by Tara Scott, AWC Central Scotland
Since moving to Edinburgh eleven years ago I have been working for a travel company, but prior to working in this industry I had taught in the United States for sixteen years. While I enjoy working in a business that can create incredible memories of Scotland for people around the world, there are times when I miss working with students.
When I saw the post by Ulrike Näumann from the FAWCO Refugee Network about tutoring an ESL student who arrived in Germany two and half years ago from Syria, I knew instantly that this was something I wanted to do, so I sent Ulrike a text expressing my interest. After Ulrike contacted the student’s mother, she provided me with the mother’s contact details. I contacted the mother of the student, Mahammad, to introduce myself. Then Mahammad responded through his mother’s WhatsApp account to introduce himself, and we scheduled our first Skype session on the following Monday.
During the weekend preceding our first session, I thought about how his childhood experiences have been quite different from my own. I couldn’t imagine being in Mahammad’s shoes. In his young years, he has witnessed the turmoil in Syria, left behind the home he knew, said good-bye to close friends, taken a long journey to Germany, adapted to a new culture, learned to speak German, and then was required by school standards to learn English as well. This is a great deal to ask of anyone, and he was only eleven when he first came to Germany.
The night before our first session, I thought about topics of conversation Mahammad might like. I thought he is a teenager, so I thought about music, sports and school as my go-to conversation starters.
The first time I saw Mahammad via Skype video, he reminded me of the middle school students I used to teach. He was wearing a t-shirt and a knit beanie. We exchanged greetings before we spoke about our interests and the weather. Then we proceeded to his English homework, which consisted of writing down the names of objects found in different rooms of a house. From this session, I was able to grasp his level of fluency.
Our sessions were a combination of his English assignments and short lessons I pulled together. For the first four months, we mostly used the Learn English Kids website from the British Council. This worked well, as it had a diverse array of interesting fiction and non-fiction stories, such as George and the Dragon and Sir Isaac Newton, in a succinct format. The stories had vocabulary pages requiring words to be matched to their corresponding pictures. As most of the stories were accompanied by two-minute videos, we would watch the video, which enabled Mahammad to hear the words being spoken prior to reading the text. After reading the text, we would go over the comprehension page together.
When we had read most of the stories on this website, I used some of the picture books that I own such as Hidden Figures and The Navajo Code Talkers. I took a photo of each page within a book and sent them to Mahammad via Skype before a session. Before reading a book, we would discuss what we saw in each picture, go over some of the vocabulary, read, and then I would ask questions at the end of each page.
When we work together on his English assignments, we come across segments which are in German. This is when the tables have been turned, and Mahammad teaches me the definition and pronunciation of German words. I notice his confidence goes up when he reads the German parts.
Mahammad and I have been having tutoring sessions via Skype for over a year now. Mahammad is this amazing, intelligent, polite teenager who is a huge fan of the Liverpool football team, enjoys swimming and playing football with his friends, has a preference for rap music and enjoys watching the Titans television series. I also started watching Titans so we could discuss the latest episode.
These sessions have been beneficial for both of us. I have been a part of Mahammad’s journey towards understanding the English language. I have witnessed him becoming a more confident reader as his fluency improved. Along the way, I have learned a few German words and felt joy at being able to step into my teaching shoes again.