Training the Tutors : New York's Tri Library Volunteer Tutor Conference

This past weekend (April 9, Saturday)I took the 7 local from Jackson Heights to Flushing's Main Street. Two very distinct neighbourhoods within the city of the world - the city of New York. It was the first sunny day New York had seen since Christmas'10.The signboards, the shop signs , the billboard ads went from a mix of Hindi/Bengali/Punjabi to Hanzi/Kanji. Its amazing how the city has these culturally diverse yet segregated pockets around varioius neighbourhoods. Crossing Jackson Height's 74th street also called Indian Street is a totally different experience from walking down Main Street Flushing. I don't wan't to go Segwaying, but here is another one. I got my first close up view of the Citifield. This a day after New York Mets' openning day. The night before I could see its bright and humming neon signboards and ad signs far on the horizon from my apartment window.

 I was heading to the Flushing's branch of Queens Library that was hosting the 16th Annual Tri-Library Volunteer Tutor Conference. This was a collaboration of the Brooklyn Public Library, New York Public Library and Queens Library Adult Learner Programs and sponsored by the Mayor's Office of Adult Education. I was hoping that either Mayor Bloomberg or the new schools chancelor Walcott would show up to flag it off. Last week had been a turbulent time for the Department of Education as Cathy Black was forced out by the parents and teachers of the city. The Mayor himself had taken a lot of flack, for his ill-fated choice to select her as the schools chancelor. Deputy Mayor Walcott took over the role, and well atleast the Library administrators saw him as a strong support in the Mayor's office for the adult learner program. The Mayor's office was represented by the late arrival of Paul Kim. Oh and the infamous G train took the blame yet again. Paul himself has his roots starting of as a volunteer tutor with the adult learner program.
The conference was a development and continuing education opportunity provided for the volunteer tutors. It was a great platform to share my tutoring experiences with fellow tutors and learn from their experiences. It was a good way to refocus on the basics and pick up a few tips and resources from the library.
For the morning session I attended the "We Are New York" workshop. We Are New York [WANY] is a an award winning TV series that builds communication skills and strengthens communities at the same time also dealing with issues that matter to our students. David Hellman one of the writers of the series and Mark Trushkowsky from CUNY office of Academic Affairs were the presenters. The room was a mixture of tutors like me who hadn't used the series as yet and others who had. The session looked at various pre- and post viewing techniques that the presenters had suggested to use with the material. This by far to me is the most engaging stimuli for a student that I have come across, and I am most certainly going to plan out a few lessons on WANY. They were giving away the DVD and the learning material at the end of the session. For more information visit www.nyc.gov/LearnEnglish . The full lesson set for WANY is available here.

For the afternoon session I attended "Introduction to Numeracy" presented by Gladys Scott and Haniff Toussaint from the Brooklyn Public Library. I hadn't really delved much into Numeracy in any of my sessions as yet, but this was an eye openner to the concept, and showed us how to introduce numeracy to students. Infact the first thing I observed when going over the basics mathematical operations this Monday with my students, was that Numeracy is probably as intutive as verbal communication itself. An adult with no schooling in today's world has a pretty good grasp of the basics mathematical operations. As I was explaining Multiplication and division, I was surprised how my students were able to give me the correct answers even though the weren't able to explain or write down the steps that they had take to arrive at the answer.

Through out the day the raffle tickets were given out to the attendees, and with my luck with these things I had no intention of sticking on for the Prizes and Closing after the long day. I ended up taking a few wrong turns and walking in to the proceedings. I can't say I was disappointed I won a Queens Library Umbrella.


cheers,

Ajay

P.S. Tomorrow Applebee's is conducting a Dining to Donate for Queens Library. So all you people in Queens head out to the Neighbour hood Bar and Grill , while you eat , 10% of your bill will be donated to Queens Library Foundation. Don't forget to take a printout of this flyer http://www.queenslibraryfoundation.org/site/DocServer/QLF_Applebees_flyer1.pdf?docID=1141 .
Below is the mail I got from the the Queens Library Foundation :

Applebee’s Restaurants in Queens are supporting National Library Week with "Dining to Donate" for Queens Library. On Thursday, April 14th, Applebee’s will donate 10% of each lunch or dinner bill to Queens Library Foundation for every customer who presents a "Dining to Donate" flyer. All money raised will go towards Queens Library Foundation’s Buy-A-Book program.


You can help get new books for your local library by participating in "Dining to Donate" at Applebee’s. You MUST present the "Dining to Donate" flyer in order for Applebee’s to make the donation.

Hope you can make it to Applebee's on April 14th and support Queens Library!

Sincerely,
Tom Galante
CEO
Queens Library


Diana Chapin
Executive Director
Queens Library Foundation

The Adult Learning Experience from the eye of a rookie tutor : Post 3 Language Experience Technique

This is an exciting technique that I came across during my tutor training. It works for any level beginners.All this requires is a stimulus or a cue that gets your group talking freely and emotively. For instance my first Language Experience cue was to read aloud an article from the Coumbia Spectator about Diwali celebrations in the Columbia University campus. On another ocassion the stimulus was reading aloud a news article titled "Walks to Remember", about a holiday fashion show at the Kids Center; a Pediatric treatement center for special kids.

The first article was a random seasonal pick. Or rather the talk of the town at that time. It worked fine as the Nepali lady in my group was some what familiar with Diwali and was able to talk about the festival and describe it to the rest of the group.

The rest of the group then fed of what they learnt from her and the article; and then reflected on their new learning.

The second article was more of an informed pick. This was during my fourth or fifth session with the group. I had known by now that while one already works with kids as a nanny the other one aspires to be a trainer at a school for special kids.

"In the Language Experience technique students dicatate a story to the tutor. The text that is created provides familiar and immediate reading material in the students' own language."

The text generated can be used for a variety of other excercises.

• Reading aloud.
• Generating sight word cards
• Ask the group to decide upon an appropriate title for the story they have come up with.
• The group then copy the story in their notebooks making for a great writing session.
• The story when typed out neatly can be handed out to the group on the next session for more working and refining.

All this while the group feels self validated for having worked their own material and refined it over and over to a fine product at the end of a few sessions.

As you can see the language experience is a very powerful and versatile tool in the hand of a tutor. But just this one tool does not make a complete session of two hours. In the next post in this series I will look at the components of an entire lesson plan for a session.

Peace,

Ajay