To all people who have to learn English, I just want to apologize on behalf of the English language and the western world for choosing it as their own, for the incredible difficulty of learning it as a second language. I have led about a half dozen clubs at this point and I have gotten a glimpse into what it must be like to learn english. I can’t even imagine.
For the students I have worked with so far, it is vital to their future that they speak English well. A lot of them want to work in the tourism industry. A lot of them want to work in the business sector globally. Unfortunately that means they have to be able to speak English. Well. This is an incredible feat considering they don’t even have similar phonetic sounds that make up the majority of our words. -TH is a hard one, almost all -r’s, L’s, -ae, on and on. As if it wasn’t hard and confusing enough already, they have to learn the different ways that American’s say things as well as the way they are pronounced in the UK. Because there are so many people here teaching english, there are different accents that come along with them. Again, I apologize on behalf of all english speakers. But the incredible thing is their insatiable hunger for it. They love it. They want to learn so badly! They also have an constant good attitude. They don’t let themselves get frustrated. They all take it with a healthy dose of humor and keep working. It’s incredible!
If you ever have the opportunity to host a foreign exchange student, DO IT!! It is such an amazing opportunity for them and a wonderful experience for you! My family has done it twice and it’s been awesome! I didn’t really realize the meaning behind what those opportunities meant until now. If nothing else, go find the exchange student program at your school or ch~rch and ask someone to coffee. I know that ch~urches in college stations enable conversation partners. Do it. I wish I had.
Anyway. I love this m!nistry so much because I can actually see the difference we are making. We are filling a void…and a sizable one at that. And it is a privilege!
