Community Tutors for Citizenship: Filling an Unmet Community Need
Note from the Editor:
Sponsors Organized to Support Refugees is a program of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. This article describes a joint pilot project of PLC and SOAR that trains new citizens to tutor aspiring citizens to help them pass the U.S. naturalization interview. The pilot project was developed by the "Three Barbaras" -- Barbara Williams and Barbara Torrey Quiggle, current PLC board members and SOAR tutors, and Barbara Cason, a former PLC board member and SOAR tutor.
The citizenship test requires a new citizen to show competency in reading, writing, civics and to show English understanding and speaking skills via an interview. The vocabulary of the interview is particularly difficult as it is not vocabulary used in anyone’s daily life – as an example: “Have you ever advocated, either directly or indirectly, the overthrow of a government by force or violence.”
As we transitioned to online citizenship classes, it became more difficult to conduct effective interview practices to prepare individual students for their actual interview. Several of the SOAR instructors were already conducting 1:1 extra practice interviews with their students once the student received the interview date letter. But sometimes this can be a little too late and there are more students who need this extra 1:1 practice than the instructors can handle. Last summer this pilot project was started in partnership with SOAR Immigration Legal Services to train ex-students who have passed their citizenship test to become citizenship tutors. We named this program Community Tutors for Citizenship (CTC).
The idea was that the topic for tutoring was very focused, so it was well within the CTC scope of knowledge and the CTC had already passed the test so proved they knew the material. We just needed to teach the CTC how to deliver the material in a tutoring session and provide the coaching needed to strengthen their self-confidence.
Two PLC board members, Barbara Williams and Barbara Torrey Quiggle, along with PLC volunteer Barbara Cason, are also current SOAR volunteer tutors. We proposed this pilot project to Emily Grablutz, Education Coordinator at SOAR and received enthusiastic support. We then contacted SOAR and Beaverton Literacy Council instructors and received recommendations on potential candidates. We started with 10 potential candidates, but as expected, we lost a few due to changes in their work schedules or family situations. Every one of these CTC are amazing women who have so much to offer and want to give back to their community. Their enthusiasm and commitment have been awesome.
The program started with a PLC-sponsored Awesome Tutor Workshop on Tutoring Basics. Then we matched up the 6 remaining CTC with mentors (the Three Barbaras) for individualized training and shadowing with current citizenship students. Our citizenship students have been generous in their willingness to let the CTC shadow their personal tutoring sessions. After two months of training and shadowing, nearly all of our new CTC have been paired with their own student for solo 1:1 tutoring. These CTC will continue to work with their assigned student through the fall school term. Stay tuned for updates to this exciting program.
