couple of reasons. Number 1, everything that they talk about on LINCS can immediately be shared in your program. And if it's shared in your program and implemented, it could be, basically, applied in your classroom. Second thing is that it is an initiative by OCTE, which is from the Department of Education or the US Department of Education talking about implementing-- that's the group that, basically, implements. So we owe an IEC-- 

PEG GOULD: LCE. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Yes. I'm sorry. Initiatives. They're very much interested in immigrant education or immigrant-- sorry. Immigrant integration. And they're very, very serious about research-based practices. So basically, you research it, you basically apply it, you bring the information back. 

So you basically have some really solid information to share with your programs, to report out to the government or any financial institutions. So I really, really appreciate LINCS. And they seem to have a really good collaboration going on with COABE, which is our coalition for adult education, educators as well. 

So I will refer to them in a couple of minutes. So I'm going to go back into my presentation and continue on. So let's see. OK. So that was the naturalization. That's the initial response to the naturalization redesign. So we're looking forward to seeing what will happen there. I'm going to talk about delivering content. And I have so many students that like oh, teacher. I want to learn citizenship. I can't come to class. 

So what do you do? So I started my podcast in 2007 and then developed a website and videos to go along with it to, basically, enable students to practice citizenship outside the classroom, because the citizenship test actually happens outside the classroom. So that's going to be really, really important. 

And it's not that the students don't want to come to class, but they can't come to class, because they have adult responsibilities. A lot of our issues at Milpitas seems to revolve around daycare. Students have to do over time or students have to transfer to the swing shift. So sometimes, they have rotating shifts. 

So they can't go. So that's been a problem in the past. But now, one of the problems we've also had on the other side or the program side is that we're having a really difficult time finding qualified adult education teachers in California, particularly, in the Bay Area. 

So I had to-- what I did was I forego or basically said-- well, we couldn't find some teachers for the evening, so I said, look, my citizenship class or course works online. Let me take teaching ESL course morning and night so that'll basically give us some room or some flexibility for our ESL program. 

I'll keep my citizenship class online. So one of the advantages is that the students really like one-on-one practice. So every week, I do practice with them. But one of the more difficult things is that they have to, basically, work through civics and naturalization content on their own. Now, fortunately, I can deliver that through USA Learns. Or to supplement USA Learns, I've developed a series of videos and scripts and everything like that. So every day, they have something new to look at. 

So they have the video scripts. We have the videos, we have USA Learns. I also supplement content from VOA News. I have developed a lot of quizzes. And again, we do that one-on-one mocks citizenship interview. What's keeping us on is the cost of citizenship assessments. So do a life work pre- and post-test. We do the government and history listening test and we do the CIT speaking test. 

I really appreciate that CIT speaking test. It's a really good indicator to see if the student is ready for the actual N-400 part of the citizenship interview. It was based on the pre-2014 N-400. They do have to define some of the part 12 information. And they also have to practice how to deal with interruptions or colloquial language. So it's a really, really interesting interview. 

And the students really seem to enjoy it. I want to stop just a second and-- stop just a second and show that-- so I'm going to do a new Share. And this is my website. So today, I put up my presentation. And every day, I have a lesson. Usually, it's a practice interview that I've done with the student. 

I have different parts of the N-400 that they can look at. And the N-400, a lot of times, I've matched it with what's happening with USA Learns. We always have civics content. So they can access PDFs from either USCIS, or here I have an executive branch bridge, oop. Sorry. NO THANKS. So something from the executive branch. So anyway, I've done a lot of supplementing and development of different things for my students to use. 

One thing that I do want to share is also that it is International Women's Month. So I always try to put up some information from our different government and educational resources related to the women's group. And on the bottom, I have different resources that I, myself, have to know strictly about citizenship. So we have say, for instance-- let's see. Hopefully, this will work. 

