Connecting Learners to Social Services

As you start the school year with adult learners, you may need to refer them to other service providers. This service provider resource available across the state.

The Orange County Public Library received a Library Service and Technology Act Grant to develop this and expand it across the state.  United Way Providers are good resources for referrals.


Providing connections to social and community services are an important part of a successful volunteer adult literacy program, and these services are becoming harder and harder to access.  As Florida continues to close government offices, libraries and information and referral provider are filling the void.

Find out if you have an Information and Referral provider or the location of  your closest library  to learn about your community's social services.  All volunteer literacy programs should share this information to their tutors and students with-in workshops and via tools like Facebook, Twitter, E-mail and more.

Maker Spaces and Libraries

Some libraries are providing more customer friendly services which are accessible to low level readers.  The following summarizes a new trend --where libraries are moving from knowledge preserving to knowledge creation. These places are meant to be fun--even for adults, and since they foster making things--many adult learners may find the library a friendlier place for them to learn. Maker Spaces can also be centers for family literacy activities providing opportunities for Parent and Child Together Time.

There are also maker spaces that are not in libraries.  Some of the spaces provide 3-D printers. A dad recently made a hand for his son using a 3-D printer. There is even a concern about 3-D plastic guns which can be taken through security.

The public library in Orlando is putting together a maker space. If your library or another group in your community are doing this, let us know. Or, you may want to talk with library staff to express your interest in partnering with the library as a volunteer literacy program. These creative spaces make the library's services more accessible to adult learners..

Library of the Future

Here are common mistakes made by newer grant writers....

• Not reading (and following) the grant guidelines. One easy way to make sure you follow the guidelines is to pull in headers of key elements from the application into your outline of the grant. This helps you know what needs to be included. It also shows the grant evaluator, where you covered they kep points.
• Writing the grant in isolation. Pull together a team, including key partners, to plan out the grant activities. One person should write the proposal, but a team will provide you a better set of objectives and activities.
• Not spending enough time doing the needs assessment.

Resources for Using Music for English Language Learners

The following articles were written before the age of smart phones and You Tube, and the Internet was just taking hold.  Even so, the steps described in 1994 would still work today. Now music permeates the Internet and can be used to enhance lessons.  You may not need to buy the song.  Many titles can be listened to on You Tube. You will want to find songs that better fit the age and interests of a tutor and student.

Using Songs to Introduce Poetry to ESL Students,
by Loretta Frances Kasper, The Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning and Teaching. Volume II - 1994

http://www.njcu.edu/cill/journal-index.html

This article describes how to use songs to learn how to speak and

read English and be introduced to poetry. It uses the song, At Seventeen, and contrasts it with the poem, Beautiful Old Age, by D.H. Lawrence. It walks you through the process step by step, using the four stages often used in any basic reading exercise; 1. The prereading stage, 2. the factual stage which includes listening to and reading the song or poem 3. The discussion and analysis stage on the themes and literary techniques and 4. Writing an essay around the theme, which, in this case is youth and old age. It includes a number of discussion questions.

Even though this is classroom based, it could be used in a small group or adapted to one on one.  The same steps would be appropriate for a basic reading student, with the exception that the student would know some of the words verbally, even if he or she could not write or read it. The song and poem would build a student’s vocabulary with the words like ravaged and charades. The full text of the song and poem are included in the article.

You can listen to a version of the Seventeen, song on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7kc144yy8Y

Country Songs: Music, Language, and Life
by Judith Diamond and Elizabeth Minicz  The Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning and Teaching. Volume II, 1994

http://www.njcu.edu/cill/journal-index.html

Country music provides adult themes to build lessons around for English Language Learners.