Literacy and Language Tutoring at Carol Woods
Almost every day, in some nook or cranny of our campus, a Carol Woods resident is tutoring a staff member who is seeking better English language fluency and/or academic skills. Many residents do not know that such a program exists. So, when and how did it become a part of our community? How do our resident tutors feel about this experience? What has been accomplished?
The program was initiated by Will Brooks shortly after he and his wife, Pat, arrived at Carol Woods in 2015. Noting the diverse staff and the limited English fluency of some staff members, he realized that he had the experience, knowledge, and skills to make a difference. He had lived in Germany and the Soviet Union and knew firsthand the importance of fluency in the language of the country in which you live: it promotes self-confidence, social interactions, and opportunities that otherwise would be missed. Furthermore, he had been involved in literacy programs since 1988, first as the faculty advisor of Project Literacy at the UNC Campus YMCA, and then three decades of volunteering with the Orange County Literacy Council (subsequently renamed Orange Literacy), where he served on the board for nine years and had terms as Vice President and President.
Will knew that among Carol Woods residents there were many retired teachers, librarians, and others who might be easily recruited to serve as tutors. He joined the Community Relations Committee, which supported his idea. He believed that tutoring would not be successful unless it included at least two one hour sessions a week and did not require the employee to come to work early or stay late. It took time, but he persuaded the administration to support a meeting for the staff to learn about the availability of tutoring and to encourage enrollment by allowing them to use two hours of their work time per week for the tutoring sessions. The Orange County Literacy Council agreed to provide training and materials for tutors. The program got underway in 2018 with four tutor tutee pairings. Except for a break in participation during the Covid shutdown, tutoring has continued to grow since then. This past year eleven residents tutored ten staff who worked in Housekeeping, Maintenance, and Dining Services. We asked these tutors, as well as tutors from previous years, to share their experiences with us.
Ruth Ouimette wrote that in 2019 she began tutoring a staff member in Dining Services whose native language is Chinese. Initially they worked on vocabulary and reading comprehension, but soon he told her that he wanted to be a US citizen and asked if they could work toward that. Orange County Literacy provided the materials. He was so motivated that they continued lessons by Zoom on his days off during the Covid shutdown. Ruth wrote, “In September 2021 he sat for and passed the Citizenship exam on his first attempt.” His wife and mother, who both speak only Chinese, invited Ruth and Cindy Freund to a “Celebratory Chinese lunch” in honor of the occasion. That was not the end of the tutoring, however. To further his progress, he and Ruth continue to meet two hours a week.
Soon after moving to Carol Woods, Sue Goodman and Carol Clark began to tutor José, a staff member working toward his GED. Both tutors had spent their careers as teachers. Sue tutored him in mathematics and Carol in language arts, each working with him for an hour a week and each assigning one to two hours of homework. They report that “Thanks to his perseverance, he made impressive progress. Just imagine trying to master a high school curriculum while also holding down a full-time job and raising a family!” An unexpected bonus has been the friendships that have evolved among the three of them. Sue noted that while it might seem more efficient to pass the test on language arts first and then focus on math, studying them simultaneously has allowed José both to strengthen foundational skills and to see how they overlap (e.g. word problems on math tests). Carol and Sue are considering asking others who have taught science and general social studies to work with José on those test areas when the time comes.
Other tutors also reported gratifying interactions with their students and described the strategies they have chosen to help them reach their goals. Stu Solomon, a linguist who reads several languages, has been working with a young man whose first language is Spanish. Stu uses the tutoring hours chatting about adjustment to life in the U.S. He wrote, “It’s a pleasure for me to see his growing confidence in communicating in English.”
Cecil Wooten has been tutoring staff members in English for about three years. He said that he did not need much training since he has been teaching language (Latin, Greek, French, and Italian) all his life. He notes, “Teaching one’s own language, however, is more challenging than teaching a language that you learned as a foreign language.” At Carol Woods he is currently tutoring a staff member from Taiwan. “Normally, I let my pupil talk freely for about twenty minutes, often prompted by me, and then for about forty minutes we do exercises of various sorts. Sometimes I bring in a picture and ask her to describe it or to tell me a story, often about her growing up. I’m open to answering any questions. I enjoy the tutoring experience.”
It was a desire to help Carol Woods staff upgrade their professional skills that motivated David Bellinto volunteer as a tutor. Before retirement, he had taught commercial seminars, college, and home-buying classes for Latinos. This past year he has worked with one staff person who speaks English well but wants to improve his written English. David gives him writing assignments, both from a workbook and from his own freestyle page-long assignments. They also converse, sharing things about their experiences.
Anne Cooper-Chen has been tutoring Rosa, who works in Housekeeping. They meet for one hour each week. Anne says that Rosa attends faithfully. They began with and completed a workbook provided by Orange Literacy. However, they both felt it was not too helpful because it was geared toward young folks looking for a job—not someone who has three children and a job. Anne has used other materials from Orange Literacy with specific topics such as a car. Rosa will tell Anne about her car, then Anne will ask her to write what she said and correct her writing. They often use videos on Rosa’s cell phone to talk about her son.
Margerete Sandelowski has been a tutor for about four years. She has worked with three staff members, and is pleased to be a part of the project. She focuses her tutoring on English and tailors materials to the goals and the technical requirements of her students’ work. Two of them stopped their sessions after about a year—one because she left Carol Woods employment and the other because her work and family obligations made continuing too difficult. Tutoring continued with the third for about two years, until she reached her occupational goal. Margie believes that tutoring this person will resume once she settles into her new work role. Except for the staffer who left Carol Woods, Margie feels that she has developed close and ongoing relationships with her students. They share personal information appropriate to the resident-staff relationship and to the educational needs and goals of the individuals.
It should come as no surprise that all tutoring experiences have not been as successful and gratifying as those described above. Our staff members, like most people who work full-time, have the pressure of multiple obligations. Some may sign up for tutoring but find that the homework takes up too much time or that their progress is too slow to make it worthwhile. Others may have little or no support at home for participating in the program. There are also instances in which the person seeking help with English has a learning disability or has had limited or unsuccessful educational experiences such that they are not ready for some of the techniques usually used to improve language learning. Some students, for example, might not recognize letters of the English alphabet or understand how sounds are related to them.
Resident volunteers also come with different backgrounds. Some are experienced language tutors while others are totally new to the process. Some have successfully taught children but have never tried to teach an adult, which, as one tutor said, “is an entirely different skill set.” After trying multiple ways to make materials more accessible and interesting to their tutees, a few tutors described feeling guilty or simply inadequate when their sessions either petered out or were stopped by mutual agreement.
These few negative experiences in no way counter the overall success of the tutoring program. Our Carol Woods CEO, Marianne Ratcliff, probably summarized it best: "I feel proud to be part of a community where residents don’t just live—they give. Their generosity of time and talent in supporting our staff is one of the most meaningful aspects of working at Carol Woods. Programs like resident tutoring uphold the community's commitment to being a great place to live and a great place to work and volunteer." We owe thanks to Will Brooks, the tutors, the staff who participate in the program, and to our administration, who has made the tutoring program possible at Carol Woods.