With classes starting again, there are plenty of excited students and teachers. I came across this article and even though it is directed towards teachers, the message applies to anyone who teaches, tutors, trains or facilitates learning. I hope it inspires future and current Turning Pages tutors. Enjoy.
What Students Remember Most About Teachers by pursuitofajoyfullife
Editor’s note: Today’s post comes from tutor and board member Allison Matthews.
I met up recently with one of our newest volunteers, T.V. Weber, to observe him tutoring his learner and to chat about his work for Turning Pages. Although he and his wife, Alida, have only been with us a short time, he brings with him a long history of service to adults who are learning English as a second language.
When I arrived, the learner, an advanced ESL student from India, was reading aloud an article about methods for reducing carbon emissions. T.V. listened patiently, jumping in from time to time to correct her pronunciation and make sure she’s comprehending the passage. Some of the new words she encounters lead to interesting discussions about the English language’s roots in other languages. When he notices she’s beginning to feel frustrated by a difficult-to-pronounce word, he stops to offer her an additional dose of positive feedback.
After they complete the article, T.V. has his learner read from a high-interest textbook he’s brought about the Egyptian pyramids. Throughout the session, the two maintain an easy rapport. It’s clear they respect each other and enjoy learning together.
At the end, T.V. asks her, “What do you still want to ask me? You’ve got that look on your face…” His learner just grins. Now it was my turn to ask some questions! Here’s what I found out:
How long have you been working with Turning Pages?
I think it’s already been 2 months, but it doesn’t feel like that long!
What prompted you to volunteer as an adult literacy tutor?
TESOL has always been a “hobby” for me. I have one student from Puerto Rico I’ve worked with for 5- 6 years. I’ve seen her go from speaking virtually no English to using it on her job. My wife Alida and I are considering moving to another country to teach English, so we decided to volunteer as a team for Turning Pages to gain teaching experience.
What past experiences have prepared you for the work you’re doing now?
My great-grandparents immigrated here from Czechoslovakia when they were teenagers. My grandparents spoke only Czech, and if you wanted to communicate with them, you’d better speak it, too! So, my father grew up bilingual and bicultural, and he passed on the family expectation that we kids be fluent in more than just English.
What’s the most important insight you’ve gained from the time you’ve spent with adult learners?
To teach ESL right, you need to have tried to learn another language yourself so you can understand the difficulties people face when they are learning a second language! Last year, I was in Chile and accidentally told a clerk that I was going to hit her when I was trying to say that I would pay the bill. Experiences like that remind me of how important it is to be precise with your vocabulary!
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about becoming a tutor for Turning Pages?
Do your best to put yourself in the shoes of your learner so you can prioritize the weaknesses that need to be addressed in order for her to communicate successfully in our culture.
What brought you to Turning Pages?
I came to Turning Pages in 2009 as an AmeriCorps VISTA. I was the volunteer manager, so I recruited, trained, and matched volunteers with learners. I also did some tutoring, a bit of web design, and some PR/outreach. I joined the board in 2011. I’m on the PR/Communications subcommittee and I run this website, the PayPal account, and our Facebook and Twitter pages.
What is one of your best “success” moments at Turning Pages?
I used to get nervous for tutor training, to speak in front of a group of people, with any kind of authority. When I was a VISTA I had just graduated from college, and 80% of the volunteers were much older than me. I would spend a lot of time prepping everything I’d say, and hoping for no curveballs. But eventually I got used to it and learned to go with the flow. One day I had about 10 trainees, having a really good discussion, and I just realized that I felt completely at ease and the group was right on track.
Tell us about a challenge and how you negotiated it.
One of the most interesting and challenging things I did was tutor a woman in English as a Second Language. She was well educated in her home country, holding a Master’s degree, but she needed to improve her English to find work here. She was taking a college-level English course at the community college. Tutoring ESL is tough, and makes you look at your own language in new ways. For example, discussing the symbolism and shades of meaning for college-level English, to someone from another culture, was hard! But she also taught me about literary symbolism in her culture. This learner was so determined, and it was so satisfying to learn that she passed the class.
