by Jessica Clark
The Literacy Center is fortunate to have a multitude of amazingly dedicated, enthusiastic, intelligent, caring, patient, and passionate teachers and tutors. One such teacher is Joel Kefuss, a volunteer with The Literacy Center since 2008, and teacher of our Wednesday afternoon “English in Context” class. I tried to get Joel to write a post for this blog on the unique activities he uses in his classroom and how they keep his students engaged, but the best I could wrangle out of him was an interview.
Here’s what Joel had to say about teaching for The Literacy Center:
“…any student who survives a lesson of mine gets a gold star at the end of the lesson.”
Multi-sensory Teaching
I asked Joel about the bucket of stuff he brings into every class, and he explained it like this:
I’m into multi-sensory teaching. I think that if you bring an object out like a seashell, you can have 5 minutes of conversation about that. You can also put it on the board and get people to use the correct spelling… I think that’s where learning should start really, being able to talk about and identify common things.
I carry this bucket of kind of eclectic things from various places—I’ve even got an old pack of cigarettes in here that I found on the side of the road…a pair of pliers, a hammer, a wrench. I’ve got a whole bag here of hinges because it’s not a common word, but something common in your life. Anyway, I’ve collected a lot of different things and put them in plastic bags. I put generally related things in plastic bags because it’s a little easier to sort them out.
So how do you start a lesson with that?
I just pull one out and start talking about it. The whole point is just to get people talking. It’s just a visual…it’s like show and tell, is what it is.
Here’s a bag with oak in it, from acorns, to leaves, to a little sample of oak wood… Here’s a bag of grains—it’s difficult to talk about these things without a sample. So, if you can get the person to touch it, to write it, to say it, to maybe even taste it, it becomes a multi-sensory experience.
Here’s a whole sack of ropes, and we use them to practice tying knots. They should also learn the difference between a rope, and a string, and a cord, and a thread. So anyhow, I show them how to tie a square knot (which is the handiest knot, you know right over left, left over right), a bowline… They should also learn a clove hitch and a camel hitch in case they want to tie their camel down.
I also do origami, mostly to get people to relax and to understand sequence and develop questioning.
English in Context
The whole point of the class is English in context, so I’m providing the context and getting them to provide the English.
Sometimes I drag my learners over to the store here—CAL Ranch or the hardware store. I always ask if I can bring my learners in, but they’re overjoyed to have people walking around and looking at the shovels. And at the store, every item has a label in English, so if it’s a coal shovel, they can read that, write it down in their notebooks, and handle it—it goes back to the multi-sensory approach.
I try not to structure it the way that my classroom was structured for the 30 or 31 some odd years that I taught. The classroom can be anything you want it to be. The hardware store can be the classroom. We went to the drugstore one time, too, and looked through the shampoos, the lotions… I encourage people to do visual and tactile things.
Tutors can just keep their eyes out and look for found materials to bring into the classroom. Something that’s very helpful is to just stop by the store and get a handful off the public bus schedules and to talk about how to read the bus schedule—it’s a survival skill and the learners can take those home with them.
I also bring in newspapers. About every other week, I bring in a newspaper for each student and we go through and talk about whatever we discover in the newspaper. A lot of our learners don’t really understand our form of government or the difference between Republicans and Democrats and Independents. But just look around and you can usually find free newspapers, and you can teach an entire day with just one newspaper.
I’m always looking for things. I’ve always got my eye out for free stuff that I can grab and drag in here and pass out that the learners can use.
What’s the coolest item you’ve ever had, or the best lesson you’ve ever done?
I think the kitchen just comes to mind. That is really cool. Because there’s no dry marker board in there, I usually just write the vocabulary words out on the counter… This is the funniest thing:
We went in there about 2 years ago and the place was a mess—there were dirty dishes full of water and a dish rag that smelled awful, and we talked about sanitation. We talked about, “would anyone in here eat out of this kitchen,” “oh no—muy malo.” I showed them how to wet a sponge and heat it in the microwave to sanitize it, and I think someone on the staff must have overheard us, because for the next week and then for the next few years, it stayed pretty clean in there—so we affected permanent change.
Setting the Tone of the Classroom
The attitude of the teacher is really the life blood of the classroom. It lubricates the classroom machine. If you have a lousy attitude, you should stay home. The learners are very absorbent, and they will absorb your attitude, so you don’t want them to absorb something that is non-productive.
Today I’ve got some jokes that I printed out. I told them about a cow joke last week:
Camper: Look at that bunch of cows.
Farmer: Not bunch, herd.
Camper: Heard what?
Farmer: Of cows.
Camper: Sure, I’ve heard of cows.
Farmer: No, I mean a cowherd.
Camper: So what? I have no secrets from cows!
I’ll probably start the class off with this to help everyone relax, and to make them laugh. It just helps people be more at ease, and if you’re at ease, I think your learning is better—you’re more receptive if you’re more at ease. There should be laughter and a healthy attitude on the part of the teacher, because it’s infectious—it really is.
Setting the tone of the class is important. It’s good if they realize that you’re not their 8th grade teacher with a red pen in each hand.
Most of all, just encourage people to relax, and let them know that you’re not going to bite them if they make a mistake—that you’re, in fact, there for them to display the needs they may have and to help them with those needs. This is what I tell my students: “It’s okay to make mistakes in my classroom because then I know what to teach. Mistakes come, and then I can learn what to teach through what you’re saying.
You should always point out accomplishments, pointing out progress—tell them “you did a good job on that.”
By the way, any student who survives a lesson of mine gets a gold star at the end of the lesson. It’s mandatory.
I tell my students the class starts when they come and ends when they leave, and I NEVER GIVE HOMEWORK.
Why Volunteer?
What made you want to become a volunteer for The Literacy Center?
You know what it is… that is a good question… When you retire, you want to continue what you do best—under better circumstances, and this would be that very thing, because I don’t have to punch a clock and do lesson plans and deal with parents—this is teaching on a much more comfortable level—this is much more pleasant, and I guess…I can’t stop!
Coming here is a logical step after retirement, and coming here gives me a purpose—it gives me something to focus on and keeps my mind active in the middle of the week. Learners come here, and it’s good for the learners, but it’s good for the tutors too. I encourage people here who are retired to volunteer.
You know the old saying if you can’t do anything, become a teacher—I’ve met people who come in with that mindset, and those people usually don’t make it past October. Teaching is one of the most difficult things you can do. It’s not for everybody. My wife wouldn’t do this. It opens you up, it kind of exposes your own… your own lack of… to be a teacher, you have to be not afraid to show your own ignorance about things, because nobody has a complete handle on knowledge. So, working here has been a growing experience for me. If you listen very carefully, you can learn a lot from the learners.
It’s all about the attitude—they will make mistakes, but so will I. You have to be fearless…and be willing to make mistakes.
think literacy 