Readers’ Advisory with Adult English Language Learners: Considerations

“With patience and perseverance, the RA relationship can form a long-term bond between staff and patron and can also serve to unite librarian, literature, and the community” (Bolick, 2015).

A local manufacturer in my area with a factory in Puerto Rico recently closed their Puerto Rican facility due to severe damage from the hurricanes over the past year.  The company relocated forty-five families to Indiana - in the middle of winter, which must have been quite a shock! – and my public library is scrambling to make sure we have resources for our new residents.  Many have requested assistance learning or improving their English language skills, and our librarians would like to provide books and DVDs in both English and Spanish that they would enjoy reading and viewing for pleasure. 

Readers’ Advisory Request

            Since face-to-face requests could be difficult for a variety of reasons, the library should implement a form for readers’ advisory services.  As Hollands (2006) pointed out, a request form system would be helpful to ALL patrons, anyway, and library can provide forms for patrons in English AND Spanish.  Holland’s guidelines for what to include on a readers’ advisory request form included:

•          Brief description of the service, including statement of confidentiality
•          Patron’s contact information (preferably including an email address)
•          Date the form is submitted
•          (Optional) Age, gender, and ethnicity of the reader
•          Examples of past reading, both likes and dislikes
•          Genre and format preferences [for this scenario, an option “Educational Materials – English Language” could be included]
•          “Peeves and Pleasures” (e.g., sex, violence, and profanity)

In addition to the Holland’s suggestions, a library with many patrons whose first language is not English should include the question, “In which language(s) would you like your materials?”

Readers’ Advisory for Patrons Wishing to Learn or Improve English Language Skills

Traditional Educational Materials

            For patrons who would like to improve their English language skills, one obvious resource is educational language programs and materials, including books, software, CDs, and DVDs.  If not already in place, the library should consider setting up private or semi-private spaces inside the library with computers and headphones so that patrons without computers at home may use educational software or CDs and practice at the library.  Currently, Inspire, the Indiana State Library’s “Virtual Online Library” (free to all Indiana residents and freely accessible in Indiana libraries), provides free access to online Rosetta Stone software (Indiana State Library, 2017).  Users can only access Level 1 of each language offered, but beginning learners could find this very helpful.

Reading for Pleasure

            Parallel texts.  For patrons wishing to read for pleasure – while also learning and practicing their language skills – readers’ advisory librarians might suggest parallel text or dual language books.  In these books, each page spread has the text in English on one page, with the same text in Spanish (or other relevant language) on the opposite page.  When readers don’t understand a certain passage, they can glance at the corresponding passage opposite to see the meaning in their native language.  Penguin Random House publishes a series of books of this type, offering three books of short stories in English and Spanish (Penguin Random House, 2018).  One can find other titles in this format – including full-length books, and even Macbeth! – by Googling “dual language books.”  Some highly rated dual language books to try are Don Quijote / Don Quixote (published by Editorial La Casa de España), A Christmas Carol - El cántico de Navidad (published by Kentauron), and Spanish Stories / Cuentos Españoles (A Dual-Language Book) (English and Spanish Edition) (published by Dover Publications) (Hankins, n.d.)

            Audiobooks.  Pairing an unabridged audiobook with its print or e-book counterpart offers readers a chance to hear the language while following along with the book, practicing both their listening and reading skills.  Depending on the reader’s genre preference, the librarian should suggest exciting titles that will keep the reader’s interest, like racy romance novels, thrillers, or true crime.

            Graphic novels.  Comic books and graphic novels can help readers gain literacy skills because of their “integration of text and pictures, presented simultaneously, to account for ideas and events depicted in panels” (Rapp, 2012).  Adult readers might enjoy the graphic novels Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast (a memoir about the author’s time with her aging parents), March by John Lewis (an account of the author’s struggles and triumphs during the Civil Rights movement), and Over Easy by Mimi Pond (a fictional memoir in the setting of 1970s California) (Raffel, n.d.).

References

Bolick, J. (2015). Librarian, literature, and locality: Addressing language barriers through readers' advisory. North Carolina Libraries, 73(1), 2-11.

Hankins, S. (n.d.). Languages Unite! 10 bilingual books and resources in English and Spanish for adults. Retrieved from https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/bilingual-books-spanish-english-for-adults/

Hollands, N. (2006). Improving the model for interactive readers' advisory service. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 45(3), 205-212.

Indiana State Library. (2017). About INSPIRE. Retrieved from https://www.statelib.lib.in.us/inspire/about.html

Penguin Random House. (2018). Penguin Parallel Text Series. Retrieved from https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/BMH/penguin-parallel-text

Raffel, D. (n.d.). 9 graphic novels every grown-up should read. Retrieved from Reader's Digest: https://www.rd.com/culture/graphic-novels-for-adults/

Rapp, D. N. (2012). Comic books' latest plot twist: Enhancing literacy instruction. Kappan, 93(4), 64-67.