Fun in English

Every week I teach English conversation to a group of people from every corner of the world… iI fact our students have, over the years come from every continent except Antarctica!

Supporting the students are four teachers and four volunteers, so our team of eight work with and support however many people turn up. We were thrilled that today we had eighteen students,from China, Malaysia, Poland, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Chile, Hungary… and other countries too!

We used to plan our classes very carefully… the difficulty with that was we never knew who would turn up, how many new people would unexpectedly arrive, what other factors would interfere – we are part of a charity supported by a local church, and today, for example, when I arrived to get sorted, the church was in a state of chaos because it was being totally renovated…We were in the church hall, but a group of interns who are usually in the church were in the same building, although in a different room. I suggested that at coffee time we came together and their young people could talk to our English learners…which they did and no doubt enjoyed all the lovely cakes we had on offer!

It mattered not… we had a wonderful lesson, and today eighteen students were with us! We never know who will join us… people have busy lives and other commitments, and other things they have to do. Today, we had four Chinese friends, two Malaysian, one Thai, one Hungarian, one lovely lady from Chile and one from Moldova, one from Russia, an Italian gentleman (who makes mighty fine cannoli!) one Polish lady, five Romanian people!

When people arrive, at different times because of transport, taking children to school, weather etc. , there are things on the tables to do, all English based… so, today there were word searches. We then had an exercise to find letters hidden around the room, according to written instructions, which spell a word. We then had a look at an exercise practising saying the names of the letters of the alphabet – vital if you are going for an interview, answering questions etc. and have to spell out your name which might be difficult for foreign ears! We then left our tables and moved around for another game which involved following instructions

After coffee and cakes, joined by the church interns, we had speed chatting; two rows of people who are given a topic which they have to talk about for a few minutes. They are moved on and have a new partner and a new topic. We returned to our tables to answer questions about the United Kingdom… all the answers had already been given in the other activities!

We finished on time, but somehow, by the time everyone had said goodbye, asked last questions, had a bit of a chat,we were nearly three-quarters of an hour past our finish time!