Uniting Care Ageing West provides Language Resources for Local Library.

Grants, such as those provided by Unitingcare Ageing West, can make all the difference to the services provided in a rural town. Already starting to provide a service teaching English to those newly arrived in Australia, Hillston has now increased the resources available to both students and teachers.

Local librarian, Helen Underwood and UC Rural Chaplain Support,Sue Chapman, enjoy discussing the new resources. 

Funds, allocated in the Creative Solutions grant, which offered computer classes to Seniors and Craft workshops in Merriwagga, gave the opportunity for the local W.G Parker Memorial Library to add to the resources it already provided for this important service.

Once resources were purchased, it was decided that the library was the ideal place to store and distribute the DVD and books. Being a public venue there is greater opportunity for teachers and students to access resources than if they were stored privately.

The grant was administered by the Uniting Church chaplains and the Hillston Uniting Church, allowing local decisions to be made about what to purchase. 

An example of an exercise from the DVD

A DVD -The Interactive Picture Dictionary has 5 licences, allowing wider use. This DVD is easy to use and teaches beginners new vocabulary and how to put words in a sentence. It also shows those further advanced how to pronounce words and correctly put them into sentences in English.

Text books at various levels of difficulty - on Work, Leisure, Maths and Living and Listening in Australia - prepare people for life and work in this country. Other books, in their own language, assist new learners of English to get started.

A range of textbooks are available

The library also has a range of readers for learners of English and books in Punjabi available for borrowing.

Soon English Conversation Groups will restart, this time with an emphasis on providing services to local non-native speakers. These are all run by local volunteers and are held at the Uniting Church hall.

One student is currently studying English through the AMEP distance education program available to new comers to Australia who plan to stay. Another is being helped to improve her English speaking and writing. Both are assisted by volunteer tutors, a luxury many such students do not receive elsewhere but which Hillston provides,thanks to the generosity of these volunteers.