Need study materials for Linux for ESL students

[irlandes]

Living in a small mountain village in rural Mexico, I am often asked to teach English. Due to Mexican law, I can't take money. But, I do love my students. My classes are the high point of my week. There are 17 now, and of that 17, most are girls or women. Men here just don't seem to be enthusiastic.

I have one class right now. A 19 year old woman who is studying computer science at the local technology college. Her 12 year old sister, a real genius at English. And, two 13 year old cousins who giggle a lot.

In the past after the introductory materials from Laubach I used Alice and Jerry readers from the 40's and 50's.

These girls asked for something harder, preferably related to computers. I found a 26 page computer basics article for ESL students written by a librarian in New Jersey. No copyright notice anywhere on it, so I made hand-outs for the students so they can make notes of words they don't know. I assumed it was intended to be "open source" study material, since it was put out by a library.

"This is a monitor. This is a modem. This is how one prints." They all know it, but are learning the names in English.

They can do around 8 pages in the one hour class each week so this item will be good for 3 weeks.

That was, of course, Windows based. I made it clear that my emphasis was going to be on Linux. The technology student really smiled when I said that. She said she had very minimal exposure to Linux in her school, which did not surprise me. Several years ago, I taught Linux to the IT head who needed it for her university diploma thesis program, so my guess is no one in that school knows much about Linux.

My problem is finding simple introductory material for Linux, akin to the Windows article I have. Most of it goes right into the shell, which is not suitable at this time. Not to worry. I guarantee you they will get plenty of shell work, but not at first. I want to start them on what I call "click stuff", that is GUI use at first.

Since it is an ESL class the emphasis has to be on relatively simple English, not baby talk, but ordinary, simple computer terms until they are ready for harder words. [sarcasm] From what I am hearing is happening in US schools, I'd say about what is appropriate in 2015 for US college freshmen who are not geeks. I wish I were joking. These kids are smart as whips! [/sarcasm]

I could just show them how to use the computer, of course, but the class is English so it has to be written.

Any ideas will be appreciated. I do live in rural Mexico, so ordering books to be shipped here is not practical at all.

If I can't find anything, I may type something up myself. But to produce excellent 8 pages a week will be a formidable task for me. The advantage of that is I would have it forever for future classes. Thanks for any suggested materials, preferably not copyrighted if possible.

[irlandes]

Sorry, I said I had one class right now. That was a mistake. I have 4 classes. One needs this material.