Volunteers' Stories 2019-20

   Everyone has a story, unusual, exciting, different.  Many of them are just waiting to be read by others.  From the front lines in Bosnia to the front office in Manhattan, Literacy Volunteers of America tutors come to us with fascinating backgrounds.  We are proud to share the highlights of these amazing individuals who bring their varied experiences to our students.  

   Enjoy reading about people like the former missionary who provided medical supplies to remote villages, retired business people, lawyers, healthcare providers, college students, building for the future, who generously share their wealth of newly acquired knowledge, and even mothers whose role as primary as caregiver for their children willingly juggle home life, work as well as tutoring.

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Martin Parker
by Debbie Graham

Martin Parker is a man of deep introspection. He knows a lot about himself and the world around him. But what he did not know is that the activism he started in his younger, radical years, would lead him to become a Literacy Volunteers of America tutor in his retirement years.
 
As a young man in the 1960’s, Martin majored in sociology at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. where he became deeply involved in civil rights. “I was more involved in getting a community organized and getting needed services into communities than working as a traditional social worker.” Later, armed with a new Masters of Social Work from Fordham University, he got involved in the war on poverty while the Vietnam Nam War raged.
 
Martin organized a tutorial program for inner city kids, he was instrumental in setting up a daycare center for working mothers in New Brunswick, and actively protesting anti -war activities on campus at Rutgers. Martin did all but throw himself in front of a bulldozer to prevent the demolition of an underserved housing complex in New Brunswick.
 
“My adult life I have supported and worked in organizations that were involved in social justice,” Martin said.
 
In 1972, he met his wife and was married in 1975. “The brain was still thinking radical but the body was doing things for family and wife,” Martin said. He took a job at a ‘quasi’ regulatory agency that made recommendations to the department of health.
 
Sadly, about 2 ½ years ago, Martin’s wife died. Martin threw himself back into the world of helping others achieve their own personal victories.
 
“As part of my getting over the loss of my wife, I got involved in a lot of different things like the Montclair Adult School, Succeed2gether at the Montclair Public Library, and the Shakespeare Theater.
 
At the Montclair Public Library, he learned about LVAEP and saw a new opportunity. A month later he was being trained.
 
Martin’s lessons do not begin like a typical classroom session as he brings his lucky students each a cup of the finest coffee and a delicious pastry - either homemade or picked up from a local bakery. After a friendly exchange of greetings by all, the “formal” lesson begins.
 
Martin introduced his students to Eleanor Roosevelt, starting with a thin, easy to read book, graduated to a young adult book, and now the ladies want to take a trip to Hyde Park.
 
Our tutor, Martin Parker, has had a lifetime of social justice outreach to others who suffered from poverty, neglect and injustice. His activism continues uninterrupted in his commitment to LVA ideals. We are proud to have him on board!

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Gery Gill
by Debbie Graham

Her love of helping others led Gery Gill to spend four decades as a teacher in four different countries. And now it’s led Gerry to Literacy Volunteers of America where she shares her passion with both students and tutors.
 
“After 37 years of teaching and now being retired, I have the time to volunteer more,” said Gery, also a future LVA workshop presenter. “This is a time to commit myself to something I really love. I call ESOL my first love.”
 
Gery’s intro to the world of ESOL came through a chance assignment by an administrator.  “I got into ESOL because my first teaching position was in Weehawken, New Jersey,” Gery said. “My maiden name is Lomaestro. There were two teachers on their way to retiring. Because I was Italian, my principal assumed I spoke Spanish. There was quite an influx of Spanish speakers coming into our school,” Gery added. She had plenty of help along the way, mainly from a Cuban teacher who tutored her in Spanish every lunch hour and from Julio Iglesias, the Grammy award winning singer whose lyrics she revered and studied.
 
Gery’s first teaching job outside of the United States was in Zaragoza, Spain, a town between Madrid and Barcelona. Her love for Spain began after she travelled throughout the country for two consecutive summers. “I would come home each summer and was miserable,” Gery said. Without hesitation, she contacted the American School of Madrid for a position teaching English, only to be told there were no positions open at the time. Using patience, Gery landed a similar job in Zaragoza and was on a plane the following summer. Her attraction to Spain? Why, the language, of course.“Spanish is very similar to Italian,” Gery explained. “It helped me in my career to be able to better communicate with the parents of my students.” Gery went on to emphasize, “If you have never learned another language, you do not understand the joys and frustration of mastering it.”
 
