Cooking, طبخ, पकाउँदै!: Client Factors
Type of Group:
Educational
Group Process Approach:
Members will be educated through verbal instruction from group leaders as how to pronounce selected English words pertaining to kitchen household and grocery items. The session will be held in the context of a kitchen, available through SHIM. Members meeting the inclusion criteria will be taught English according to the context of the environment and activity requirements. Group leaders will then encourage recall of the selected words taught during the session. The group process that will be utilized to structure the session will be through the Lifestyle Redesign format.
Group Purpose:
This session will focus on bringing members of different cultures and language speaking abilities together to teach selected English words while preparing a food item of cultural relevance. The task will hold a social aspect for women, along with an educational portion that incorporates language acquisition from verbal instruction
Group Membership & Size:
All members of the women’s group will participate in the session. However within this particular session, inclusion criteria will include women whom cannot speak English. Exclusion criteria for the group includes women who can speak English, women’s group translators, the SHIM community counselor, and women under the age of 18. Typical membership to group meetings ranges between 10-15 women from the community and meetings are always open to any woman over the age of 18. Our session will utilize all members who attend the group on that given day.
Group Goal:
By the end of the session, members will independently demonstrate an understanding of 5/10 English words used within cooking task.
Words used include: tomato, onion, cabbage, carrots , salt, pepper, knife, spoon, fork, bowl
Equipment & Supplies:
- 10-15 chairs
- Blender
- Microwave
- Measuring Cups
- Spatula
- Melon Baller
- Carrot Shredder
- Garlic press
- Knife
- Plastic Spoons
- MoMo Steamer
- Disposable Pan 9×13
- Paper Plate
- Large Bowl
- Tupperware
- Garlic
- Cabbage
- Cilantro
- Lime
- Carrots
- Onion
- Olive Oil
- Salt & Pepper
- Dumpling wrappers
Space & Set-Up:
The cooking task will take place in a medium sized kitchen that is offered through SHIM and may be used by members upon request. The kitchen includes appliances such as a microwave, oven, stove top, and a refrigerator. The space also includes smaller kitchen accessories such as a limited number of utensils, pots, and pans. There is enough counter space for 10 people to prepare meals as well as a center table that fits 10-12 people. The space is set back near administrative offices making it a quiet environment to work within.
During set up, students will split up the members into five stations each with a different task and utensils to contribute to the final food product. The first station will be for members to cut the onion and cabbage. This station will need a cutting board and three knives. The second station will be to chop up the cabbage and tomatoes and will be set up with a cutting board and three knives. The third station will be to crush garlic using a garlic press which will be set up with garlic and two garlic presses. The fourth station will be to prepare the stove and cook pot needing only the pot, water, salt and oil. The fifth station will be for members to join after they have completed their duties to pinch the dough and fill the dumpling wrapper with the ingredients prepared from the first few groups. There will also be at least ten chairs around the kitchen table to provide adequate space for members to sit and fill the MoMos.
Implementation Methods:
Didactic Presentation (15 min): Group leaders will begin with an explanation of what the cooking activity will specifically entail. They will explain that while the activity will be fun and end in a delicious product, that the goal of the activity is to prompt a Nepali-English exchange with items being utilized in the kitchen. A conversation will then be had on the importance of learning Enlglish within this specific context because it is a highlighted occupation, or an activity they enjoy doing. Group leaders will also emphasize that learning English within this realm will be useful while sharing recipes, shopping for products, and to help members feel comfortable using English in a general sense.
Peer Exchange (10 min): Members will be asked to draw on an experience in which they specifically wish they would have had a greater English vocabulary in any task, not just cooking related. Group leaders will prompt members to see learning specific phrases or items in their situation would have been helpful and how they felt during their experience. Group members will be allowed to openly comment and tell their stories after the member who was speaking was finished with their story.
Direct Experience (30 min): Members will engage in a cooking task. They will prepare a traditional Nepali dish, called MoMos, for all women in the group to enjoy. The women will be leading the group. They will delegate tasks to all participating members and explain what each task entails. As the women work at their assigned duty, group leaders will circulate and and facilitate their experience by conversation and having an exchange of vocabulary. For example, if a group member is working on dicing a tomato, the group leader may approach and say, “we call this a tomato, and this a knife. What do you call these in Nepali?” Similar exchanges will occur with ten specifically identified items. If members are intrigued enough, group leaders may dive further and introduce more vocabulary.
