The Title Says It All
We’ve been teaching English in the state school for the past two days, and it’s been great! Yesterday we taught 8th and 7th graders and today we taught 11th and 10th graders. The students love talking to and spending time with us! They always ask questions about us and the US (pretty proud of my wordplay there).
But let me tell you, as an American, English is harder than it looks.
There are so many words, idioms, phrases, etc. that we take for granted in the English language, especially American English. We say things that make complete sense to us, but sometimes they can confuse even the best non-native English speakers. “Lazy English” words/slang such as “wanna,” “gonna,” “y’all,” “whatcha,” those are all words that they don’t really teach in school. Phrases/idioms such as “I’m sorry for bursting your bubble” or “getting pulled over by a cop,” those are normal to us but completely unfamiliar to English learners.
Next is the topic of actually teaching English. You see, I use English as an everyday language without even thinking about it. The only reason I speak English is to communicate my thoughts to someone else’s mind. Sometimes (okay, all the time) I speak pretty quickly, even for a native speaker. I don’t think about what I’m saying, the specifics of it, or how it works. I just know that it does. So when you are asked to teach things such as the present perfect continuous tense (what?) or to explain how “I am meeting with David” can be both the present and future tense, things get a little weird. I can’t even remember the last time I’ve thought about any of those things. I just do it. Then, I have to speak much slower than my normal pace because they need to understand what I’m saying. As a native speaker, I’m so used to blending my words together and speaking at a much faster pace. Sometimes, when I speak slower for the class, after I finish one sentence, I realize that I had two more sentences cross my mind in that same time. So, normally, I would have said all three sentences in the same time period as it takes me to say one sentence in the class. I hope that makes sense. Also, sometimes I’ll focus too much on one sentence (speaking slowly and clearly) and then completely blank about what my next sentence is going to be.
Throughout these challenges, though, it’s helped me to learn how to break down the English language and communicate with people that don’t speak fluent English. I have an odd feeling that I’m going to need that skill over the next 7 1/2 months. I’m just glad that we’re learning how to do it now rather than being stuck in a busy intersection in India in April and not knowing how to communicate with someone with minimal English skills.
I’m so thankful for the opportunity we have here in Rivne, Ukraine to teach English. This week, since we are teaching in the state school, we aren’t allowed to directly preach the Gospel. This is more of a “get to know the students and if they’re comfortable with you, teach them about Christ” kind of deal. At the end of every class that we teach, we tell them about the opportunity that we have next week, which is the English school with the Gospel built-in. If they’re interested, they can talk to us about it after class. Also, we invite them spend time with us personally our 3rd week, which is completely devoted to spending personal time with the students if they want to go get coffee or a meal or something. We can share the Gospel with them in that setting as well.
We’ve only taught English for two days but I’m already learning so much and getting to know the students really well. They love Americans 🙂
Please pray that God opens opportunities for us to tell them about Christ and for us to have wisdom in how to share the Gospel.