Gery also taught ESOL in Saudi Arabia and in Italy at the American School of Milan.  “Knowing a second language opens so many doors,” she said.
 
At LVA, Gery’s first student was Sushila, a Nepalese native who never had the opportunity to attend school in her home country. Now, Sushila is able to read and write in English. Sushila especially excels in her English conversation skills.
 
Gery also tutors, Milton, a young man from Jamaica. “She is the best,” Milton said “I have learned so much from her.” A typical lesson consists of reading comprehension, discussing new vocabulary, and dictation.
 
Whether Gery is tutoring, or planning her upcoming Tutor Support Workshop, she does both with equal enthusiasm. “I feel I am part of a community that works for other people and I get a lot of gratification out of that. It is great to work with people of the same mindset,” Gery said.
 
When she spoke of tutoring during this time of COVID-19, Gery emphasized, “The fact that tutors are still willing to reach out to their students, not only in an instructional way but a personal way, is extremely touching. Volunteering is a way of giving back. For everything we have, it is now our chance to share it with others. We are paying it forward,” Gery said.

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Karen Cardell
​by Janet Donohue

​Karen Cardell was fortunate to have a grandfather who valued education. A World War II veteran who had wanted to become a pharmacist but had to forgo college for work, he emphasized to his family the importance of finishing their education.
 
When Karen was little, he gave her a tiny desk, then regularly brought books and asked her to explain the information in them. Education became for his granddaughter something much more than an abstract concept. Small wonder that her favorite game was to play school.
 
“I had always wanted to be a teacher,” Karen recalls, but until recently the time wasn’t right. She received a B.A. in Classics and Latin, an M.A. in Law and Governance, and a paralegal studies certificate, all from Montclair State University. In between her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she earned a teaching certificate.
 
Five years ago, Karen spotted a flyer in the Montclair Municipal Building that highlighted a woman whose volunteer activities including tutoring for LVA. “I took a photo of the flyer, thinking LVA was something that I needed to look into.” A year later, with fewer work and school demands, she signed up for training. She has now been tutoring LVA students for two and one-half years.
 
“I find tutoring very rewarding,” she says. “I like this program because my students are very dedicated. They feel like a family.”
 
Her classes typically begin with students talking about what’s happened since the previous class. Nohra, who likes to talk about current events, used to watch the news in Spanish and now watches it in English. Nohra also recently received her certificate as a home health aide after successfully taking the test in English.
 
After discussing their week, the class turns to the day’s lesson. A big believer in lesson plans, Karen always includes exercises in grammar, syntax, reading comprehension, and writing. They work on pronunciation and she makes time to answer questions.
 
Karen is a natural teacher, evident from her lesson plans, teaching influences, and interactions with those in her care.
 
About Latin, she says: “I find it useful when I am trying to teach English. I learned the mechanics of how language functions from Latin grammar.” She talks about buying workbooks and flashcards for her niece and nephew and she delights in the accomplishments of two young adults whom she provided live-in childcare for over seven years.
 
In high school, Karen would sometimes show that she knew the material by, e.g., doing a word game in math class or painting a picture in English. That’s a fitting approach to teaching literacy. “If,” she says, “we limit our ability to communicate with one another, however well-intentioned, we are taking a step backwards.”

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Catherine Cullar
​by Janet Donohue

Soon after Catherine Cullar signed up for membership in AARP, she checked out the organization’s website listing of volunteer opportunities. She had long known that, once she had the time, she would look for a way to contribute to the advancement of adult literacy. Reading about LVA, she discovered an ideal program for her to accomplish that.
 
Catherine has been an LVA literacy tutor for four years and is now working with her fifth student. Students come to LVA seeking to improve their literacy skills for a variety of personal and professional reasons. Catherine’s tutoring helped one to pass the U.S. citizenship test and another to obtain a real estate license. Two other students wanted to work on their resumes.
 
“If a student comes to me with a specific goal, I try to prioritize that,” she says. Beginning with simple words, she is helping her current student, who as a native Arabic speaker was taught to read from right to left, learn the left-to-right orientation of the English language. Whatever the goal, Catherine always includes vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation exercises in her lessons.
 
“All of my students have been very nice and work hard to improve.” Very often they know the material but lack confidence. That’s why positive feedback is critical. Some move forward quicker than others,” Catherine said, “but as long as they are moving forward, I’m happy.”
 
Catherine became passionate about adult literacy during an early post-college job at a preparatory business school. Most of the students either were ESL learners or had not finished high school. “They were committed to their goals,” she recalls, “and a great population to work with.”
 
