Volunteer Tutors and Learner Assessment:
What Counts Here?

Janet Isserlis
Vancouver, BC, Canada

What are adult education programs hoping to assess when they ask their volunteer tutors to assess learner progress? This old, old question has been kicked around in the area of alternative assessment for a very long time. Salaried practitioners have been pondering the value of assessment instruments for years. Volunteer tutors, however, may or may not have been included in the staff development loop when questions about ‘what counts’ are being asked. This essay attempts to address the fact that volunteers and volunteer programs can benefit as greatly as any others from a processive approach to ongoing assessment, and suggests some steps that may already be in place within many ABE/ESL programs utilizing volunteers.

I’ve worked in ESL/literacy for the past 16 years, and since 1989 have been one of many people ‘seriously’ considering assessment. Nonetheless, for the past two and a half years, when asked to fill in learner progress sheets at the learning center where I’ve volunteered in Vancouver’s downtown east side, I’ve simply filled in the forms I was given, usually writing something general (and occasionally vague) about each learner’s overall abilities. It’s meaningless, I figured; some papers for the auditor to count. So what? I was just the volunteer in that picture.

This past spring when I was again given learner assessment sheets and told that the process this time would be slightly different, I decided that a shrug and a sigh weren’t helpful responses; volunteers and learners can and should have access to information about and input into learner assessment documents. I’d been given a reading from True Stories in the News (and something else I can no longer recall) to give to my students. Essentially I was being asked to administer a reading comprehension test to my conversation group. The information gleaned from this test would then be transferred to a progress report (see tool on page 19).

This time I reconsidered. Where I had previously written out something very general about my learners’ progress, it now occurred to me that a casually-written, hollow assessment statement seemed pointless. If I thought that the exercise had little intrinsic value, (i.e. I was not convinced that the people for whom the reports were being written would really read them closely), I did, however, see the possibility of using the form as a vehicle through which my learners could reflect upon their own progress in a some-what more meaningful manner. As well, my colleagues at the center later pointed out to me that these forms may in fact be used by center staff as a form of in-house monitoring; that is, the forms might assist staff in shifting learners from level to level as their abilities increase.

Why discuss this? It’s too easy to fill in some form with little effort or substance in order to appease a funder. Approximately the same amount of time and energy could be dedicated to a meaningful session, at the very least, wherein learners are asked to consider their progress over a given period of time, and tutors can share in the process of reflection around learning gains and progress.

Learners at the Center
I’ve worked with two core groups since I’ve been a volunteer at this center. Over the course of two and a half years, other learners have joined and left, but this last group has been together consistently for more than a year.

In addition to the English as an Additional Language students with whom I work as a volunteer tutor, the Learning Centre is also open to adult basic education (ABE) students. They are registered through the Vancouver School Board and their attendance hours are carefully documented and counted in reports which, in turn (along with assessment protocols), are translated into continued funding dollars (or so it seems — remember I’m a volunteer and only part-time/occasionally salaried worker at this center).

The learners who attend the center are those who live and/or work in the downtown east side core (the poorest postal code in Canada), as well as others who attend from around the city. The issue of who attends — who should or shouldn’t be allowed access to services — is a hotly-contested issue, beyond the scope of this essay. This information is presented in order to give the reader a sense of the context in which the volunteer program has existed.

Throughout the course of the year, I would periodically ask learners to discuss their feelings about the group — what was working, what wasn’t, what needed to be changed. Keep in mind that this has been a conversation group meeting once a week for two hours. Our work together has consisted of reading and discussing newspaper articles and other information that learners and/or I bring in. Occasionally we’d just chat. The point has been to build oral/aural ability. Over time we’ve come to know one another, at least a little. Some of the learners phone me at home to ask questions, others have written to me when I’ve been away for the summer. We’ve had the odd meal or two together. We’ve spoken periodically about the group itself, what learners like to do, what they want to learn. Asking them to consider their own progress seemed a legitimate request. The actual document used by the Centre is described below.

The Progress Report
The Progress Report form utilized at the Centre asks for the learner’s name, date of birth, initial intake date, report date, instructor’s name and level at intake. It is worth noting that the instructor is not the same person as the tutor (a volunteer) who is working with the learner in the tutoring group. As well, assessment of level at intake can be arbitrary, not standardized in any way; therefore ‘progress’ is slippery to describe, at best. Work has been ongoing to try to standardize intake assessment. As far as I can tell, this does not necessarily mean using standardized instruments so much as agreeing upon levels and criteria among those staff who do intake work.

The reporting form given us for our ESL tutor groups appears to be the same form used to document progress for ABE students. It seeks generalized information which may account for ABE learners’ movement within levels, but gives little room for real reflection about ESL learners’ less ‘visible’ progress, such as the gradual shifts in abilities, usage and confidence with English. Further, it is difficult to expect a form to facilitate reflection upon factors contributing to or inhibiting language development — learning about one’s new environment/culture or the ups and downs which impact on all learning processes. I am critical of the exercise, not necessarily of the learning center. Funders want numbers, reports, some sort of accountability. But the one (accountability) does not necessarily need to preclude the other (meaningful information).

After reading an earlier draft of this paper, two colleagues at the Centre told me that Learning Centre staff have, in fact, spoken at great length about the issue of assessment. It was suggested that the auditors who monitor the center are more interested in finding completed intake information than in gauging actual progress. An ongoing communication log, and student folders — available to learners — serve as means of documenting ongoing work. Staff at the Centre, like those in many others, simply lack the time or institutional support to refine their assessment work. Instructors are mindful of the importance of meaningful assessment, but have had no real means of communicating this to tutors and/or among one another in consistent ways.