A quiz about Women's History. So comparing the Seneca Falls Convention to what did the Declaration of Independence do? So again, any way that I can use match-up history or politics with our citizenship quizzes or content, I really try to make an effort to do that. So can anybody talk about how they're teaching their citizenship class now? Patricia, you want to say something? 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: You know, mine's in-person. Most of my students are not real savvy technologically. I got him to do cahoots. I've been working really hard to get them to do Burlington English. Because our school pays for every student to be there. But they're coming along. I have people who fall asleep in class. So I certainly make us walk around, move around, not because I'm boring, of course, but because they've started work at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and now it's 2:00 in the afternoon, and they're tired. So walking around. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: So I'm resharing the PDFs. One of the things that I really wanted to do is speaking or walking around is if you give them long things to practice, they will fall asleep. So what I did was I developed a series of shorter practices. So in different levels of those shorter practices. So for instance, here's one that's A4 that's only 10 questions long. 

They keep on-- so through a series that they go through, they're going to ask and develop more and more questions, more and more expertise about what's happening with the N-400. But again, once again, these are short interviews. Because you want everybody to have a turn, and everybody wants to practice with the teacher, but a lot of times, they're going to learn a lot more. It's going to really build up the community if you're doing short practices together. 

So one site is an N-400 practice, the other side is a civics practice. So let's continue on. And let's go back to the slideshow. And I am not in the right place on the slideshow. OK. Wait a second. The wrong one. Hmm. OK. There it is. OK. So that's how I deliver content in my classroom. 

One of the first things that I do on the very first times that when we meet or get together, I basically have a page where they talk about getting a simple list of local immigration, legal services. And most of these are pro-bono. But a lot of times, we have to remember as teachers, that we are not lawyers. That we can teach them the English and we can give them advice about how to conduct themselves during interview, but when it comes to legal advice, we really need to, basically, defer to some of the local organizations. 

So it's really good to have a five-- if you give them more than that, it's going to be get to be a little bit difficult, but we find language appropriate places that they can go to for further legal help. And every locality will have different organizations that can help them. And one of the very early classes that I have with my students, whether it was in-person or online, we do a USCIS government virtual tour. 

We watch the videos about how to apply for citizenship online. So even if they do it on paper, at least they know about the option about applying online. It basically, again, familiarizes them with the form and the way USCIS does their process. Also USCIS released, about three weeks ago, some new naturalization "how to" videos. Very videos, very clear, very accessible. So that's up on their YouTube website. 

I always show my students the tools page. And that's really important, because one of the first-- I've gotten texts from my students in the middle of the night about, what's my case status? Or what's the processing time? Or how do I know if I'm eligible to apply, et cetera, et cetera? So showing them the tool page. And you might have to show them again. But showing it to them earlier, again, basically, helps them their own personal civics education. 

And I do recommend the USCIS Citizenship Resource Center, because I'm going to say, hey, these are the interview topics. So they've developed a series-- oh. I'm sorry. I have to share this again. Sorry. One minute. 

SPEAKER 2: Jennifer, go ahead. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Yeah. I think I just lost-- sorry. 

SPEAKER 2: Hi, Jennifer. We've got a question in the chat. It says-- 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Please, go ahead. 

SPEAKER 2: Can you give us a tour of the Tools Page? 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Sure. Let me show you this one for the new N-400. OK. So this is the civics test resources. And notice that they have things not only for the N-400, but they start putting in stuff about the part 8, I mean, part 12. Here's some civics resources. Reading resources, et cetera, et cetera. 

Now, we're up here at the Tools Page. I clicked the Online Tools. They have a really good-- USCIS has a really good video about logging on or creating an online account. The ones that I really-- and I return to this page again and again. But the two or three that I always go through. 