A Brandeis University graduate who majored in sociology and psychology, she decided to return to school for teaching credits. After completing 12 credits, she became a teacher at the prep school.
 
Following some years at home raising her children, Catherine returned to the workforce as an administrator in the non-profit sector. For the past 20 years she has worked for the American Federation for Aging Research, which supports early-career scientists who conduct research on the biology of aging.
 
An avid reader, Catherine buys several books at a time, reads during her New York commute, recycles them at the train station, then buys five more. Like her eclectic music taste (gospel, soul, rock ‘n’ roll), she doesn’t limit her book selections to one type, welcoming the introduction to other cultures that different genres provide.
 
For LVA she typically tutors twice a week, prioritizing her commitment and trying never to cancel. “I want students to know that their time is important to me,” she says. “When I retire, I would like to give more time to LVA.”

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Will Williams
by Debbie Graham

Literacy Volunteers of America tutor Will Williams has a passion for people. This former web developer of over 20 years, left his job, left his native Australia and moved with his wife to the United States.
 
Will is now a non-traditional student at Montclair State University where he is majoring in anthropology and minoring in archeology and religion. His fascination with how the human mind works is what led him to LVA.
 
“Early last year I saw there was a training for LVA at the Montclair Public Library. I wasn’t able to sign up at the time, but when it was reposted, I jumped on it,” Will said. “I saw it as an opportunity to work with people in a productive way. I feel that LVA has a direct impact on the student.”
 
Will is approaching his one-year anniversary as a tutor. “In this year,” he said, “I have gained awareness of how I interact with people. I have gained confidence in communicating concepts. I have always been conscious about not being condescending and now I feel I can have open dialogue with my students. There are no judgements.”
 
Will also knows a bit how it feels to be an immigrant. He spent the majority of his life in Australia. His family relocated to Newark on Trent in the United Kingdom for 9 years, and then Will returned to Australia where he met an American student studying sociology at the University of Sydney who later became his wife.
 
They moved to the United States where, even though the language is quite similar, Will noticed the culture to be different. “Australia is a lot more laid back,” he said. “There is less emphasis on individualism. The United States is more focused on personal ambitions.”
 
That being said, Will sees it as a personal goal to help his students reach their highest potential.  “I saw becoming an LVA tutor as an opportunity to work with people in a productive way. I feel like this is a direct impact on the student,” Will said.
 
Will currently tutors two students. Will’s original student, an unlettered Jamaican farmer with no formal education, has since left our program with the skills needed to find gainful employment. Will and his former student spent countless hours talking about food and recipes, and now this gentleman works as a cook in a well-established restaurant.
 
Reflecting on his current students, both from very different cultures (Africa and Jamaica), Will said, “I see glimpses of progress. There are always two steps forward and one step back. A word will come up that they have previously encountered and they will remember it. These are little nuggets of success,” he added.
 
Will is planning another move, but not in the immediate future. “I am interested in working in Africa and I think that I may have been influenced by my LVA students in a way,” he said. “I want to work to help toward correcting problems in the broken system.”

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Deborah Collins
by Debbie Graham

Literacy Volunteers of America tutor Deborah Collins loved learning from a very early age. Her quest for knowledge began when she was a little girl growing up in Brooklyn and listening to her father quote Shakespeare. “My mother read what was called ‘American Negro poetry.’ She loved the writers of the Harlem Renaissance.”
 
Deborah’s thirst for learning lead her to graduate from law school after she already earned her master’s degree in Spanish from the Instituto de Cultura Hispanica in Madrid.
 
While still enjoying her job as a Spanish teacher at Lehman College and Medgar Evers College, Deborah met someone who had a huge impact on what was to become her next career. “At the time,” Deborah said, “I knew someone who was working on his doctorate in econometrics and he said, ‘Deborah, you are the smartest woman I know, but you probably couldn’t get into law school.’ I took the LSAT and didn’t get a very high score. I went back and studied for three hours a day and in three months, took the test again. I scored 80 points higher.”
 
Deborah chose to attend law school at Rutgers and studied under professor Arthur Kinoy, a progressive civil rights lawyer and founder of the Center for Constitutional Rights. She worked on Wall Street for 10 years in employment law and recently retired as Deputy County Administrator for Essex County.
 