The progress update information sought is presented in the tool at the bottom of this page. It represents the actual amount of information that’s implicitly expected to be given. I have no interest in attacking the Centre for using this form, but do want to consider ways in which to engage in pur-poseful assessment activity when a funder asks for ‘hard data’ and intake information and staff is pressed for time in a busy center. Funders want complete student files in order to determine numbers of FTE (full-time equivalents) and non-FTE students. My colleagues at the center tell me that meaningful assessment is important to many of the workers at the Centre. Time is in extremely short supply. Working day in and day out in a drop-in center with a shifting learner population demands consistent documentation and processes which need time to develop into useful assessment protocols. It is easier, in this context, as a volunteer with a very limited commitment to an agency, and with a very small group of learners, for me to suggest alternatives.

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One Alternative
I asked the people in the conversation group to think about what they believed they’d accomplished during the past year. I wrote a short piece to accompany their writing, and included it with their reports:

Progress Report, 15 May, 1996
I’ve asked [the learners in the group] to think and write about their own progress over the past year. We have had discussions about police, food, restaurants, the Internet, newspaper articles and book excerpts that we’ve read. We’ve also done some creative writing and work on computers.
I think that the core group has made slow and steady progress and participants appear to be more confident and comfortable users of English. My learners, who have given permission for their writing to be reproduced here wrote the following (with only very minor editing for clarity).

Sam’s report
Since I started to learn English one and half year ago I feel my English had make a kind of progress. I can communicate with a lot people. and talking freely with people on English. I am being happy on it. I felt that. if you want to get a express way on learning English, the first important thing is you should get more practice in daily life. For example .. I watch the English TV often, keep talk with the people on English often. And now I am looking some people and make friends with them. Lastly I have a lot interest on talking learning English.

Report (this learner gave permission to use
his writing, but not his name)
For the past year, I have made a lot of progress in English in our class which Janet taught hard. At first I have improved my hearing and speaking skill through our teacher explained the difficult questions one after another time. Now. I can call a phone to a company to look for a job or ask some questions. But the year before last year I could not do so. Furthermore,
I have also improved my writing and reading skills. I can write a simple business for something.

Emily’s report
In last year, I have learned more English from the class. I feel more comfortable than before when use English. I want to learn more. [After Emily had written the piece above, I wrote: Emily, can you think of times/places that are easy or more difficult to speak English, to which she responded: ‘depend who you are talk to.’

Hay’s Report
Last year, I joined a discussion group in [this] Centre. I wanted to improve my speaking English. Through the programs of the group, I learned some new words and idioms. I have more opportunity to talk in English too. I feel less uneasy to talk with others in English now.

These reports enable us to reflect on what we had done and what we wanted to do. I imagine that the learners’ notes were attached to the progress report form and filed. Additional information may have been added to the actual progress report form, and/or translated to fit that form in some way. Who will read the reports? What will they make of the information? Can or should the learners’ comments somehow be translated into something more ‘standard’? Many learners, particularly those whose first cultures value respect for teachers, may well write what they think the instructor/tutor wants to hear; candor is difficult at best across cultures and within the uneven power balance between teachers and learners. Nonetheless, a self-reporting process such as this, repeated over time, may assist some learners in gaining greater insights into their own progress. As trust is built between learners and tutors, more frank discussions of what works and doesn’t work in the classroom may ensue as well.

Possibilities/suggestions
As a volunteer tutor at the Centre in Vancouver, I was happy spending time with learners, sometimes coming in early and/or spending time at home in order to prepare materials. I didn’t have a lot of extra time, however, nor do many volunteers (and paid workers). It seems important to build this assessment work — especially in the case of volunteer workers — into ‘regular’ hours.

As part of their training, volunteers/new workers may be asked to observe intake processes (if confidentiality is not at issue) and to discuss with more experienced practitioners the learners’ abilities and weaknesses at the time of entry. Assessment processes could be discussed within tutor training sessions as part of the ongoing work of language/literacy development. Tutors’ notes and logs, along with learners’ writing samples, should be utilized in ways that help tutors more clearly understand learners’ progress without adding significant blocks of time to their work.

Many programs have already devised their own forms of assessment/progress reporting. Learners and practitioners together could devise appropriate headings/ particular questions for their sites/classes and jointly complete the reports, and/or reflect upon the questions at regular intervals. It is possible, for instance, that my learners’ comments could be translated into a grid (see, for example, the grid detailed in Bringing Literacy to Life, page 145). Such a grid could be revisited regularly by learners and their volunteer tutors; regular staff could participate in this process periodically, too, in order to assist volunteers as needed. Learners could be invited at regular intervals (monthly or quarterly, for example) to sit with staff and/or volunteers to review the items on the grid and to reflect upon where progress has been made, where work is still needed. These conferences could be built into regular class time, where everyone is asked to write a paragraph reflecting their feelings about their own learning for the particular time period. As learners work on their writing, the facilitator(s)
can move about the room to confer with learners individually.

While serious questions have been raised about the use of volunteers within literacy work (see Kazemek, 1988), many programs can and do utilize volunteers very effectively, and volunteers make important contributions to the programs they assist. Why not enable them to learn more about an ongoing part of learning and teaching so they can become yet more effective?

References
Kazemek, F. (1988). Necessary Changes: Professional Involvement in Adult Literacy Programs. Harvard Educational Review, 58, no. 4 (Nov. 1988). ERIC # EJ 381-430.

Wrigley, H.S., & Guth, G.J.A. (1992). Bringing literacy to life: Issues and options in adult ESL literacy. San Mateo, CA: Aguirre International/ Dominie.

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Originally published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 9 (December 1996),
SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 1996.

Funding support for the publication of this document on the Web provided in part by the Ohio State Literacy Resource Center as part of the LINCS Assessment Special Collection.