As a literacy group, we’re not in the habit of discussing the tax code, but in this case we have found some interesting information that we’d like to pass along. As always, check with a tax professional before taking tax advice from any source, including us.

According to the 2007 Instructions for Schedules A & B (Form 1040), deductible contributions

“can be in cash, property, or out-of-pocket expenses you paid to do volunteer work for the kinds of organizations described earlier. If you drove to and from the volunteer work, you can take the actual cost of gas and oil or 14 cents a mile. Add parking and tolls to the amount you claim under either method. But do not deduct any amounts that were repaid to you.”

This means that you can potentially deduct the mileage for your travels to and from your tutoring sessions. With today’s gas prices, we can all use any help we can get.

There are some caveats, however. When considering making a deduction of this nature, there are special considerations, such as whether you received a benefit from this contribution. There also may be further documentation needed if this gift (your travel for us) is of $250 or more. You should consult your tax professional about how these specific items may be applicable to you. To read the details from for yourself, you can click here to open a PDF of the instructions for schedules A and B quoted above.

The current mileage rate for volunteers is $0.14 per mile. A bit paltry when you consider that “As of July 1, if you drive for business, you can deduct 58.5 cents per mile, up from 50.5 cents per mile. Folks who drive to and from medical providers, or move for a job, can deduct 27 cents per mile, up from 19 cents.”

Thankfully, the very same month, a new bill was introduced in Congress to increase the mileage deduction for volunteers. Clearly we’re not the only ones that think volunteers deserve more to offset the expense of today’s gas prices.

For more details about making this deduction, including options for calculating the deduction and the correct way to keep records, read this concise article found on Suite101.com.

Pearson Longman, the publisher of our texts, has a podcast section on their web site that offers free podcasts (short audio clips about specific topics) from the authors of many of their texts—including the authors of the books we use.

The easiest way to listen to these podcasts is to use iTunes, but iTunes is not required. You can use any music player that plays MP3s. You also don’t need an iPod. You can listen to these files on your computer or you can burn these files to an audio CD and take them into your car.

To get to the Pearson Longman podcasts, go to www.pearsonlongmanusa.com/podcasts. You’ll see a long list of podcasts with a title and author. Next to each of these is a button that says “iTunes” and one that says “Download”. The easiest way to get the podcast onto your computer is to have iTunes installed and click on the iTunes button.

There are a lot of interesting podcasts in this list including ones on topics such as “Secrets My Applied Linguist Told Me”, “The Multilevel Classroom”, “The Importance of Warmups:Why Do Warmups?”, and many, many more. All of the podcasts are free and range in length from 4 to 16 minutes or so.

What a great way to make use of your time sitting in traffic!

Other Reasources:

Podcasting defined at Wikipedia

While searching the internet for some material for my class, I happened upon a site called Scribd. I had seen it before but never at a time when I was actually looking for something. According to the site, Scribd is “the world’s largest document sharing community… There are lots of things you can do on Scribd, [including] upload and share your documents and find interesting documents by category, by topic group, by searching, or by just browsing our library.”

What does this actually mean? (more…)

“Great American Stories I” is a free ESL/EFL reader for beginning-intermediate to intermediate readers. It contains eight stories by famous American writers carefully adapted for the ESL/EFL learner. As the book progresses from story to story, the vocabulary, grammar, and structure increase in difficulty. Through pre- and post reading activities, as well as strategic use of repetition, this book strives to engage readers in the activity of reading while building  an understanding of the material itself.

Great American Stories I (PDF)

There are also some more current options that are not free, but worthwhile exploring for a long term addition to your curriculum.

A Year In the Life of an ESL (English Second Language) Student: Idioms and Vocabulary You Can’t Live Without currently $28.95 at Amazon.com

For Here or To Go?: An ESL Reader currently $19.95 at Amazon.com

As always, you can check out your local library to see if they have either of these books or can suggest other options. The New Milford Public Library has a special section dedicated to supporting ESL tutors.

As part of ProLiteracy’s work with their partner, the Home Safety Council, they created three 4-page comic-like stories related to safety. You can view them or download them for free at the following URLs. You can duplicate them for use with students in your program.

Fire safety
http://www.homesafetycouncil.org/expert_network/en_hslp_p009.pdf

Escape Planning
http://www.homesafetycouncil.org/expert_network/en_hslp_p010.pdf

Disaster Preparedness
http://www.homesafetycouncil.org/expert_network/en_hslp_p008.pdf

You can see the complete list of materials available for free download at
http://www.homesafetycouncil.org/expert_network/en_literacy_w012.aspx

During a recent thread on a ProLiteracy forum, a question came up about ways to get students to speak English outside of the classroom. Here is a summary of some of the ideas as well as some interesting caveats. (more…)

As you may have experienced as a tutor - sometimes the best laid plans for a class lesson either prove to be too much for one class or too little. I often find myself adjusting the homework assignment I have planned out to accommodate for a change like this. Come the next week, however, I have likely forgotten exactly what I assigned. (more…)

The Winter 2008 issue of Notebook from ProLiteracy (not the most recent Spring 2008 issue) has 5 full pages on changes to the citizenship test, why the changes were made, and samples to practice from. You can find a PDF of this newsletter in our Tutor Central area under Useful Files. If your student(s) are preparing to take the citizenship test, you can download and print the relevant pages and bring copies to your next class for discussion and review.

The section on the new citizenship test starts on page 6.

This season’s issue of Notebook, an informative and rich newsletter from ProLiteracy and available only to their members, can be found in our Tutor Central area under Useful Files.

This issue provides lessons and materials in the areas of Listening & Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Numeracy, with an interesting student profile at the end of the newsletter. Don’t wait to read this issue. Each activity is full of sample worksheets and all can be relevant in most classrooms.

By Heidi Stephens
Developmental Editor
News for You

It’s hard to find any teaching tool more relevant or authentic than a newspaper. Here are three activities to consider when planning lessons:

1. Send students on a “treasure hunt” to find grammatical structures. Give them a sheet that lists the structures they should find (e.g., three present-tense verbs, three past-tense verbs, three adjectives, three proper nouns, one abbreviation, and a comparative adjective).
2. Have learners rewrite headlines in the form of complete sentences, using proper capitalization and punctuation.
3. Choose a photo in the newspaper. Without showing the caption or having them read the article, ask learners to write a few lines about the photo.

Reprinted from LitScape, Winter 2006