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Basic Literacy and ESOL Training and Tutoring
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Literacy Volunteers of Roanoke Valley, a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3), educational organization, provides services and materials to assist volunteers in conducting tutorial programs in basic literacy and English-for-Speakers-of-Other-Languages.
Literacy Volunteers provides free, confidential, one-to-one tutoring for functionally illiterate adults and ESOL in Botetourt, Craig, and Roanoke counties and the cities of Roanoke and Salem.
In order to become an Literacy Volunteers Basic Literacy or ESOL tutor, you must be at least eighteen years old, have a high school or GED diploma, and complete the approved tutor training workshop (Basic Literacy or ESOL) conducted by Literacy Volunteers staff. The workshop is free, except for a materials fee of $20.00 to cover the cost of a book and handouts.
Each workshop is scheduled for fifteen hours, not including a one-hour orientation held approximately every six weeks. The five three-hour training sessions prepare prospective tutors for either Basic Literacy or ESOL instruction. Arrangements can be made in advance to miss one session. If you miss two or more sessions, you will not be certified at the completion of the current workshop but will be able to enroll in a future workshop without cost, providing there is no substantial change in the training material.
During the training workshop, you will be given the name and telephone number of an adult learner and a summary of the learner’s intake assessment. You should call your learner within 48 hours to arrange an initial meeting.
Confidentiality is our pledge to the learner. Keep this in mind when you call the learner and have to leave a message.
All tutoring sessions should occur in a public place. We do not evaluate learners on any basis other than their literacy abilities. Meeting in a private place is neither recommended nor sanctioned by Literacy Volunteers. Private settings, especially a home, offer many distractions that do not facilitate the tutor/learner relationship. The availability of resources at the public library and the Literacy Volunteers Learning Center makes both of these places good choices for your tutoring sessions. Materials from the Literacy Volunteers library are available for you to borrow.
Use your first meeting to get acquainted with your learner. Here are some suggestions for what you might do during your first meeting:
• Exchange phone numbers and addresses if appropriate.
• Discuss the learner’s goals.
• Bring a notebook and a calendar.
• Discuss the importance of calling each other when one will not be able to come to a lesson.
• Ask the learner which people in the learner’s life know about his or her literacy problem, and which ones know about the tutoring arrangement.
The above is not intended to be a complete outline of your first meeting. You may want to use some of the time for a lesson.
If you are not comfortable with your match, we can match you with another learner.
We ask learners and tutors to commit to two hours of tutoring as well as lesson preparation and homework time as needed each week. Two hours each week, every week is often not possible for either the learner or tutor, but it is a goal that both should strive for. Less time means slower progress. You and your learner should determine a meeting schedule that best allows you both to strive for this goal.
When planning your lessons, keep them learner-centered. Work on things that are useful, relevant, and interesting to your learner. Whenever you can, get feedback and suggestions from the learner about the lessons. Take field trips to the grocery store, post office, bank, etc., if appropriate.
You will receive a two-month report form at the beginning of January, March, May, July, September, and November. You should use this form to record your tutoring, preparation, and travel hours as well as to document specific goals and achievements throughout the next two-month period. This report is essential to your work as an Literacy Volunteers tutor. The Literacy Volunteers staff uses this information to report to the national ProLiteracy headquarters once a year and in grant applications and reports throughout the year. The information is also important to you as a tutor, giving you and your learner a clear record of the progress you are making.
Once a year, each learner should be reassessed. We strongly encourage the learner to come to the Literacy Volunteers learning center for this reassessment. However, if a schedule, transportation, or other problem makes it difficult for the learner to come to the learning center, an Literacy Volunteers staff member can meet the learner at the time and place of his regularly scheduled tutoring session.
We encourage tutors to participate in at least one of the mini-workshops for experienced tutors that are offered during the year. An end-of-the-year cookout for all tutors and learners celebrates the efforts and achievements of the learners and the dedication of the tutors.
There are six computers in the computer lab with high speed Internet access available to learners and/or tutors at the Literacy Volunteers learning center. A variety of software is available for learners at all literacy levels. Familiarity with computers is not a requirement. The staff is happy to introduce a computer “novice” to computer basics and to get them started with one of the software programs. If you have any material suggestions (books, computer programs, etc.) that we should have at the learning center, please let us know.
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