A lot of times, the big question is, is like, how long is it going to take me to go through the process? So for instance, I show them, well, what form are we going to apply with? And they're like, I don't know. All of them. And it's like, no. You don't apply with them all of them. You're going to use the N-400 application for naturalization. That's the appropriate title or the form category. And you're going to pick your local USCIS office. I'm up in San Francisco. Patricia, I forget where you are. 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: Los Angeles. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: You do the Los Angeles one? There's Los Angeles and they're Los Angeles County, which, I believe, is out in San Bernardino, is that correct? 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: We're in Los Angeles because we're-- 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: OK. But so in Los Angeles, it's going to take them approximately 16.5 months, but I understand that it's going much faster now, is that correct? 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: I was going to say, I've already had two students. One applied in August, and she was interviewed in January. And the other one applied, I think, in June and he was interviewed in December. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: So it's interesting, and I've had people apply like later than last year. So it's been over a year and a half. So it's just like there's a weird bottleneck happening somewhere, and I don't want to share. 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: It could be that their application got stuck. Remember, how they were housing them. I would guess that that's more than likely. Is that-- 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Yeah. 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: It got in a place where they had to go and find. It was inaccessible for a while, that's all. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: I think this gets back to what it used to be is students used to apply, and then they would learn English. Then they would study the citizenship. It's like, no, we really want you ready to go. We want you to have a good English level. We want you to, basically, be able to get through a basic personal information level. Yeah. We can work on the part 12 vocabulary later. But we want to know that you have the skills to, basically, read the civics content and not simply just try to muscle memory your way through the 100 questions, OK? 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: Jennifer, I have a section. Like at the very beginning where we go through the steps and I always put study as step number 1. I mean, I have people who come in after they've already done their application. But everybody else, step 1 is to study, step 2 then when you're ready, is to do the application. I work it that way. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: OK. So we have-- this very first one was case processing time. I show them the fees calculator, and there is information in there about-- no, sorry. Information has recently come out the fees will be going up about $35 for the N-400. But all the fees are going to be changing at USCIS and the case status online. 

And the case status online is important because to use this one, they're going to already have to receive their receipt number from their application. And this is going to be important too, because perhaps, they might have-- it's down here. Perhaps, they've been waiting a little bit longer. So they might have to submit a case inquiry. And I do, eventually, go through all of these-- I do go through all the tools, but the big three are case processing times, fee calculator, case status online. And I'm sorry. I forgot about one. 

It's like, am I eligible? So that's the eligibility and one down here. I see there's a question in chat. I'm going to click this. Oh, that was from-- OK. Great. Did anybody else have any questions about uscis.gov while I'm still here? Let's see in the Chat. Oh, thank you. All right. Very cool. OK. News Share. I'm going to go back to my PowerPoint. 

These are available at uscis.gov under the Citizenship Center. They have the-- sorry. They have the civics lessons, of course. And basically, beginning. And then intermediate level. But they've also started developing more N-400 lesson plans. They did one on the Oath of Allegiance that was really, really helpful. They also did one on military service. 

Again, no matter how much content people put out there-- the USCIS puts out, people want more and more and more. So one of the things that came up with is a more perfect union. It's an alternative-- it's a really interesting marriage between the beginning level and the intermediate level language level. But it's, basically, the guides to different monuments and memorials on the National Mall. So it's been very, very interesting. So they'll have some really nice pictures. 

Like this is the picture of the people who signed the Declaration of Independence, which is really poignant. It's beautiful, but it's not the most-- it's like these big granite boulders right here, they have the signatures of the people who signed the Declaration of Independence etched in the stone. It's kind of moving. 

And then they have the civics question related to the monument. So taking a look at there and just, basically, remixing and matching the information. And applying it to places that the students may have actually visited is really important. And then sometimes, I grab videos from the National Park Service or show them some of the websites. 

So anything that I can do to bring out in outside applicable information to my students, I really, really try to do that. And it does pique their interest. And it basically opens them up to more than like, I'm just going to memorize this stuff and then forget it as soon as I leave. So good job. Oh, they're considering doing a series like this for New York City. 

And I also suggest that, maybe, they move into the Midwest, maybe Saint Louis or even Chicago to, basically, extend into the heartland of the United States. I want to talk about a initiative or a collaboration between USCIS and the Smithsonian. It's called Preparing the Oath. And they do one question and one video for every one of the civics questions. 

