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Adult and Community Learning Services

Financial Literacy Resources
May, 2009

Materials for ESOL Learners

Managing money and understanding the United States financial system are great challenges for some newcomers to the U.S. Few specific financial resources exist for the ESOL learner, especially beginning -level English learners. In March 2009 the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center published an online curriculum for teaching financial literacy to adult ESOL students that can be used and adapted to fit a range of learning situations. There are lessons for literacy level students and more advanced students learning English.

Money Talks is a comprehensive resource that has complete lesson plans, handouts, and picture stories. There is a needs analysis as well as a form for post assessment to evaluate a learner's growth in financial awareness and managing money wisely. It is a free resource and can be found at: http://moneytalks.valrc.org/

The Money Smart Computer-Based Instruction (CBI) is a friendly and easy to use learning tool that teaches the 10 modules of the Money Smart curriculum through a computer. The CBI can complement formal classes or enable people to study independently at their own pace.

Each module generally takes between 20-30 minutes to complete. Students receive ongoing feedback and, upon successful completion of each module, can print out a personalized certificate of completion. The CBI is available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Russian and the recently released Hmong version.
http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/moneysmart/mscbi/mscbi.html