Language Partners (LP), a program in the Education Justice Project (educationjustice.net) is an award-winning, peer-taught, English as second language program at Danville Correctional Center serving a primarily Latinx population. Our mission is to create a model ESL-in-prison program that fosters individual empowerment through a reciprocal learning community. This entails increasing the learner’s ability to communicate with others, enriching student’s connections with family members, encouraging both students and instructors to further their educational pursuits, and as a matter of social justice, challenging cultural barriers and social stereotypes.
We are accepting applications for instructor-trainers at Danville Correctional Center. Instructor-trainers serve as support for the peer instructors and help to guide and design this instructional program. If you are interested in topics related to Latinx populations, the process of teaching, learning or designing ESL materials, or language learning, please consider applying. Graduate students, community members, and faculty are encouraged to get involved with EJP's prison-based work. Experience with language teaching is not required.
To apply, go to http://www.educationjustice.net/home/get-involved/apply-to-ejp/ and select the Language Partners application.
Deadline for applications is March 1, 2019.
Please contact either Amber Dunse or Jim Sosnowski with any questions. You can also reach out to EJP Operations Manager Jamie Hines at jlhines@illinois.edu, or EJP Director Professor Rebecca Ginsburg at rginsbur@illinois.edu.
Thank you for your time.
Amber Dunse (dunse2@illinois.edu)
Jim Sosnowski (jsosnow2@illinois.edu)
Language Partners Co-coordinators
For More Information, please check out these resources:
- Visit the Prison: Join other new potential volunteers to meet the EJP students and observe classes at the prison on February 12. Contact Jamie Hines (jlhines@illinois.edu) by January 28 for more information.
- Hear from other EJP Volunteers: “What I've Learned from Teaching in a Prison," January 25th at 3 p.m. at the University YMCA
- EJP Website: http://www.educationjustice.net/home/get-involved/
- LP Website: http://www.educationjustice.net/home/programs/language-partners/
Check out pictures and videos of the Language Partners Program
- Application Video for Kalamazoo College Global Prize for Collaborative Social Justice Leadership: https://reason.kzoo.edu/csjl/globalconvenings/prize/clprize/
- LP Publication: “Prisoners teaching ESL: A learning community among “Language Partners”
