Literacy Level
Unit 1-Basic Banking Services
They have a car accident. Alina has a broken leg. Fatima has a broken leg. Alina pays her bill. Fatima can't pay her bill.
Their boss says "no work, no pay."
Alina rests at home for six weeks. She watches TV with her children. Fatima needs to move out of her apartment.
After two months, Fatima says I have $250 in my piggy bank.
Pass out Worksheet 1-2, The Car Accident Picture Story and Activities. Read the story again, while students look at pictures and read the corresponding sentences. Give students time to read the story themselves, while looking at the pictures. Then have students read the story at the bottom of page two.
Next, do the additional activities, the matching activity, rewriting of the story and the cloze exercise. (If time is running short, these activities can be done at home to allow time for the following in-class activities.)
Last, in groups of 2 or 3,
give students an opportunity to talk about ways to save money every month
and have them share their ideas with the class. Make a list on the board
for students to copy.
Students are sometimes unaware of their eligibility for a bank account and are apprehensive about going to a bank to open an account. To make students aware of what is needed, print out and review the web page linked below from the Social Security Administration. Ask students who have a bank account what documentation they needed to open the account (social security number, passport, etc.). Make two lists on the board, one for citizens and one for non-citizens. List documentation in its appropriate column and be sure your lists contain only the documents listed in the link below.
FDIC - Money Smart - An Adult Education Program http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/moneysmart/mscbi/mscbi.html (click on "Enter Money Smart CBI Online") This is an amazing online resource for most of the topics covered in this curriculum. The online multi-media and interactive modules require a free registration/log-in. In the first module, students can "go inside" a bank and click on the employees to hear what they do. If using this site in class, students would need to log in, and then view the entire module - you can't go to a specific point within a module to cover a specific subtopic. Because of this, the site may be a good activity to assign for outside of class once you teach students how to log in. The modules are also available in Spanish. The saving money related module, called "Pay Yourself First" covers these topics:
Practical Money
Skills for Life
http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/english/index.php
This is a free Web site designed to help educators, parents and students
practice better money management. The link below goes through an example of
how interest is paid on a savings account. It can help teachers explain the
concept to students. http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/english/at_home/consumers/saving/princip/interest.php.The
language level on this site is too high for beginner and low-intermediate
level students. However, all the content on the site is available in Spanish
and Chinese. This link in Spanish covers many aspects of savings money in
bank accounts http://www.vidaydinero.com/spanish/at_home/consumers/saving/.
Social Security Administration - http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10120.html. To open a bank account, banks must see a social security card. U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens can be issued a card. This web page lists the documentation necessary to be issued a social security card. Non-citizens, as of January 2007, must provide one of these documents to be issued a card: Form I-551 (includes machine-readable immigrant visa with your unexpired foreign passport); I-94 with your unexpired foreign passport; or Work permit card (I-766 or I-688B).