To add to an already impressive list of skills, Deborah signed up to be an LVA tutor even before she retired. Always on the lookout for a new adventure, she started looking for her post retirement opportunity while still employed as Deputy County Administrator. “I am always putting plans in place, so I started exploring my options while still working,” she said.
 
“I enjoyed the training,” Deborah said. Sable was a wonderful trainer. I learned so much about teaching adults whose native tongue was not English. I give my LVA students challenging materials.”
 
As a testimony to Deborah’s skill as a tutor and a former student, one of her LVA students who returned to his native Taiwan asked Deborah about her life experiences and how she became so successful. “On the plane,” she said, “he sent me a text saying, ‘I will miss you.’ That brought tears to my eyes to know that I had that such an impact on him.”

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Leeta Jordan
​by Debbie Graham

Having grown up in a high crime neighborhood on the South side of Chicago, Literacy Volunteers of America Essex & Passaic Counties volunteer tutor Leeta Jordan became a champion for a marginalized (underserved) population. “I became a tutor because of the whole situation with the immigration policy and I thought this would be a good response to the country’s immigration fiasco,” Leeta said. “That resonated with me.”
 
When asked about her own youth, Leeta said, “I hated it. I couldn’t wait to leave. I grew up in a neighborhood where I had no freedom of movement. I couldn’t go to the grocery store, couldn’t ride my bike, couldn’t trick or treat.” She added, “It was poor, segregated, and had lots of crime.”
 
She wanted out. Fortunately, Leeta had a strong mother as her role model who showed Leeta that there was a way out. Leeta’s ticket out was a good education and determination.  Leeta’s mother learned this lesson first hand. She attended an all-girls white Catholic school in the 1950’s where she was the only black. She was spit on. Leeta proudly displays in her home a photograph of her mother standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Springfield, Illinois with her entire high school class where her mom was the only black woman.
 
“I went to college at 16,” Leeta said. She left Chicago and moved to Boston where she attended Smith College, a private women's liberal arts college in Massachusetts.
 
Again, it was Leeta’s mother who set the bar high for her daughter. “Mom was very adamant about women’s education. I was an Economics major and I also studied French. I studied French because as a little girl I dreamed of going to Paris,” Leeta said.

Leeta’s love of French was spawned by her mother. Her mom took French in high school so she could come home after school and read her French Vogue magazines.
 
Before graduating from college at 20, Leeta made her dream come true by spending her senior year in Paris. “Paris is beautiful,” Leeta said. “I had a great apartment. Everyone thought I was British because I had a good French accent.”
 
After graduating and working in advertising for a few years, Leeta landed a spot working for Mayor Dinkins in the office of Drug Abuse Policy where she worked hard to increase drug treatment programs for women with children. Leeta said, “I decided to attend law school because all of my bosses were lawyers. They were helping people in underserved populations. Leeta attended law school at Cornell, a private Ivy League school in New York.
 
Her career varies from a stint in corporate law to working with documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter on “Trapped,” which follows providers at reproductive health clinics throughout the South. Leeta also taught a course at Montclair State University titled “Race and the Law.” “I like helping people that want to be helped. It is really gratifying,” Leeta said.
 
This mindset brought Leeta to LVA. “Another tutor told me she was tutoring and that she liked it.” Leeta put her active mind to work and took the LVA training with Mary O’Connor which Leeta found fun and informative and has now been a tutor for almost two years.
 
Leeta remembered back to her early days with LVA and said “The first lesson was hard. I asked my students to write their Language Experience Story and it was way too advanced. I remember feeling a little panicked because I had to throw it out the window and reboot. I made food and clothing flashcards. That went over much better.”
 
And, as they say, the rest is history. Leeta has been with one of her students for a year, and in that short time, her student has made great progress. LVA student Alejandra Sanchez said “I like the class because it is interesting. She talks about history and makes learning fun.”

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Steve Pranis
by Russell Ben Ali

Like many retirees, Steve Pranis was eager to start the next chapter of his life. Sure, he could have found something more closely related to his field - computer technology and sales – which he’d done in the Albany, NY area for 40 years.
 
But that’s what retirement is for:  Trying new adventures. For Steve, that was going to be something more personal, more rewarding.
 
“I always felt I was somebody who liked to teach but it was never my profession,” said Steve. And he’d had plenty of opportunities to observe the trade, given that both his wife and his mother were educators.
 
He learned about LVA from a neighbor who tutors.  Soon, after an 18-hour training course last year, Steve met with his first students and threw himself into tutoring.
 
