Developing ESL teaching materials to enhance the Language Partners program at Danville Correctional Center

Abstract

The current research is a Case Study which investigated the development of teaching materials as a way to enhance the quality of the Language Partners program, an English as a Second Language program resulting from the partnership between the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Danville Correctional Center through the Education Justice Project initiative. Language Partners is considered a unique ESL program integrated by a group of bilingual incarcerated men who devote their time and effort to teach English to speakers of other languages in the correctional as a way to promote social justice. These incarcerated men are supported by Graduate students and professors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, forming a learning community worth replicating in other correctional institutions.