And they have some beautiful-- so the students are watching the videos that are very sharp, 1 to 3 minutes max. They're seeing beautiful objects from history from the Smithsonian collections. There's usually a very simple quiz. And there might be an activity about matching or pairing. So they have the ability to download the transcripts. And I've used those transcripts. 

I've modified them and use them as listening practice or dictation. And they also have a really good word list. So again, they did an excellent job for preparing the oath. Now, that the videos that they have here are not on YouTube. But that's OK. There's other things there. But this is very-- I really, really appreciate this initiative. 

I wanted to take a second, now, that I've gone through the USCIS staff and, basically, ask, does anybody have any-- want to share any lessons learned from adapting during the pandemic and re-adapting? Or does anybody want to share any best practices from their own classroom or program? OK. Let's see. We have a hand up. Peg, did you want to say something? 

PEG GOULD: Thanks, Jennifer. At my programs in Trenton, coming back from the pandemic and everything, what did we learn from the pandemic was, having everything remote. It, in some ways, made student collaboration easier. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Really. Wow. 

PEG GOULD: Only because during the complete lockdown, that was a way for students to stay engaged with live individuals, so to speak. And they started to make YouTube videos. The department set up a YouTube channel when we went on remote. And they made videos about everything. What do they hoard during COVID, what were their fears during COVID. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: I need to see that. 

PEG GOULD: The safety of COVID, all of this. Thoughts about vaccinations, everything. But the way that has carried forward, now that we're back in-person, is the teachers are really truly doing computer-assisted instruction now to the extent where our-- especially, our advanced classes, they go into small groups live, and they, maybe, have a debate topic or something like that. They go in groups, they present a side, or they break up in their group. One half something, the other half does another. 

And then they're more eager or less reluctant, I should say, to stand up and actually present in front of the whole class. And we've also-- I know, I just talked to my advanced teacher yesterday, and she said, her students are now doing a project. And it's singular. Each student is working individually. Choosing a president from their country and a president from the United States. 

Someone who has been in office at the same time. So not necessarily Biden, not necessarily Trump, not necessarily Obama. But somebody for whatever. And it can be very far back. We have a student from the Ivory Coast, for example, who chose someone who was president in the Ivory Coast who was president of the Ivory Coast at the same time as Bill Clinton was president of the United States. 

So compare and contrast these two individuals. And in her presentation, she explained that that president from the Ivory Coast was her grandfather. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Wow. 

PEG GOULD: There's a lot of rich sharing that comes about. So it's like 7 degrees of separation. I know a student whose grandfather was a president. And now, it's just coming down. But the students are really even more interested in listening to one another, whether it's sharing something about their country or sharing something about debates. 

It's really transitioning back to in-person is now different than it would have been if we had never gone online in the first place. It's not better or worse, it's just different, and as the director, I see a rich fabric. But it's a different type of fabric than it would have been without COVID. Just different. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: That's amazing. That is such a good story. Well. Do you have a link to YouTube channel. So we can see some of it or most of the stuff-- 

PEG GOULD: Let me find it. And I'll put it in the chat. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Absolutely. That's great. OK. Let me go back. Patricia, did you want to say anything? No, OK. Let's see. Further, some of the lessons that I learned was that every form is an opportunity. So one of the initial questions that citizenship students have, is what is the USCIS N-400? 

And then how can I practice for my citizenship every day? So I really talk a lot in my classroom about comparing forms like the documents or the forms of the documents and encounters with their doctor or with your-- comparing the forms, the documents, and their encounters with the USCIS N-400 interview experience. 

So also we're talking about a wallet interview. So I've, basically, opened my wallet and, basically, demonstrated like this is where my name is, this is where I would find my information. Here's my Green Card. This is where I would find my data permanent residence. I carry this credit card so I can get points, go travel and then, those kind of things. 

