Fall PEDAL begins on September 20, 2023!
Fall 2023 PEDAL
IN PERSON at 3700 Walnut Street
Level 2 • Level 3+
September 22 – November 17, 2023
Fridays only
9:30 – 11:30 AM ET
Open to friends and family members of the Penn community (17+ years old)
VIRTUAL via Zoom
Level 1 •Level 2 • Level 3+
September 20 – November 17, 2023
Wednesdays & Fridays
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM ET
Open to all adults (17+ years old) regardless of location
Students must choose to attend either in-person OR virtual classes. Students cannot attend virtual classes on Wednesdays and in-person classes on Fridays.
Registration opens on Wednesday, August 9, 2023.
PEDAL welcomes adult English language learners of all proficiency levels to join our classes at no cost. Virtual classes meet every Wednesday and Friday from 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM, and in-person classes meet every Friday from 9:30-11:30 AM at 3700 Walnut Street.
There are three different class levels to choose from:
Your PEDAL teachers are talented graduate students working on their master’s degrees in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at the Penn Graduate School of Education. You want to improve your English skills, and they want to improve their teaching skills — it’s a win-win.
Practical English for Daily Living — known as PEDAL — was established in August 2012 to foster community engagement through education and to provide our talented teachers-in-training with authentic contexts to develop their teaching skills.
Originally for friends and family members of Penn students, faculty, and staff, PEDAL expanded to the Free Library of Philadelphia in 2014 to allow any adult English language learners in Philadelphia to join and improve their English for free. Since March 2020, we have been able to expand even further and we now invite adult English language learners from all over the world to join our free virtual classes.
PEDAL lessons focus on the types of communication that English learners encounter when navigating daily life in and around Philadelphia and/or in online spaces with other English speakers.
The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for languages can be found here in 22 different languages.
Try Level 1 if you…
Try Level 2 if you…
Try Level 3+ if you…
Dr. Iryna Kozlova is a Lecturer of Educational Practice at Penn GSE in the Educational Linguistics Division and serves as the Faculty Advisor for PEDAL. You can read more about Dr. Kozlova’s research here.
Hannah Brenneman is the Associate Director of Fieldwork & Service Learning for the Penn GSE Educational Linguistics Division and is the PEDAL Program Coordinator. Brenneman is a 2015 alumna of the Penn GSE M.S. Ed. TESOL program. She began teaching for PEDAL in 2013. Brenneman helps manage all aspects of the PEDAL program, from marketing and student registration to teacher hiring and training.
Penn GSE Educational Linguistics Division
The Philadelphia Office of Children and Families
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*Penn students, scholars, or faculty are not eligible to attend PEDAL and PEDAL does not provide visa sponsorship.
Erica Poinsett
Program Assistant
Penn GSE Educational Linguistics Division
epoinset@upenn.edu
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