Immigrant Center Finds and Trains Volunteer Teachers Through Bridge Partnership

This volunteer system works well with the Guided Teaching Practicum that Bridge offers. The course is designed to provide new teachers who are still training with hands-on experience in a classroom. At LIRC, volunteers can either fill a tutoring position or be part of a group lesson with another teacher.

“It is the needs of the students, the curriculum, and the philosophy of the employing organization which determine the types of classes a teacher will give, paid or unpaid,” says Margaret Jones, a Bridge graduate and volunteer at LIRC.

Currently, LIRC has over 200+ active volunteers and is seeking more. Bridge is looking to assist with this demand by sending more teachers their way. This partnership also benefits both parties because of the accredited TEFL training Bridge offers to LIRC’s current volunteer teachers.

While Robert acknowledges that LIRC has “an army of volunteers,” there are also challenges stemming from immigrants not practicing enough English outside of the center because they tend to live in neighborhoods where they can use their native language.

“The biggest challenges that learners face is that communities tend to stick to their mother tongues; [this is] especially the [case with the] elderly. They rely on children and grandchildren for English,” explains Robert.

The role that LIRC plays in combating this important challenge is to make English a predominant language in the lives of the immigrants who come to the U.S. for better opportunities. So far, the center has been successful in establishing itself within its constituency to provide the necessary services for the citizenship exam, which includes both a language component and a series of legal questions for the test-takers.