So using the information in a wallet, basically, and walk your way through almost a mock interview. Medical history forms and auto-fill forms for shopping is a way to practice addresses. Job applications and interview are some of those gatekeeping, those gatekeeping experiences that, basically, prepares a person emotionally for the interview. 

And again, airline tickets and destinations. Again, talking about that. Oh, let's see. Did you put that in there? Let's see. Somebody just wanted to say-- oh, OK. So there is the information from Peg. And we have more on Google Classroom and Moodle too. Yeah. It's important to maintain student privacy. But thank you very much. I'm going to definitely check that out. 

PEG GOULD: You're welcome. There's a video on there, Jennifer, some class did talking about their pets. And someone has Bathsheba the Bunny. I mean, that's like the best video of all time. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Oh, yeah. OK. Well, later on, maybe, I'll get my cat to come online and present her case. I used to have house rabbits for a long time. And I got house rabbits, because I thought, oh, they won't damage my property. They won't damage the house. So not right. OK. 

So let me go back. So forms, that was one of those takeaways from COVID. Social media. One of these things about promising to tell the truth is linked with the promise that you make during the citizenship interview. Do you promise everything that you said it true? Well, if you follow social media, you know that everything on social media is not necessarily true. 

So just from a cursory follow of social media. And I also want to stress that some of our government agencies are making a real effort to post information, to get out the truth about what is happening on their websites, et cetera. So instead of me telling the students, this is what's happening, a lot of times that I'll assign the students, like, OK. You follow USCIS.es, you follow TSA, you follow Ro Khanna, our congressman, et cetera, et cetera. 

And they would report back in class what happened this week. And so that was really interesting. To get them to learn how to use social media as a tool for civic engagement, and I really appreciate the Voice of-- Learning English News Literacy Series was a various-- initiative, I think, came out five years ago about talking about news literacy. And iCivics has a really good news literacy activity. 

Scavenger Hunts on portals and activities. I cannot tell you how many times I've answered this question. Who is my senator? Who is my representative? Or where do I get my arrest record? So I basically have introduced my students like, OK, how do you find out information about Milpitas Police Department? So they Google that, and then they start drilling down through it. 

So I don't tell them just randomly to do it, basically, they're sitting up at the front of the classroom. And we're helping the students talk their way through this. How to find different information. It's been very empowering for them. However, State of California has a massive portal. And so sometimes, it's really difficult to find that information for your city or county, et cetera, et cetera. 

So you really need to initially start holding people's hands so they can walk through this. And there's a real feeling of accomplishment when they're able to find the information that's really necessary for them. So I would recommend, basically, scavenger hunt activities on portals and apps. I want to dig a little bit deeper into the part 12 stuff. And USA Learns has gotten beyond just giving simple definitions, but they give us some really good examples of life stories that the students can learn from. 

So this is a quick one about somebody who engaged in legal activities. They've done their time, they paid their fine, could they still become citizens? One of the problems-- yes, please. Go ahead with the chat. Let's see. I have a five-minute warning. Oh, I cannot believe it. I can talk forever about this stuff. 

I'm going to have to step away from USA Learns. I have two things that people are talking about from Lynn Weintraub and Bill Bliss about the N-400 part 12. I have some further information here about part 12 resources that they can dig into. I have a video playlist. And I was really surprised by two of these. 

One is. This is a teacher down from, I guess, Los Angeles Adult School who's done some very interesting things with citizenship and then also Literacy. Pittsburgh has done some really outstanding information. I want to talk a little bit more about the mock citizenship interviews that I give. I always use a progressive series of mock citizenship interviews. 

I upload the videos to Google Drive or YouTube. I set them not to private, because then only I could see them. I set them to Not Listed. And so are unlisted. And so then the students can watch them as many times as they want. I send the link to the students and email with one to three reflection questions about how they could have responded better, or is there another way to practice rephrasing? 