“I really love what I am doing,” Steve said. “I know that every student learns differently and every student has different needs. When I prep, I prep for each student. I ask myself, how is this one going to learn it?”
 
His students are diverse; they include a factory worker from Haiti and an architect with a graduate degree from the Dominican Republic. Steve said he usually distributes grammar worksheets in his sessions and later asks that his students test their new-found knowledge by finding mistakes in separate worksheets that contain grammatical errors. He also uses “Side by Side” and “Focus on Grammar,” books he finds in the library.
 
While his students work, Steve observes. And learns.
 
“Just listening and watching you can see what they understand and how they want to learn,” Steve explained.
 
Some need more vocal prompts than others or additional practice, he’s found. In fact, Steve spends quite a bit of his teaching time, studying and learning about his students.
 
“Every week you have to do an assessment,” he said. “Then you figure out what they need to learn. Every class I take notes on things I realize we need to focus on the next week or two. I take the notes home and figure out how I am going to teach that.”
 
Outside of tutoring, Steve is an avid reader; a fan of fiction novelist James Paterson as well as biographies and accounts of historical fiction. A former soccer coach who still makes time to play the game once or twice a week, he is a parent who enjoys traveling and spending time with his granddaughter.
 
He left upstate New York for our area three years ago and doesn’t know many folks here. So if you see Steve in the Bloomfield library, be sure to say hello and welcome him to LVA.

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Enid Friedman
by Russell Ben Ali

After teaching English to community college students for nearly half a century, Enid Friedman knew it was time to close the book on a long and fulfilling career. What she didn’t realize is how much she would miss it.
 
“I missed the dynamic of the classroom,” explained Enid, a retired professor of English at Essex County College in Newark. “I missed the interaction of the students.”
 
So, when the opportunity arose to teach ESOL to adults as a volunteer, Enid grabbed it. She enrolled in an LVA tutor training program last year and has been helping adults learn English ever since.
 
“This to me filled a void after I retired,” she said. “Teaching at LVA gave me the opportunity to fill that void. It is a wonderful experience.”
 
Enid’s students are from the Dominican Republic and Turkey. When they meet, she encourages them to read vignettes, which they all discuss as they compare the stories to their own experiences. The vignettes provide a rich opportunity to learn vocabulary. As for writing, students learn by recording their experiences in personal journals. And they play word games to get a sense of syntax.
 
When it comes to life experience stories, there are not many tutors who can share the tales that Enid can. She recalls how, as a child growing up during World War II, she and her family stood in line with coupons to purchase eggs which, along with milk, butter, cheese, bacon, and sugar, was rationed during the 1940s. And she describes how children saved tin foil from their gum wrappers, rolling them into balls to be taken to collections sites, as the government encouraged citizens to recycle scrap metals, even cans and tin foil, to keep them engaged during the war effort at home.
 
In sharing her stories, Enid has also expanded her students’ vocabularies. “They are getting confidence in speaking, writing and reading,” she said. “We have become friends. I have especially enjoyed learning about how their customs are different from those of the U.S.”
 
Enid said that she tries to make teaching as interactive as possible. And it’s within that environment that students say that they feel comfortable enough to learn and advance.
 
“Enid is an excellent teacher,” said Rosa, a student from the Dominican Republic. “She creates a nice, friendly atmosphere in class.”
 
“I like the way we learn,” she said. “I feel like my English has improved,” she said.
 
Enid, a Connecticut native raised in southern California, earned an associate’s degree at Los Angeles City College before returning east. She earned a bachelor’s degree at the former Upsala College in East Orange, and a master’s degree in English at Montclair State.
 
Enid enjoys sharing the story of a prestigious fellowship she received at Princeton University where she found herself the only educator from an urban community college, surrounded by younger Ivy League school teachers. She was, at first, a bit intimidated but later learned that she was the only attendee to complete the program.
 
In her 46 years at Essex County College, Enid taught just about every class offered by the English department. She said she remains committed to committed to community college education for students who need to refine their skills or attend school part-time while working, due to financial constraints.
 
“Community colleges need to be supported and seen as an avenue toward success,” Enid said.

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Peter Vigeland
by Debbie Graham

Doing things for others without expecting anything in return is core to what makes us human, as the saying goes. That pretty much sums up the efforts of Peter Vigeland, a volunteer literacy tutor with a penchant for empowering the disadvantaged.
 
Peter's path to helping people began while he was an undergrad at Dartmouth College. It was there where he began mentoring disadvantaged youth as part of the Big Brother program. Upon earning his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, Peter continued his journey of lending his expertise to an underserved population.
 
