This study draws upon Mindful L2 Teacher Education (Johnson & Golombek, 2016) to explore how volunteer community tutors of adult English as a Second Language (ESL) conceptualize and enact their roles as creative teachers. Through three case studies, I explore community language teachers’ pre-understandings, contradictions, and growth points. Findings revealed that tutors felt obligated to use survival ESL and grammar-based frameworks for teaching. Contradictions included their frustration with inconsistent student attendance, their fatigue creating lessons, and their feelings of isolation. Research on teacher education for community volunteers is important so that volunteers feel emotionally and pedagogically supported as they commit to teaching learners who otherwise might not have access to language instruction, including adults with immigrant and refugee backgrounds.

Though an abundance of academic literature supports the inclusion of aesthetic activities in university and K-12 L2 learning contexts, less attention has been focused on aesthetic approaches in community-based adult ESL contexts. Inspired by a pedagogy of multiliteracies / Design (New London Group, 1996), this paper explores creative meaning making in community-based adult English as a Second Language classrooms, focusing on how Design can illuminate teachers’ understanding of what adult ESL learners are doing with language through poetry. I will present collaboratively-produced texts from adults in community-based adult ESL classes, considering how learners employ the Available Designs afforded by poetry and discussions about poetry to engage in the Design and Redesign processes in their ESL classes.