Students in Amanda's ESOL 1 class surprised their teachers with new scarves and kind words on the last day of class! Thank you volunteers Emily Flagg and Leslie Helm for working with this class.
Welcome to the spring term! Classes started on Monday and we welcomed 27 new students to our Citizenship, ESOL, Ready to Work, and GED classes. Like last quarter, most of our classes are now full, with a few students on waitlists.
The theme in the ESOL classes this term is consumerism and financial literacy. Students will be learning about coins & bills, price tags, receipts, consumer rights & responsibilities, bank statements, budgeting, and other things. For spring term dates, check out the Spring Quarter Dates and Closures section at the bottom of this newsletter.
Spring term also means that our Annual Breakfast is on it's way! It will feature speeches from our students as well as librarian Nancy Pearl. Please join us for a great event! As always, thank you so much volunteering with Literacy Source.
Welcome New Volunteers!
We are pleased to welcome new volunteers who attended out recent Working with Adult Learners in a Diverse Environment training: Lynda Ryan, Karen Thompson, Carol Otte, Heather Zamudio, Ann Reid, Karen Garland, Elaine Howell, Calvin Kuriyama, Paige Lewis, Julie Paschkis, Sandra Burkhart, Liz Sims, and Ayumi Tachida. Welcome to Literacy Source!
Registration is Open: Community Volunteer Training
Seattle Goodwill Job Training and Education Center 700 Dearborn Place South
Seattle, WA 98144
Registration is open for the bi-annual Community Volunteer Training! The Keynote speaker, Andrew Kritovich, will share information on the refugee and asylee experience in the United States. As the Deputy Executive Director at the Ukrainian Community Center of Washington, Andrew works with refugees and immigrants as they overcome language, cultural, educational and social barriers. He will emphasize the importance of cultural sensitivity, as well as trauma informed care. Workshops include:
Hands-On Learning: Creating Tools and Manipulatives
Working with Adult Learners (presented by Literacy Source)
ESOL Teaching Techniques
Panel Discussion: Working with adult learners from the volunteer perspective
Organizing & Advocacy: Immigrant Rights and Beyond
Preparing for the U.S. Citizenship Interview
Supporting Re-Entry
ESOL Lesson Planning
Presented by Seattle Goodwill, The Seattle Public Library, King County Library System, One America, Literacy Source and Seattle Central College. Register here.
Class Highlight: Workers' Rights Presentations
For their winter term final projects, students in our Ready to Work class presented information about worker rights laws to fellow Literacy Source students and staff! After an in-class presentation about labor laws from the Fair Work Center, students worked in small groups to create posters about overtime pay, minimum wage, and break times. During the last week of the term, they invited other classes to visit each poster station to share their knowledge with their peers, both in English and their first languages. Students did a fantastic job and we all enjoyed learning from them!
Teaching Tip: Active Listening
Each month, we will highlight one of the best practices on our tutor self-evaluation form, located on our
Google Drive. We hope volunteers can revisit this form on an ongoing basis to help you reflect on the work you are doing with your student(s). There is a different form for instructors, located
here.
One of the self-reflection questions we encourage ourselves to ask when working with adult learners is: "Am I taking a 'not knowing' stance and really listening to my learner(s)?" Really paying attention to our listening - both how we listen and how we help our learners become better listeners - helps us build relationships and create successful learning situations.
In the next couple months, we'll be talking about active listening, as well as teaching strategies we can use to model and teach it. To start, we can think about the components of active listening. According to the Equipped for the Future adult communication standards, there are four parts to active listening:
Remember why you're listening: What is your purpose?
Pay attention and listen: Are you paying attention? Are you giving yourself time to listen & waiting on the speaker?
Monitor your understanding: Do you understand? If not, what strategies can you use to improve comprehension?
Integrate the information you heard with prior knowledge: Did your listening address your purpose?
In your next tutoring or teaching session, during at least one point when you're listening to your student(s), pay attention to your active listening. Ask yourself one or more of the above questions to see what parts of active listening are easy and natural for you, and what parts would be helpful for you to consciously practice. In the next few months, we'll address each of these areas and think about strategies for practicing, modeling, and teaching active listening. Happy listening!
Literary Mixer Booklist
Thanks to everyone who attended our Literary Mixer on March 13! We'd like to share the book list you all helped create as you signed in. For those of you who missed the event this time around, you can still check out what fellow volunteers are reading here!
Celebrating a Year of Service
We'd like to take a moment to recognize
Cathy Gerber, Jenn Reitz, Katy Spada, Peter Fletcher, and Tristinn Williams for reaching one year of service at Literacy Source. Thank you so much for your time and dedication!
New Citizen Spotlight
Congratulations to Literacy Source student
Ibrahim Daloush for recently attaining citizenship! And thank you to all of our volunteers who work with citizenship students at Literacy Source!
Save Your Spot for Literacy Source's Annual Breakfast
Literacy Source Annual Breakfast
Tuesday, May 1
7:30-9 am @ Seattle Pacific University
Please consider joining us at our Annual Breakfast, where you'll hear student stories and Nancy Pearl's yearly review of great books at our biggest fundraiser of the year.
While the breakfast is complimentary, there is a suggested minimum donation of $150 to support the free classes and tutoring we provide to almost 900 low-income adults each year. Thanks to the generous support of our sponsors, 100% of all funds raised will directly support our students. Come alone, bring a friend, or invite enough friends, family, and neighbors to fill a whole table to support the adults in our community working hard to increase their basic skills.
Our community event calendar highlights some of the events happening in the greater Seattle area that pertain to social justice, diversity, and equity. If you know of any other events to share with the Literacy Source community, please let us know!
Literacy Source recognizes the inherent dignity, equality, and value of every person and strives to create and maintain a learning community that is respectful and welcoming. To foster and maintain a safe and inclusive community of respect, openness, understanding, and civility, it is crucial that students, volunteers, and staff are aware of their rights and options when confronting a discriminatory or bias-related incident. To read more, click here.