"When I graduated from law school, I worked in a number of public service jobs in the Manhattan D.A.'s office and U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan,” Peter said. While some might shy away from representing a marginalized segment of the population, Peter embraced it. "The criminal law which I practiced is primarily about moral choices and prosecutors have tremendous power. They have to use their power wisely and compassionately. I thought it was here where I could make a difference. I prosecuted a police officer for beating up black people and gay people."
 
Peter went on to add, “Later in my career, I did work at a couple of firms in order to give my children things that I couldn't get when I was a child. My mom didn't raise me to be a corporate lawyer. It was stimulating and lucrative but not as meaningful as government service.”
 
Peter's mom, a single parent, raised him and his siblings on a gym teacher's salary. She also instilled in him a love of exercise.
 
“I like to keep fit,” Peter said. He alternates his daily exercise routine between swimming, biking and tennis. Peter swims one mile daily. When he is not in the pool, Peter is cycling and rides 30 to 50 miles per day. One memorable bike trip was cycling in a downpour in Zion National Park that included a very steep drop off.  “That is the only time I was really scared for my life,” Peter said.
 
He can also be seen in his tennis whites on the court either playing against his high-level competitors or taking a lesson from a tennis pro.
 
For one as active as he, there’s usually the question of how to spend your time when you’ve stopped working for a living. For Peter, that was a no-brainer.
 
“When I retired, I wanted to do something that I thought was valuable and had meaning. By joining Literacy Volunteers of America Essex & Passaic Counties, I feel like I am part of a group that has real changeable benefits on the students,” he said.
 
So, these days, when he’s not swimming, biking of playing tennis, you’ll find Peter doing out lesson plans to his group of appreciative ESOL students at the Bloomfield Public Library. “I try to make learning fun,” Peter said of his teaching philosophy. “If the lessons are too tedious, it is kind of heavy sledding. It is not all conjugation of verbs.”
 
Peter includes reading samples from a website called “The Times in Plain English.” “I bring articles that are relevant to my students’ lives.” These articles feature immigration issues and problems recent immigrants may face.
 
Peter prides himself on conducting a judgement free classroom and allows students to express their opinions without offending others. This approach is reminiscent of his time in the courtroom where he practiced law with compassion, and he is passing that characteristic along to his students.

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Michael Wood
by Russell Ben Ali

For approximately a quarter of a century, Michael Wood labored away in higher education, guiding hundreds of students along the road to earn degrees in institutions from the west coast to the east.
 
It was more a labor of love than a grind, for an educator who spent nearly 25 years as an instructor, adjunct professor, academic advisor, and administrator in colleges and universities in Los Angeles, New York City, and his hometown of Washington D.C.
 
Challenging students to use critical thinking is a mission he’s never abandoned, not even in his latest endeavor - - that of a volunteer literacy tutor.
 
“These goals have been with me throughout my entire professional experience in higher education,” Michael explained. “I love to see people grow and develop and reach their full potential. That is why I am here. I have retired and I still love teaching.”
 
Michael said he strives to enhance his students' thinking skills as they learn English by using some basic elements of critical thinking. He’ll use arithmetic or basic math, for example, in a lesson that teaches students how to count in English.
 
“I want my students not to regurgitate English,” he added. “I want them to internalize and think about it.”
 
Before life in academia, Michael Wood worked as a systems analyst for computer consulting firms in the Washington D.C. area. He became an adjunct professor in research methodology and urban planning, while holding down his systems analyst job.
 
Outside the classroom, Michael enjoys the game of chess, working out and staying physically fit, collecting antique classic model cars, and landscaping and landscape design. He learned about LVA while still working in education.
 
 “I always wanted to become involved,” he said of the LVA program. “It’s a new teaching experience for me.  As a teacher, everyone knew the language. Here, you are teaching the language while teaching a subject as well.”
 
It’s a new experience as well for his students, who say his techniques and commitment make learning English more of an adventure and less of a struggle.
 
“I love the way he is teaching,” said Zoila, a student from Ecuador. “I have been in the country for 30 years and now I am feeling more comfortable here because Michael is teaching me to speak better.”
 
Anelsi, a student from the Dominican Republic said the students in her group wish they could clone Michael because they would learn faster if there were more of him.
 
“He’s super,” said Anelsi. “He’s very respectful, kind, he has a lot of patience, and he never gets tired of teaching.”

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