And I delete all the videos to protect their privacy after the students take the Oath of Allegiance. I just recently developed a mix and match series E. And I, basically, emphasize the part 12 information with civics quizzes. So here's one that I practiced between residency and voting. And the reason why is because there's always a link between residency and voting. 

And the student, after they go through this, they have to tell me, what is the relationship between residency and voting, because they also answer a quiz. This is the final slide. And I have a palette of all sorts of-- a lot more resources. Let me click this here. So Stop Share. And you can see the resources here. I also have them up here on the pallet. 

So I have a lot-- which is going to think about loading. So I have something here that I'm going to try to develop for-- COABE has a state convention in California in April this year. It's going to be in Oakland. And one of the things is I have a civics calendar that-- I have a whole bunch of adult resources related to different holidays. I'm going to try to beat this out into a shareable Google Calendar so people can have that civics information for them at the fingertips and activities. 

I have information about the test redesign and the new citizenship videos and all sorts of things about voting, online courses, especially, the ones that came up about the Constitution explained. And civics and news literacy and faith-based immigration and citizenship resources. And that's it. Let's stop, and let's get to the text lab, OK? Does anybody have any questions? Do we go to 2:10 or are we're done? 

SPEAKER 2: Yeah. We have till 2:10. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Well, we do have to 2:10. Oh, I didn't have to rush through the slides. But does anybody have any questions before we go on? Patricia, did you have anything you want to say? 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: I had a student who called me on Thursday, because she has her interview scheduled next week. And her father is gravely ill. And initially, she said, I wasn't going to go. But she said, my head isn't here, I can't really study, because I'm just thinking about him. And I said, anyway. She asked me what to do, and in her case, she had an attorney and it occurred to me, you could talk to your attorney. And in fact, he rose to the occasion. 

He said, you just get your plane ticket, let me know, and I will take care of that. So for the rest of us, it's a lot more involved, I think. Yeah. To change somebody's interview, it's very difficult, but-- 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Yeah. It's interesting because I was wondering if she had gone through a pro-bono legal services like Catholic Charities or something like that. She might still be on hold, yeah. So-- 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: Yes. You're so right. Yeah. Yeah. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: It's lent. We're all fasting, OK? We're fasting. We're hungry. We'll get to you-- 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: Oh, that's why, OK. Is that right? 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Yeah. 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: That lent goes all year round for some of those places there. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: No. But the thing is, is those pro-bono legal services are absolutely essential for so many of our students too. 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: Well, and you know, I was looking around. I had some-- it's interesting. I have a group of students. I have two classes, but I have a group of students who have a lot more legal problems than students I have had in the past. And when I hear them talk, I'm going, woooo. And I had-- anyway. 

I went to the New Americas. I was going through [Inaudible], and I was going through. And I wasn't getting anywhere. You're just on hold or leaving-- 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: New Americas are great. Yeah. 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: But with the New Americas project, we're going to put together. We actually have a citizenship workshop. And they gave my students first bid to sign up because they're going to have legal people on staff. And the other thing that they always do is they have the paperwork there for either fee reduction or for people who-- because I have several people who are on Social Security who probably qualify for no fee at all. 

But you have to do paperwork for that. So anyway, the most positive thing is that we're going to do this. They put it on a Saturday, it's the last Saturday of March. So-- 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: I think there's another thing. I happen to know that you teach in a library. And I used to be a coordinator for the library, the citizenship program at the library, at our local library system. And that is an unbreakable triad between the libraries, adult schools, and legal services. If they can, maybe, basically, host services at the library. 

You've got the legal services people there, you got the adult people who can provide, maybe, deeper language instruction. I think that's a really, really good pairing. So I can't recommend that enough. You were speaking of New Americans. And for a while, I was confusing the New Americans with the welcome.us group that is, basically, part of the new White House initiative to welcoming the refugees and new immigrants to the United States. 

And I know that OCTE, and of course on LINCS, we're going to be discussing some of the immigrant integration. Because a lot of people who are especially coming-- some of the refugees coming in now, have really high levels of education. But how do they, basically, get their licenses and degrees translated? So that's going to be really, really important too. 

