ELL Teacher or Teaching Assistant

We are looking for volunteer teacher/assistant/substitutes for Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Our classes are held from Sept through May, and we sometimes offer an abbreviated summer course for students who want to keep their skills current. We are looking for volunteers who want to form community with their students and the other volunteers and are able to commit to a full school year, since when there are disruptions and changes, it disrupts the classroom cohesion. We teach English in four or sometimes five levels, with the vast majority of our students in Basic or Level One.

Our program is well established in the community and has been ongoing in the same location since 2001. We offer 4 levels of English classes: Basic, Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and sometimes Level 4. All course levels use the Ventures English Language Learning series textbooks which we are able to provide to students for free thanks to our fabulous grantors. Students can start at any time and are not penalized for absences, so the composition of each class varies quite a bit with a core of students who are present for most of the semester and sometimes all year. The everchanging class composition is very stressful for some volunteers while others experience it as an invigorating challenge.

Our classes are set up with one teacher and one assistant on Tuesdays, and a different teacher and assistant on Thursdays. Teachers and teaching assistants volunteer from 5:45 PM to 8 PM in a specific classroom so they develop a relationship with the students and understand what their needs are. The lead teachers have a teacher's manual and communicate with their partners on where the class left off, and what grammatical issues the class encountered, if any.

Students can register and begin class at any point in the semester, and may take the same level course as many times as they need. Students may also change course levels at any point in the semester, if they need to be challenged or need to review material from a lower course level.

During the summer students, volunteers and neighbors raise vegetables for their families in our community garden alongside the church where classes are held. This is a great chance to interact in a different context and gives everyone a chance to share knowledge, vocabulary, cooking techniques etc and to continue building community. New volunteers welcome!