Literacy Volunteers of America, Essex & Passaic Counties, NJ Inc.

October 2018

Volume 6, Issue 10

The Insider

The Insider, the monthly newsletter of LVA, Essex & Passaic Counties, will keep you in the loop on all of the organization’s upcoming events.

We had a great group on Wednesday, October 3rd for a tutor and student get together at the Bloomfield Public Library, We enjoyed seeing everyone and coffee and cookies didn’t hurt either.

Literacy Volunteers of America Essex & Passaic Counties

90 Broad Street, 2nd Floor, Bloomfield, NJ 07003
(973) 566-6200, ext. 217 or 225

195 Gregory Avenue, 2nd Floor, Passaic, NJ 07055
(973) 470-0039

Cristhian Barcelos      -Executive Director
                                           cbarcelos@lvaep.org
Jorge Chavez               -Data Processing Coordinator
                                           jchavez@lvaep.org
Debbie Graham           -Education Coordinator
                                           dgraham@lvaep.org
Ellen Rooney Martin -Recruitment & Training Coordinator
                         emartin@lvaep.org
Mary O’Connor          -Trainer & Tutor Support Specialist
                                           moconnor@lvaep.org
Marisol Ramirez          -Student Coordinator
                                           mramirez@lvaep.org

Greetings LVA Family,

October has been a busy month with lots of fun events and new tutors joining our program.

We saw a great turnout for the our first Coffee with Friends and the afternoon was filled with happy students sharing their progress and tutors smiling with pride. Thank you everyone who attended.

In this issue you’ll meet LVA student Jenny, a young woman who moved from Spain and is determined to become a doctor. LVA tutor Ann Moore is generous with her students and other tutors too. She shares her tech savvy planning skills with other tutors in addition to getting great satisfaction from tutoring her students.

Many students shared their literacy stories through our programs at Berkley College in Newark and at the Hilton Branch of Maplewood Memorial Library. Their success leads them to new experiences in life and work and often enables them to continue studies they started before arriving at LVA.

Check out the story about Facebook being used as a tool to enhance literacy among refugees, according to a new study by the University of Minnesota.

We love when tutors share ideas for materials and websites with each other for teaching. Our website www.lvaep.org has lots of resources to use too. The LVAEP Facebook page is a wonderful way for tutors to connect with each other when you find something online.

In the News

To view the following stories, copy and paste the highlighted website into an internet search bar.

‘What literacy skills do students really need for for work?” Education Week. https://bit.ly/2QcGLBZ

“Literacy is a worldwide issue’ The Inter-Mountain. https://bit.ly/2OolIPy

‘Supporting adult literacy in Uganda’ The Lutheran World Federation. https://bit.ly/2RcWCln

‘Undergrads fill the gap’ The Harvard Gazette. https://bit.ly/2N9BpFD

Jenny’s life has been filled with adventure from Ecuador to Spain to New Jersey. She can now order in English with LVA’s help.

Tutor Support Workshops

"Preparing Students for the NJALL Adult Learner Writing Contest," with Erik Jacobson
Bloomfield Public Library
90 Broad Street, 2nd Floor Boardroom
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
Thursday, November 15, 2018, 1:00-2:30 pm

"A Single Step: Putting Yourself in the Shoes of the Learners," with Faleeha Hassan
Bloomfield Public Library
90 Broad Street, Library Theater
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
Monday, October 29, 2018, 1:00-2:30 pm

Tutor Training Workshops

Hilton Branch, Maplewood Memorial Library -by Mary O"Connor
1688 Springfield Avenue
Maplewood, NJ 07040
Mondays and Wednesdays, 1:00–4:00 pm
October 17, 22, 24, 29, 31 & November 5, 2018

West Orange Public Library -by Mary Kao
46 Mount Pleasant Avenue
West Orange, NJ 07052
Wednesday 6:00 - 9:00 pm
October 10, 17, 24, 31, November 7, & 14

Getting to Know Us
Jenny, LVA student
by Debbie Graham

Jenny moved from Naranjal, Ecuador to Madrid, Spain when she was 14 years old. After 10 years of thrilling adventures in Spain’s central capital, Jenny found her heart’s desire was back in Ecuador. She married “the boy next door.”

Her husband-to-be, now living in Newark, used social media to track Jenny down while she was living the big city lifestyle in Madrid. After only four months of on-line courtship, Jenny boarded a plane to Newark. “I felt happy and a little nervous,” Jenny remembered. But, this young woman was no fool. “It was a difficult decision,” she said. “Just in case things didn’t work out, I bought a round trip ticket.”

Fortunately, things did work out for both of them and their growing family. Actually, it was their two children who were the impetus for Jenny to become a Literacy Volunteers of America student. “I wanted to learn English to be able to speak with my children’s teachers.” Jenny has been with LVA for almost 3 years and works 16 hours a month with the same tutor with whom she was matched when Jenny first enrolled.

“Being in LVA has changed my whole life,” Jenny said. Before I started learning English, I needed my husband for everything. I can do a lot on my own now. I feel so happy.

It is obvious when Jenny comes into the Bloomfield Library twice a week wearing mom jeans and a big smile, that she is not about to cash in on her return flight to Spain.

“In New Jersey,” she said, “I shop in the supermarket and try to buy all fresh food. I found a lot of products from Ecuador. It tastes the same, but the costs are higher.” Jenny’s favorite food in the United States is hamburger. Of course, her children look forward to a break from healthy meals and beg for an occasional trip to Burger King.

Jenny says she owes her self-confidence in being able to ask questions in the grocery story to ordering off the menu at Burger King to LVA.