And so one of the questions that I had, especially, with the new redesign is that I was wondering if they're offloading some of this basic naturalization work onto the community-based organizations to allow USCIS to have more space to work with the immigrant population that's coming through, because a lot of that stuff is really, really problematic. 

Whereas when you're getting into naturalization, it might be a little bit more routine and can be offloaded. So it's going to be interesting to see how that space works out. I was wondering if it's getting to be-- like, are we balancing the workload, which is totally appropriate response to. 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: What I is interesting is that they have never, never touched what the implementation is going to be like. I just think that's we're all here in this trial testing period, right? That's what's going to happen. But nobody touches, nobody talks about, because that's-- whether other people are going to come in and help, they have the support, right? Is the support offices that used to do the fingerprinting. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Well, and they used to do third-party-- people used to do background checks. And that was an epic failure. So yeah. It's going to be a real problem. So-- 

PATRICIA HERNANDEZ: They're not going to do that again. Yeah. OK. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Yeah even if USCIS had tripled the budget, I don't think they tried-- people want them to be all things to all people, but they can't be all things to all people. So Peg, do you have any final thoughts? 

PEG GOULD: No. Not at all. But thank you, Jennifer. I only just echo what you say. It's really getting them-- giving them opportunities to be able to speak. Because I think conversation is one of the most challenging areas of any language. Because it's alive. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: Absolutely. 

PEG GOULD: And even though, for example, this is reported, but what you said exactly five minutes ago, you can't remember off the top of your head. No one can. And for our students, that's what makes speaking so difficult. And how many of them say, "I just want to understand more." 

And without slowing our speech naturally down, as if we're teaching in the classroom to maintain a regular cadence of speech, as will be expected from them at that citizenship interview, and any time somebody walks in the door, "How are you today?" "I'm fine. Thank you." "Tell me more." It's just automatically to try to get them to open up a little bit. Tell me more about yourself. 

And I always underscore, when we're working with students for whom citizenship is imminent. That from the minute they walk in the door, if there is a naturalization personnel who says, how are you today? And you say today is Saturday, March 4, you might as well just keep walking right back out the door. 

Or did you have a lot of traffic getting here today? I'm fine, thank you. How are you? I mean, they're absurd examples. But if you don't give an answer that is somewhere in that universe of an acceptable response, you will not pass. And it doesn't just happen. That citizenship exam is not just at the interview. It goes from the minute anybody is talking to you when you walk in that building. 

JENNIFER GAGLIARDI: And that's one of the things. Like I love YouTube and I hate YouTube. I love YouTube, because it, basically, gives you some good models. I hate YouTube, because people get the misconception, if I just do this, memorize this one video, I'll be fine. And that's not appropriate. But I want to go back to something you did say a minute ago about getting-- one of your initial comments about speaking. 

Initially, what I thought you were going to talk about is, how organizations can speak on behalf of us. I don't know why I thought that. But that's where my head went. So one of the things that I have really thought is that COABE has been really good at speaking on behalf of communities, adult education communities that don't necessarily have a voice. 

For instance, with corrections. People with adults basic skills, those kind of things. I think COABE has really been really good at that. I think LINCS is basically bringing this information because not only we have a place to talk about this kind of stuff, and talk about government policies, but also government people come and meet us there at that same thing. 

So it's almost a level playing sphere. So it's a way for us to safely not talk back, but speak together as a community. I think TESOL can be really good for that. So and I really appreciate TESOL stepping up and talking about things about related to nationalizations. So I think if we basically keep on participating in our national organizations, I think we're going to be able to join voices together and basically speak in truth to power. 

I mean, we had a great example of that when they tried to revise the 2020 revisions of the citizenship questions. And that was basically so many people spoke out against it, and it was not implemented. So we need to bring join together and speak on behalf of ourselves, our communities, our students, and basically, help our students step up and speak for themselves in their community too. So--