News & Events
ESOL Instructor Jay Klokker Is Recipient of LAC Literacy Recognition Award
From left, Paul Stanley, The Bookbinders' Guild and LAC board member, Tracy Cabanis, The Bookbinders' Guild, Jay Klokker and Karen Proctor, Scholastic, Inc. and LAC board chair
City Tech English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) instructor Jay Klokker was one of eight recipients of the Literacy Assistance Center's 21st Annual Literacy Recognition Award at a ceremony in June. Klokker was honored for his ability to conceive of new and varied ways to help his students learn by involving them in activities that connect with the larger world.
Klokker has been a full-time adult education instructor with the College's Division of Continuing Education since 1990. After 12 years of working with Adult Basic Education and pre-GED students, he began working with ESOL students in 2002, bringing to that task the same qualities of commitment and imagination in the delivery of instruction that had distinguished his earlier career.
In spring 2000, for example, the theme of Klokker's pre-GED class was "Equal Rights in South Africa and the United States." To enable his students not only to read about apartheid but also to learn about its impact from those who had experienced it, he made contact with an ESL teacher whose students, mostly Zulu, worked in a factory in Durban. The e-mail correspondence that ensued was enlightening for both groups of learners.
Klokker later built upon the success of this exchange by having a class of intermediate ESOL students set up a website and establish a connection with a different group of South African students who also had a website. The two classes conducted "virtual visits" of each other's communities and shared their thoughts on issues such as apartheid, poverty, AIDS and the cultural differences and similarities between their respective societies. One particularly successful exchange occurred when his class and the group in South Africa engaged in extensive e-dialog concerning their reactions to the film Serafina, which dealt with the subject of young people defying apartheid.
Klokker's fascination with and knowledge of computer technology is another gift he brings to the classroom. He has generously assisted both his students and other Division of Continuing Education Adult Learning Center faculty and staff in utilizing computers to enhance education. He has established a virtual classroom for his classes, whereby students can post questions and responses both to him and to one another. This enables students who miss a class to easily find out what happened and to make up the work.
Last semester, Klokker and City Tech ESOL instructor Doug Montgomery developed a unique collaboration with the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in Manhattan. Under the auspices of the museum and working with Lower East Side artist and More Gardens! Coalition co-founder Aresh Javadi, 28 immigrant students in the two instructors' classes created an exhibition on the theme of "Coming Home." The exhibit featured collages that included photographs of and hand-written statements about objects and people that were especially precious to them and that had helped them bridge the gap between their new home and those they left behind. Initially, the exhibit filled four street-side windows at the museum's main location at 97 Orchard Street, before being reformatted and relocated to the Tenement Museum's Visitors Center at 108 Orchard Street, where it was on display through June.
"The process built a real sense of community within these exceptionally diverse classes, helping students cross boundaries of language, culture and religion," says Joan Manes, director of City Tech's Adult Learning Center, which serves more than 500 ESOL adult learners every year. "As part of English language instruction, classes visit libraries and museums, as Jay, Doug and other instructors strive to expand the students' awareness of the cultural, educational and other institutions that are available to them in New York City. Students are encouraged to become active participants in their new communities, and creating the 'Coming Home' exhibit enabled them to do exactly that. All of us at the Adult Learning Center are extremely proud of the students and their exhibition."
In nominating him for the 2006 LAC Literacy Recognition Award, Manes, herself a previous recipient of the award, emphasized Klokker's very unique style in delivering instruction. "I believe that Jay's commitment to expanding his students' horizons beyond the classroom, and his imaginative approaches to doing so, make him an outstanding candidate for LAC's Literacy Recognition Award." LAC agreed.
The Literacy Assistance Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and promoting the expansion of quality literary services in New York. Recognizing the vital work of literacy practitioners often is honored only by their students and immediate peers, LAC established the Literacy Recognition Awards 21 years ago to focus attention on the accomplishments of these individual practitioners and of the field as a whole.
Photo courtesy of the Literacy Assistance Center.
07/18/06