What is your favorite thing about Turning Pages?
Staying involved with Turning Pages has kept me integrated in a really great community, has broadened my perspective, and helped me meet fantastic people. Professionally it’s been great, too because as a VISTA (and at an under-resourced nonprofit in general) you really get experience that you wouldn’t get in an entry-level job. Also, I got to work with AmeriCorps members at other agencies in Columbia, and as a result I learned a lot about the non-profit world. I would reco
What do you do when you’re not volunteering with Turning Pages?
You can find me reading, drinking coffee, running at the riverwalk, or making a mess in my kitchen.
Are you reading anything good lately?
Nonfiction: I recently finished Orange is the New Black. It was fascinating. Highly recommend.
Fiction: Little Bee by Chris Cleave. It is quite a story but the whole thing hinges on not giving away anything about the plot.
What is your favorite book now? From childhood?
My favorite books from childhood are still some of my favorite books. I loved From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitsugh, and anything by Roald Dahl or Beverly Cleary. The ‘adult’ books I’ve liked best are The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneger, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train by Howard Zinn, and Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.
If you could have lunch with one author, living or dead, who would it be?
I would have to choose J. K. Rowling, or Howard Zinn. I always wanted to take one of his history classes at Boston University.
If you had to choose between visiting Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, which would it be?
I’d have to check out Hogwarts. I’d really like to fly a broom.
It’s our birthday! And the lovely people at the Richland Library are hosting a party for us! We would love for you to come join us. We’ll have friends, fun, refreshments, and cake (of course)!
Please do come join us.
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Wishing you a happy and healthy start to 2014 full of family, friends, and good books.
We at Turning Pages are looking forward to continuing our work in the new year. We envision a Midlands in which all adults will have the literacy skills to participate productively at home, at work and in our community. We see it as our mission to help adults in the Midlands read and write better to improve their incomes and lives.
We invite you to join us in whatever way you can, whether it be attending a tutor training and working one-on-one with a learner, donating some old books as you do your January cleaning, or starting off the year with a financial contribution. (It’s easy – we have Paypal!) As always, thank you for what you do to support literacy in the Midlands!
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The end of the year and beginning of a new one is a good time to think about Claire Booth Luce’s challenge to write your life sentence. “See if you can summarize your life in one sentence,” she urged her friends.
Mrs. Luce was an accomplished actress, writer and diplomat. Her challenge is one worth addressing. If you summarize the importance of your life in a single sentence, what would you write? How often would you rewrite it? A single sentence forces us to focus on what’s important to us.
What is your life’s purpose?
What have you done with it?
That’s your life sentence.
Here at Turning Pages, with help from fellow Rotarians, volunteer tutors and board members, our purpose is to help adults learn to read or read better, write and acquire other life skills. This serves three vital purposes:
If you would like to help us help more people, please click on “Donate” to the left on this page where you can make a tax-deductible donation before the end of the year. Thank you.
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Kindles: Love ’em or leave ’em?
I think we can all agree that we are book lovers here at Turning Pages. So, the question is, how do you get your fix? Do you prefer the texture of the pages under your fingerprints, the weight of the book in your hands, the smell of the paper in your nostrils as you open that library door? I love it. Do you fill your paper books with post-it notes, underlines, highlights? Do you love finding a grocery receipt or a train ticket stub or a business card in between the pages of a book? As your eyes scan across this artifact from your life, do you pause from reading to remember what you were doing — buying olives and pickles for the appetizer tray at Thanksgiving dinner, taking the train to the city for your cousin’s wedding, the wedding where the DJ said the wrong name as he introduced the bride and groom? You chuckle because it’s only funny after the fact. Those pages remember.
Or, would you rather slide that thin, light electronic device into your handbag, barely feeling its weight even though it contains, like, ten million words? Do you download library eBooks as though they were emails? You have to admit, it is pretty fantastic that library eBooks will literally return themselves when due. (NO MORE OVERDUE FINES!) Are you, like me, fascinated that an electronic device can take on the visual appearance of the printed page with no backlighting? Do you sometimes press the “page turn” button unnecessarily, just for the pleasure of watching those electronic-ink pixels scurry to rearrange themselves, like a marching band, what form will they take on next? I do.
