What are the biggest challenges and successes that come with teaching personal finance to ELL students? 

Yanely is joined by NGPF’s resident Spanish translator Chris Salm as well as two educators Z and Jill Thompson to talk about teaching personal finance to English Language Learners. The three will speak about the biggest challenges and successes with teaching the course to ELL students and share some differentiation strategies to use in the classroom. Enjoy!

Details:

• 0:00~0:41 Introduction
• 0:41~3:36 Z and Jill’s backgrounds
• 3:36~10:21 Challenges teaching ELL students personal finance
• 10:21~18:49 Successess teaching ELL students personal finance
• 18:49~29:42 Differentiation strategies
• 29:42~33:48 Go-to resources
• 33:48~35:26 Conclusion

Resources:

• NGPF Spanish and ELL Directory
• NGPF Podcast: Teachers Talking Side Hustles: A Beekeeper, Etsy seller and speciality apparel retailer 
• NGPF Advocacy Podcast: Christian Talks With Personal Finance Advocate, Jill Thompson
• HEFWA

Quotes:

• “In the context of teaching personal finance, really being able to allow students to recognize that [personal finance education] can be applied in real-time to their own individual situation; that quite honestly is like laying the foundation for success.” -Z

• “If I can pull a student into an office area… and have them tell me a story and they know what I’m trying to test like the information I need to get from them, …their comprehension is high enough they can have that conversation with me because that’s where they’re at and we can get through them telling me what they know without having to do a paper pencil test.” -Jill

About the Authors

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

More posts by Tim

Ren Makino

Ren started interning at NGPF in 2014, and worked part-time through high school and college. With his knowledge growing alongside NGPF, he joined the team to work full-time after graduating from college in 2020. He is also the producer of the NGPF podcast. During his free time, he likes to try out coffees from different roasters across the world.

More posts by Ren