Staying Afloat
Reviewed by Judy Rose, Instructor

Staying Afloat is a life skills and English guide for ESL and ABE students developed at Vancouver Community College

Staying Afloat contains seven units: Stress Management, Relationships and Change, Parenting, Living in a Culturally Diverse Society, Interpersonal Communication, Career Planning, and Seeking Help in Canada. Each unit lays out a number of topics and lesson plans with readings, handouts and suggested activities.

In the Stress Management unit two ink drawings show a problematic family kitchen scene just before mealtime, and also a mother asleep over her books late at night. Discussion questions related to the drawings are followed by vocabulary and comprehension exercises at both lower and higher reading levels. The material covers sources of stress and strategies for helping yourself in stressful situations. There is also an annotated bibliography at the end of the unit to help instructors and students find more information on the topic.

I used Stress Management with intermediate ESL students, and they were enthusiastic about the relevant discussion topics. They were able to read and complete the exercises independently. Another instructor who used the book in an intermediate ABE class reported that the students enjoyed the group activities, but she only used some of the written exercises. For the literacy classes, another instructor reported that the Interpersonal Communication unit was very effective, and the students said that they had fun with the exercises and learned to communicate better.

As a teaching resource, this manual is well organized and provides ready to use exercises as well as many suggested activities. My only word of caution is that some of the topics covered may be sensitive to students. Instructors need to decide how to prepare students to feel safe while discussing topics that may be difficult for them to talk about. Some instructors may want to team teach with a counselor for some of the units as the author suggests, or may only use some of the units. Those units that I referred to seem to be the most accessible to the widest variety of people.