What are you currently reading? Do you have an eReader? Is it on your holiday wish list?
Allison sent me this excellent link, titled 12 Beautiful Poems for Book Lovers. It’s just the thing for a gray, chilly Monday. So, if you are lucky enough to have the luxury, curl up on your couch, make some tea, and sit with these poems for a few minutes. (Just don’t spill the tea on your computer… we can have a discussion about reading on electronic devices later.)
Which one is your favorite? I’m partial to Robert Louis Stevenson myself, although “Book Lover” by Robert William Service rings true.
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Friends, I’m happy to announce that we are receiving some support from Trinity Episcopal. They have chosen us as a beneficiary of their Holiday Bazaar. Please come support the Bazaar on Saturday November 9th from 10 to 2 PM at 1100 Sumter Street. There will be family activities and games, delicious food, AND you can get a jump on your shopping lists while supporting several local charities and nonprofits. Hope to see you there
Editor’s note: Today is the first in a series of Q&As to help you get to know our board! We are starting off with Allison Matthews, who has been with us for a little over a year now.
What brought you to Turning Pages?
I come from a family of educators, and in high school, I became especially interested in helping people learn to read. I left Columbia for college, then started a career as an elementary-school teacher. When I moved back to Columbia, I wanted to find a place to volunteer during my summers off. I decided to look for a place that works with adult learners, and, voila! I found Turning Pages.
How long have you been working with your learner?
Ms. G. and I have been working together since June 2012.
What is one of your best “success” moments in working with Ms. G?
When we first started working together, Ms. G would often read through a paragraph quickly, making several errors that affected the meaning of the text, and just move on without understanding what she had read. I brought this to her attention and taught her the strategy of stopping after each paragraph to tell what she learned in her own words. Now, I’ve started noticing that she stops herself to summarize even without me reminding her.
Tell us about a challenge and how you negotiated it.
An ongoing challenge with tutoring is finding the best instructional methods and texts for Ms. G. She has some very distinct strengths as a reader, along with some significant challenges. I’m constantly having to adjust my approach to find what’s most effective.
As a board member, the main challenge is feeling overwhelmed by all the work we’d like to do to improve the services we offer our learners. I think we as a team have gotten a lot better about prioritizing what needs to be done, then dividing the labor so we can knock it all out. It’s an exciting time.
What is your favorite thing about Turning Pages?
It’s definitely the people! Ms. G. and I have built a great friendship. I enjoy working with and learning from my fellow board members, all of whom are passionate about adult literacy. And every volunteer I have gotten to meet is so dedicated and kind. It’s just so encouraging to be a part of this organization.
What do you do when you’re not volunteering with Turning Pages?
Try to make myself useful! I believe it’s very important to be active as a Christian and church member, so that’s a big part of my life. I teach fourth grade Language Arts and Social Studies, so that’s another sizeable chunk, for sure. Other than that– I dabble in music, writing, and the (very) occasional jog!
Are you reading anything good lately?
The book of Isaiah and Time Magazine.
What is your favorite book now? From childhood?
Oh, man. There are so many good ones out there. But my all-time favorite is still Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth. I mean, it’s got adventure, solid character development, humor, important life lessons, and an astounding number of puns. What more could you really ask for in a book?
If you could have lunch with one author, living or dead, who would it be?
If I wanted to enjoy my lunch and learn something, it would be C.S. Lewis. He offers so much wisdom through his writing– and humor, too.
If I wanted to tell someone off while eating lunch, it would be Ernest Hemingway. I would encourage him to be a less terrible human being and to occasionally try writing longer sentences.
If you had to choose between visiting Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, which would it be?
One of the most important questions in life. Both would be cool, but I would go to Hogwarts. If I went to the factory, I would probably fall into the chocolate lake and get stuck in the pipe just like Augustus Gloop.
Turning Pages 