The Tutoring Program, offered by Parksville’s Career Centre, assesses the language and numeracy needs of adult learners who come to or are referred to the program.  It then matches these learners with appropriate tutors.  The tutors are volunteers, all of whom have been screened and trained.  The program also provides tutoring space and learning resources to the tutors and learners.  

The tutor training and the tutoring itself are free of charge.  Learners must be over 18 years old, or out of school for a year.  Tutoring sessions involve one-on-one instruction and mentoring in basic literacy with a focus on reading and writing skills.  Tutoring is also available in Math and basic computer skills.

In one guise or another, The Tutoring Program has been running in our community for almost 30 years.  It was supported first by Malaspina College (now Vancouver Island University) and is now supported by the Central Vancouver Island Job Opportunities Society (CVIJOBS) which operates in the community as The Career Centre. The Tutoring Program has trained 1000+ tutors and helped over 2000 learners since 1989.

Access to Online Learning…

With the help of the City of Parksville Grant-in-Aid PQALS has supplied a laptop computer with video conferencing capabilities for the use of tutors and learners on site at The Tutoring Program office. It can be booked for use from The Tutoring Program staff.

As well as being able to have online tutoring sessions with this machine, PQALS has purchased a few teaching resources websites that you may find helpful. Please check them out, the subscription applies until April 2022.

The Teacher’s Corner: On this website you can create your own customized “fill in the blank” worksheets, crossword puzzles, and word search worksheets.

ESL Flow: resources for teaching ESL learners, beginner to intermediate. Vocabulary development, grammar, listening and speaking exercises.

Also saved in the laptop files are four CELPIP study guide E-books. These are not printable and available only on this computer.

CELPIP e-books: 

• Study Guide, Reading and Writing
• Study Guide: Speaking and Listening
• Common Errors (in taking the CELPIP exam)
• Reading Your Way into English, essay and exercise collection