Personal Reflection (10 min): At the end of the session, members will be asked to share their feelings on the task and how they felt it went. Once that discussion has concluded, group leaders will then ask the women if they thought the lesson surrounding the activity (English in context) would be useful in other life situations. This conversation will give group leaders insight on the success of the intervention and if participants did feel like they learned something truly useful within everyday living.
Outcome Criteria:
Because the inclusion and exclusion criteria was a more limiting in the amount of members targeted in this session, data was collected through a conversational exchange between a group leader and a member. The group leader will hold an item that was taught during the session and would ask the member what it was in English. Results will then be recorded by the group leader asking the questions and calculated after all items were presented.
All members who participated in the cooking task expressed an immense amount of enjoyment through the entire session. Those who met our inclusion criteria and were learning English vocabulary, beamed with a sense of accomplishment upon correctly stating an Enlgish word. Members who did not meet the inclusion criteria also seemed extremely proud and supportive of those who were learning English vocabulary. These feelings were observed by encouraging words and cheers upon a correct identification.
Goal Attainment:
Goals were met if each member who met the inclusion criteria correctly identified at least five of the English terms used in the cooking session. Of the three women who met this criteria, each woman was able to accurately able to recount each item. Pronunciation was not measured as a goal as the focus of the session was to measure accuracy and not precision.
Future Session Modifications/Considerations:
After completion of this activity, we realized just how much organization is required for cooking activities. While we were able to collect all required data and carry out the “English in context” portion of our intervention, the cooking took a lot longer than anticipated. Members of this group often show up late and there was a lot of preparation involved with cooking the MoMos and between these two items, our session ran over almost a whole hour. Possible modifications for the next session would include possibly preparing some items in advance to ensure the activity is completed within the allotted time frame. Further, leaders could cook the recipe outside of the group for practice to get a better understanding of time constraints and to better foresee the task before implementing with members.
Session Reflection:
This session resulted better than we could have ever anticipated. The morning started with the news an hour before our activity began, that the community counselor had car trouble on her way into work and was unable to attend the session that day. We felt confident and comfortable with the idea of running the group ourselves, but we hoped that the women would not be thrown off too much with the irregularity of the group dynamic. We did our best to prepare each cooking session before so that everyone upon arrival could sit down and have an immediate role in the cooking task. This was something we wanted to impose due to our learned experience from the sewing group which resulted in a less hands on structure than we had hoped.
SHIM staff members frequently remind us that members usually run on “Nepali time” and are often late to meetings and functions. This is something we have definitely experienced in the past; however, members were later than usual to the start of this session. One of the SHIM staff members made a call to see if any of the members still planned on coming in for the day which to our relief was confirmed that they were just running behind. One of the members who insisted on bringing bigger items needed, such as a blender and the three tiered steamer pot specific for cooking the MoMos, also arrived 45 minutes late to group. Once we got our stations going, the flow of the session became a lot smoother. This was the time for the women to teach us how to cook- which was a great shift in dynamics. The older women were happy to teach us how to properly roll a MoMo without words, but through kind and gentle gestures. This was one of the most positive memories in seeing the older women truly take on a role in teaching members their own way in making the MoMos.
Between the work of making the MoMos and waiting for the items to arrive, we ended up wrapping up our group session almost an hour later than normal. We were worried about what women may say or how they felt about the session running as far over as it did, but everyone seemed to be unbothered and appeared to enjoy themselves. We also got a chance to speak conversationally. We were able to relax and visit with each other, which was a nice change of pace. There wasn’t a prompt or any particular topic we “should” have been talking about. Especially with it being our last session, it was a special time we got to share with the members. The women also requested that we all take pictures together and a few of the women requested that we take pictures with them individually. Emotions during this time were bittersweet because the women truly made us feel that our conversations and actions made a meaningful impact in their lives. Within this last hour, we also realized truly how much we would miss them and the impact they had made on us. It was a great feeling and made for a memorable last day.
