Walking back from my meeting with Josefina, I thought about how great it feels to be helping someone learn the english language. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it would be to live in the United States and struggle with a language that is all around me. I feel like it would be very lonely and isolating.
Our meeting today went extremely well. We worked on verbs the entire time. I made a worksheet with fill-in-the-blank sentences that we read over while she filled out; she really has a lot of talent given the patience and the confidence. Each time she got a word right, she would smile and laugh, like a child learning how to ride a bike. It was an incredible feeling to know that I was actually teaching her and that she was so excited about it. We went to a website I found with the 100 most common english verbs, and conjugated them together. After we conjugated in English, she would help me conjugate it in spanish. It was really neat for me to see her struggling with english, then turning around and helping me with my struggling in spanish. Her confidence level seemed to turn 360 degrees when she switched from english to spanish. I told her that if she spoke with that much confidence in english, her speech would improve twice as fast. If your partner is interested in working with verbs, this is a very helpful website. (http://www.acme2k.co.uk/Acme/100.htm#) We are working with one column each week; she wrote down the verbs in the present and past tense, and is going to try to memorize them for next time.
I also gave Josefina a journal to write in for 10 minutes daily. She is going to try and write her activities for the day, to-do lists, grocery lists, anything, as long as she is writing in english. I hope this will be helpful.
I am so happy and excited about our 2nd meeting. I think she is learning a lot, and I certainly know I am.
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5 comments:
Hey Erin,
I'm glad your meetings are going well. Thanks for the website link- its helpful to get advice from other people who are having success with certain tools. Nice blog, it flowed well & made for a nice quick read.
Taylor
Hi Erin, Thanks for the great response. Helping people is a great feeling, at least for me one of the greatest feelings I have experienced. Thanks for being patient with Josefina about the times. You are both busy people. And thanks for taking the time to look up the verb list on the internet. Sounds like a good resource, and I am glad that you posted it so that others might use it with their partners. I am also really pleased that this is a two-way street in that Josefina can help you with your Spanish. Best,
Dan W.
It sounds like you had a productive meeting. Thank you for putting up your resource. That will be helpful for me. I told my partner the same thing about confidence. I wish they could realize how good they really are at speaking English.
Pleased to hear your meeting went well. This issue of confidence and courage in speaking English cannot be stressed enough because it could prove to make all the difference between speaking the language and not.
Dear Erin,
I can definitely relate on the feelings that you have after a tutoring session with your partner. The feeling is indescribable. We cannot begin the fathom the impact we are having on these people. It makes life feel worthwhile when we realize that something we're doing can affect change, and that we have a purpose.
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