Many community-based English language learning programs rely on volunteers to lead classes. While some of these volunteers have some teacher training, the majority are not professional educators. The question of how non-professionals understand what constitutes facilitation of language learning in an adult education context remains underexplored.…

Volunteer tutors play a significant role in delivering adult literacy programs. It is estimated that up to 60% of all instructors in adult literacy programs in the United States are volunteers (Ziegler, McCallum, & Bell, 2009). However, volunteer tutors' work or experience are rarely the subjects of research. Volunteer tutors' contributions to…

The introduction of online elements to museums and cultural sites has opened up new ways for visitors to engage with the past, with nature, with culture, and all other treasures of the museum. However, docent training has lagged behind visitor-facing educational initiatives. By blending online elements into docent education programs, staff…

The purpose of this study was to examine participants' perspectives on how a volunteer-based adult literacy class supports the learning of adults with developmental/intellectual disabilities. Interviews were conducted with four tutors, three adult learners, and two coordinators and observations of the class occurred over a 6-month period during…

This is the third paper published by The Centre for Literacy in its Working Papers in Literacy series, which presents fresh perspectives on literacy-related issues. The topics are relevant both to other researchers, to practitioners in the field, and to policy-makers. This paper examines the behaviours and beliefs of a group of volunteer tutors to…

This is a story about how a national Canadian environmental education program (Green Street) evolved in unpredictable ways and about the particular twist in the road that led program stakeholders to focus on scaling up in different ways than originally imagined. The "twist" occurred when the program reached the initially perceived…

This paper is a transcript of a videotaped roundtable discussion on the role of volunteers in adult literacy in Canada. The participants expressed concern that tutors may not be able to provide the quality of learning experience for adult students that trained teachers could and that volunteers could be taking jobs that should go to trained…

This document is a two-part workshop resource manual intended to help trainers of literacy tutors and others to raise awareness of the particular needs of older adult literacy learners. Part 1 contains basic information on the topic of older adult literacy obtained from a review of the most current literature available and has a Canadian and,…

The curriculum development process for two Canadian projects to train inexperienced and untrained language instructors is described. An Alberta program trains volunteer tutors of English as a second language, and a British Columbia program trains teachers of Canadian heritage languages. Both groups have a limited amount of time for training, and…

This publication contains 21 reports that explore and document literacy. Following an introduction (Jean-Paul Hautecoeur), the first part deals with literacy in North America. Reports are "Functional Illiteracy and the 'New Literacy'" (Jean-Pierre Velis); "Literacy Policy in Quebec: An Historical Overview" (Jean-Paul…