English Lessons

As we mentioned, our newly-secured visas stipulate that we actually do some volunteer work, and I’ve found myself teaching an elementary level English class.

The class has up to fifteen students in it, and they’re all adults. The average attendance is about ten, and consists mainly of workers who are associated in some way to the work of the charity. There’s a pastor in the class from a local church. The lady who runs the charity for whom the class is held gave him a dressing down one day. She’s one of Avril’s bible students, though she herself is a Muslim. Overhearing the pastor trying to give doctrinal advice to someone there at her office, she interrupted, saying, ‘If you’re really going to give advice about the bible, you need to sit down at the feet of one of Jehovah’s Witnesses first and learn!’ Though of Islamic persuasion, she was keenly aware of the inaccuracy of his ‘Christian’ teaching. In many vocations, including the clergy, people are not as qualified even as they might be in the UK. I have no doubt that there are clergymen here that have never received any structured vocational tuition at all.

In each of the two weekly one-hour lessons I teach I try to keep the students involved. So we play games, do involving exercises, and work in pairs. This helps to make sure that shrinking violets in the class receive less practice than others. A game some may remember from their childhood, ‘Simon Says’ is ideal for teaching verbs, and is endlessly expandable. We play bingo to help with numbers. The students prepare their own flashcards to help them remember nouns. The hour always seems very short. I am also instructed to give the students plenty of homework, and I am happy to oblige with this. Two hours’ language tuition is not really enough without zealous private study and practise.