Health Literacy

The Change Agent: (High Beginner - High Intermediate ESOL) A biannual electronic magazine for adult educators and learners published by the New England Literacy Resource Center (NELRC) at World Education, with curated submissions from adult learners across the U.S. (MA adult educators have free access to this site with login massachusetts / changeagent).There are many topics related to health literacy, especially in these issues:

• Mental Health: Learning, Coping, Healing (Issue #52, Mar 2021)

• Pandemic (Issue #51, Sept 2020)

• Play (Issue #49, Sept 2019)

• All About Food (Issue #39, Sept 2014)

• Staying Safe in a Toxic World (Issue #32, Mar 2011)

CrowdEd Learning: (Literacy-Beginning ESOL) Sets of pre-beginning and beginning ESL texts with activity collections for each, focused on phonics and literacy skills. Several health-related topics and texts. 

Health Information-English Practice: (Literacy-Beginning ESOL) This website is meant for English practice and not to provide health information. It is aimed at beginning level English learners who want to practice English and Digital Literacy skills using a health website. Learners will develop TSTM skills including adaptability and willingness to learn, navigating systems, and processing & analyzing information. (This website was developed by adult ESOL instructors and is available through a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.) 

MoneyGeek: (Intermediate-Advanced ESOL) This site provides information to inform and support good financial planning decisions, including managing credit, home loans, car financing, insurance, etc.  This series is focused on access to heathy affordable food. 

• How to Eat Healthy When Food Costs Are On the Rise 

• Creating an Affordable Healthy Diet That Works for You 

• How to Find Food Security Support and Hunger Assistance Resources 

Newsela: (Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) Sets of thematically connected texts on a wide range of topics related to health.  Each text has a range of difficulties to select from. 

• Advocacy for Health and Medicine in the Black Community: This text set highlights the influence of race in health and medicine. 

• Health and Nutrition: Texts explore connections between nutrition and health, while also making connections to policy issues around food access. 

• Mental Health: Text set focuses on issues that impact mental health, including social media use, and strategies for self-care. 

NIH AllofUs Research Program : (Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) Activities and texts developed by the National Institute of Health to help learners build awareness about health topics and increase digital literacy to find and use online health information.

• Health Activities: interactive activities to help build awareness about health topics such as COVID-19, disease prevention, and how to judge a health claim. 

• Digital Health Literacy: a set of free downloadable digital health literacy curriculum materials and handouts, focusing on how to find and identify reliable online health resources, steps to protect information confidentiality, and online security 

Staying Healthy Wakelet Project: (Beginning - Low-Intermediate ESOL) An English Learner’s Guide to Health Care and Healthy Living is an award-winning curriculum suitable for beginning low intermediate level ESOL students and above. It is designed to enhance students’ understanding of health information, while at the same time improving their English language and literacy skills. The collections within this space were developed as part of a Winter 2022 EdTech Maker Space project, where adult educators created and curated activities to augment the curriculum. 

• Staying Healthy Beginning Level

• Staying Healthy Low Intermediate Level

Reading Skills for Healthcare Workers: (Intermediate ESOL) 175 selections for readers bewteen 5.5 and 8.5 GLE. Selections focused on healthcare-related content written by licensed language arts / ESL teacher, many with pre-CNA teaching and course development experience.  Focus on academic and content vocabulary, with recordings at 3 speeds for fluency development.  (Resource produced by Southwest Adult Basic Education in Minnesota) 

Stanford SPARQ Toolkit:  (Intermediate - Advanced ESOL):  A behavior science "do tank" of Stanford University which develops digital toolkits to support educational initiatives for positive cultural change. 

• Edgy Veggies: An interactive lesson, ideally used for in-person instruction with the opportunity to share food and do interactive taste testing, to inspire creative use of flavor and texture vocabulary to describe and write labels to promote healthy dishes. 

• Rethinking Stress:  An interactive lesson, based on a series of short videos which encourage people to evaluate the sources of stress in their life and reframe their reactions to stress to promote healthier responses.  (Copyable Google Doc of the lesson workbook here).

Stories from the Stage: (Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) An award-winning WORLD Channel original series featuring live storytelling broadcast weekly on public television on a range of topics with a diverse array of storytellers.

• Resilience: Stories of people who survive despite the odds. 

• Christine's Story (15:38): Christine donates a kidney to a complete stranger.  

• Corey's Story (8:50): Corey's prostate cancer experience makes him an advocate for testing among black men.  

• Challenge Accepted: Stories of creative strategies to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The World: (Intermediate - Advanced ESOL): The World is public radio’s longest-running daily global news program. Our goal is to engage domestic US audiences with international affairs through human-centered journalism that consistently connects the global to the local and builds empathy for people around the world.  

• A Therapist's Network Supports Immigrants, Advocates During the Pandemic

TED Talks: (Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) TED is a global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world, dedicated to the sharing of powerful ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. Recommended TED Talks on the topic of Health Literacy include:

• Shekinah Elmore: The Courage to Live with Radical Uncertainty (Mar 2020)

• Cheryl Holder: The Link Between Climate Change, Health and Poverty (Mar 2020)

• LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Creative Solution for the Water Crisis in Flint, MI (Sept 2019)

• Leena Wen: What your Doctor Won't Disclose (Sept 2014)

• Dorothy Roberts: The Problem with Race-Based Medicine (Nov 2015)

• Guy Winch: Why We All Need to Practice Emotional First Aid (Nov 2014)