Literacy Volunteers-HBPL

(Juana is a new student the Family Literacy Program – this is a translation done by her tutor)

I am taking English classes to help my children with their homework and talk with the teacher at conferences.  And to look for a better job and earn a better salary.

Why I come to the Literacy Program.   I come for preparation.  To understand more when talking to people and when going to the doctor, in the store and in the school with my daughter.

My dream is to make progress in speaking English every day.  Thank you for this program and the help of all the people.

(Elsa is a new student with the Family Literacy Program – this was translated by her tutor)

I am taking English classes to help myself, my family, my children with their homework, for my job and for parent-teacher conferences.

Taking classes in English has allowed me to not be afraid to get involved in the social circle of my children since their activities are with people who speak English.  Also learning English allows me to understand my children when they talk to each other.

I want to communicate and speak clearly to everyone like doctors and teachers and be able to apply for work.  I want to say thank you to Ms. Amy for the program and also thank you to my teacher.

I was an English major in college, which in some ways might have made my decision to join the Huntington Beach Literacy Volunteers seem more obvious than it was. Like many who are tied to a computer, my own grammar was lazy. I hadn’t diagrammed a sentence since middle school and my knowledge about the parts of speech had been relegated to a game of MadLibs. My participles were dangling over the Huntington Beach Pier. I wanted to be ‘perfect’ so that my learner would be exposed to the precision and specificity of English, which I initially believed would give her the best chance for success.

What I discovered is that what makes a learner become more native in their non-native language is the very messiness that I had tried to avoid. Idioms, slang, colloquialisms, and regional dialect have allowed my learner and me to connect in ways that make us both laugh and marvel about the elasticity of our spoken words. The value of informality is that even as native speakers, we’re not ‘perfect.’ Our lessons are typically comprised of grammar that is TOEFL correct but with an understanding that something can be both correct and not commonly used. I’ve given up on perfection and along the way have become instead more practiced, more patient and indeed, more fun.

During the training last fall, we’d been told that our learners would teach us more than we would teach them and this has proven true in ways that I couldn’t have imagined. I look forward to the lesson preparation and my time with my learner has been very rewarding. Most meaningful have been the friendships I’ve developed with other volunteers. We exchange ideas, support challenges with real solutions and we celebrate each win. It helps that they love coffee as much as I do.

I’m in this program because I want to learn to read and write better.  I want to help my kids with school work.  I want to communicate with my boss at work. My dream is to buy a house and become rich.

I tutor because I love to read – I want to inspire my students to read to their children, for themselves, just to read!

I really came to teach English because I so admire those who try to learn our crazy language.

I want to say thank you for this great program.  My dream or my goal is one day to speak, read, write, sing in English and help my children with their homework.

I want to say thank you Jeanne for your time and thank you Ms. Amy because you work very hard.