“Being in LVA has changed my whole life,” Jenny said. Before I started learning English, I needed my husband for everything. I can do a lot on my own now. I feel so happy.

Literacy opens a wide door to life. Help us keep that door open with your donation!

Thanks in large part to you, we are able to aid hundreds of students each year. Please continue your efforts to improve the lives of others by giving the gift of literacy. You can contribute by mailing us a check or through our website @:

http://www.lvaep.org/donate.html

“Facebook enhances English language literacy among refugee students, U of M study finds”

MinnPost
By Erin Hinrichs, October 10, 2018

Three years ago, three colleagues in the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development teamed up to pilot a Facebook unit in a high school classroom mainly composed of Somali English language learners.

Minnesota is home to the largest Somali population in the United States. This includes a significant number of recently arrived Somali students who, displaced by the ongoing civil war in Somalia, spent time in refugee camps in countries like Kenya and Ethiopia before coming to Minnesota.

Under these conditions, their formal schooling experience may have been interrupted, or even nonexistent. So they’re not only tasked with the challenge of learning English, but also with mastering literacy skills they may be learning for the first time.

Recognizing the appeal of social media among adolescents, Jenifer Vanek, Kendall King and Martha Bigelow — three instructors at the U of M specializing in second language acquisition — decided to investigate how it might be best leveraged to support English literacy development in the classroom. Their findings were recently published in the Journal of Language, Identity and Education.

“There are so many discourses that are about skills that they don’t have,” said King, noting that those who are new to working with this student population often express surprise over the fact that they need to cover basics like how to properly hold a pencil.

Reprinted from MinnPost. For full story, paste the following link into an Internet search:https://bit.ly/2PaG9je

Student Resources

Learning a new culture is more than studying a language. Tutoring is more than learning techniques. Our ‘Resources’ page covers everything from legal matters, health care, & scholarships for immigrants, to professional development for tutors. Give us a look @:

http://www.lvaep.org/students.html

Getting to Know Us
Ann Moore, LVA tutor
by Debbie Graham

LVA tutor Ann Moore has always had a knack for furthering potential. Whether it was in her working life at Coldwell Banker that has approximately 3,000 real estate offices in 49 countries, or in the Bloomfield Public Library with her 5 students.

She now gets the same satisfaction from tutoring that she did when she helped first time buyers realize their dreams of owning their own home. In both arenas, Ann said, “Helping people is very rewarding.”

Ann discovered LVA after she had just retired from 32 years as an agent and later branch manager for several different Coldwell Banker offices.

“I was newly retired and looking on line at different volunteer options,” Ann said. “I had thought about the need for literacy tutors before I retired. I looked it up in the spring and the class was in October.

“When I left training, I was terrified I was not going to do the right thing. I felt I had such a responsibility because the students were giving so much of their time, and I wanted to make lessons worth it for them,” Ann said. “I spent many hours getting ready for my first meeting. I was so nervous about it. The first lesson, I was as nervous as my student. My nerves subsided after a month

Ann now tutors five students. “I like working with a group. I find it much easier,” she said. “They are very friendly and supportive of each other.”

“The students make a personal commitment to tutoring considering they work long hours and have family commitments. It is such a viscous cycle. If you can’t learn the language, you can’t improve your life conditions,” she said. “I am impressed with how seriously they take the program.”

Ann feels strongly about LVA’s mission. “In a political climate where there is so much angst over immigrants, this is a program that is on the positive side of the immigration story,” she stated.

Ann, with her knack for furthering potential, concluded by saying, “I am also impressed with the commitment the tutors make to their students.

Adult Literacy & Community Library Partnership Pilot Program
Hilton Branch, Maplewood Memorial Library

Hilton Branch, Maplewood Memorial Library students include Qingling from Shanghai who didn’t speak any English when she arrived at the class. Now she getting involved in community activities and helping her son with homework. Juliette is a positive, hardworking student newly arrived from Haiti and happily reunited her with her son and husband. Jean came from Haiti with little money and worked very hard to get a job to earn money for his family. He’s relieved to be able to read the prices at the grocery store. Political unrest in Turkey prompted Meral to move to this country and values its laws She and her husband were on a vacation in the U.S. when a coup d’etat against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed, leading to the roundup of thousands of her countrymen, and there was no going back

A romantic turn brought Yeiner to the U.S. from her native Costa Rica where she was living and working. She met her husband while he was there visiting family and he urged her to come and see what life in New Jersey would be like. Now she’s determined to learn English to return to her work as a hairdresser.

Sussex Educational Foundation, Berkeley College &
LVA, Essex and Passaic Counties Adult Education Program

Like many immigrants, students at Berkeley College Newark juggle work and family duties to get to their classes. Some have put educational dreams on hold and others know exactly the path they want to take with their English as a second language. Osgen’s story made her teacher and classmates tear up and get goosebumps when telling the class about her journey from Turkey to New Jersey. Latifa struggled with education in her native Morocco, but she has big dreams and Behiye from Turkey, and Oscar from Peru, are both grateful and hopeful to begin to overcome the language barrier and get on with everyday life in English.

Janneth has persevered with her studies despite working at a home health care center, caring for her elderly grandmother and managing home, work and school schedules. “When I just came here, I barely understood what people were saying to me,” she remembered. “I was not able to answer them.”

Maria is a level 3 student form Ecuador and is practicing English for her college application essay, while Willy loves to write in his native Spanish and is eager to transfer his skills to English. His teacher, Carlos Caban, said he pours his heart and soul into every writing assignment in class.