Verzon Online Course Volunteers are Vital: Successfully Incorporating Volunteers Into Your Program's Future

Click Here Viewed April 29, 2007.

Florida Literacy Coalition Marketing and Recruiting Resources

Click Here Viewed April 29, 2007.

What Beginning ESL Teachers and Tutors Need to Know

Here are some tips for tutors new to tutoring English language learners. Remember to smile and use humor. Make them laugh. Learners love a good joke. Make a flexible lesson plan (lessons are like flow charts). Be prepared to adapt to the needs of your students. Keep a teaching journal: write/reflect for 15 minutes after every tutoring session. Observe experience tutors and attend in-service sessions.

More tips, concepts and resources can be found at the Center for Adult English Languge Acquitiions at Click Here Viewed April 29, 2007.

Check Out These Promising Practices

The following idea on language experience is a creative twist for energizing your tutor training workshop. This is one of several ideas posted through the California State Library web site on Best Practices http://literacyworks.org/clls/resources/curriculum/best_practices/index_best_prac.htm

Language Experience and Tutor Training

My Favorite Things by Mary Miller

I start my training with the usual - overview, what is a tutor, etc. but when I get ready to start the core of the training which comes right after Learning styles (so the tutors are aware of multi-sensory teaching) I do the following:

I bring out "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" by Laura Numeroff. I set the book in front of me but I tell the story by using props that I pass around the room, starting with a mouse ( I have the cutest stuffed mouse!) and then a cookie I've made out of construction paper (all other props except tape, crayons and pen are made of paper or cardboard) and then in order, milk, straw, napkin, mirror, broom, mop, bucket, box to sleep in with some tissue to soften it, a book I title (NEVER GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE), some construction paper and crayons, pen and scotch tape.

After all the props are back in my prop box, we talk about the story and I ask them to recall what they touched. It reinforces the multi-sensory approach. I tell them  about Language Experience and how they can use this approach with any learner. You do this together.

Now I divide the tutors into groups of 2 or 3 and hand out 5 props to each group. I use kids' stuff as well as adult (play money, compass, fake spider, a tiny girl ballerina, action figures, a US ARMY patch, a shoehorn, a fork, the idea here is to use varied items)

I instruct each group that they have 10 or 15 minutes to create a story using the props I've given them. One person is to write the story and the other ones are to show us the props that were given to them. They share their stories with the whole group and when they're done, I collect my props and introduce language Experience by using one of the stories that we just heard. 

Best Practices in Florida’s Libraries

Learn more about student involvement, workforce literacy, deaf literacy and a successful rural literacy program in a document funded through a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant administered by the State Library and Archives of Florida. The Florida Literacy Coalition compiled successful library-based programs in Palm Beach, Collier, Pinellas and Gadsden Counties. Read more about it at the Coalition’s web page. Go to www.floridaltieracy.org and scroll down to the page to click on the PDF file, Promising Practices Among Florida's Library Literacy Programs. For more about these and other library literacy programs in Florida contact Sandra Newell, snewell@dos.state.fl.us, or 850-245-6624.

Recruiting Baby Boomers

Many of Florida’s groups are struggling to attract and retain volunteers. The baby boom bulge is a growing source of tutors and program management volunteers, but you need to do things differently to get them. The Corporation for National Community Service posts topics on volunteerism including ideas on how to attract boomers. Boomers want to be part of “youthful” “professionally run” organizations. They demand quality; effective training and many don’t want long term commitments. To get more information go to http://nationalserviceresources.org/epicenter/index.php and type in “baby boomer” in the search field to learn about the boomer mindset.