Tuques and All That

 

One of my long-time and much-admired blogging friends posted a photo of frosted leaves and other detritus, a photo she ventured outside in her bare feet to get. Another described getting up in the dark and cold to go and source frost on the leaves photos. Ah, the onset of winter. As I sit here at my computer, I can glance out the window at trees and deck and ground covered with a few inches of the white stuff – at present the sun is shining on it and I should, I suppose, leap up, grab a device, and get the photo to post here.

 But. My coffee is hot and fragrant and I have lots and lots of photos of sun-on-snow. Lots. The one different shot I could go for, our small and stubborn oak still decked in all its leaves and laden with sticky white blobs, would require me to put on boots and trek outside. Did I mention the coffee? Also, it is warm and lovely here at my computer as the floor vent wafts a stream of hot air over my feet. Switching from the wood furnace (time to add a log) to propane has simplified life Chez G.

 And that is a Good Thing. (The Department of Nance has Capital Letter emphasis and I love it. Copying. Thanks, Nance.) My life is complicated enough without lugging logs. If anyone ever tempts you to run English language classes for incoming refugees, think carefully. It is a lot of work. And frustrating. Many of the complications at present are coming from my lack of skill at using Google Calendar to schedule. I found yet another double lesson this morning and sent off yet another sad email to the teachers asking for clarification. If I were having to stoke the furnace on top of this (note untrue condition), it would probably be quite cold in here.

 The sun has now vanished, and lovely fat flakes of snow are falling, dancing lightly down. I love winter, given that the roads are cleared. Although I am worrying a bit and hoping that my lessons on Canadian vocabulary (felt liners, mittens, quilting, layering) have been absorbed. Two of my students assured me that they had winter in Afghanistan, thank you, and I did not need to teach them about it. Yeah. In Canada we have, I repeated, Winter. Do you have boots yet?

 Speaking of which, I must touch bases with the YG whose boots, as far as I can tell, are in the storage closet in our basement. Since she is in Brussels, this is not optimum. However, her sister posted, yesterday, a photo of Ottawa’s first snow and the YG countered with a photo of a lawn in Brussels covered in green grass. So maybe the boot thing is not a problem. (Note to self: research what winter is like in Brussels, also in Afghanistan.) Regarding boots, one of our stores is advertising boots with a new, non-skid material in the soles. I am hopeful this will actually work and if so, I am buying some.

 It was quite cold in here for a bit. But more warm air is now flowing into my office as I have just manually adjusted the thermostat. It is sulkily mistaking night for day and offering night time temperatures in the morning. An expert is supposed to come and fix this, as we cannot. Between the thermostat computer and the Google calendar, I am longing for the 20^th century, sometimes. Although, sadly, it is probably a lack in my wetware, not the software, that is at fault.

 Quitting here. Must print picture sheets of mittens and tuques.

English as a Second Language Training - Reporting

 I said, at one point, that I would report on how things were going. And so ....

I just looked at the desktop on this computer, and I am sitting at my desk, and both are cluttered and stacked with ESL bits and pieces. The funniest of these is a drawing of underpants. The least funniest is an email from one of my coaches who has had to cancel at the last moment, too late for me to fill in.

I have seven coaches for four young people now in their homes and adjusting to Canada. I have access to the Google Calendar that is supposed to keep us all organized, ‘us’ being not only the Language group but also leaders and helpers for health, finances, housing, transportation and the children’s school entry and transition. All of these needs are going onto the calendar and it seems to me that the concentration of things to do must be daunting for them on a daily if not hourly basis. I know that English is a top priority and should be on the calendar so as to be sacrosanct. And it went on. And it is a mess.

Three of our people have enough English to understand a lot of what is going on. Two of them have an excellent accent, giving the impression that they are right with the narrative. These three are proud, intelligent young men and women who hate to admit they didn’t get it. So they don’t. Admit it. When I am coaching, I have to watch their faces and body language to pick up cues when they lose the thread of what is going on. We all need to slow down the stream of comment and information to a pace that the Afghan lot can follow. That is one problem. A second is that all of my team have not bought into the reporting method that I have asked for; that being an email account of the lesson passed on to the next coach. I have, at the moment, chaos.

That being said, I do have teaching in place for all four of them, all with competent people whom, mostly, I have worked with before. And the families have been here long enough that the initial spate of appointments and arrangements ought to taper off and/or become predictable. Aids like computer access are going into place. I think we will get there, maybe with one more week of semi-chaos to come. But I feel overwhelmed, frankly, and as if I have not done my job as leader well enough. They are such fine and deserving young men and women, and I want to do my best.

 I sent the report above to my bosses, and received words of encouragement and cheer in return. And that is good. But I still wish I had a better handle on things.

And two more coaches.

Happy to report that the kids knew exactly what to do with the Playdoh.

Hey, local friends and readers ... want to have a rewarding and sort-of-fun experience?  One of my needs is for people to talk with and make friends with these four newcomers. Not hard. No irregular verbs included. No need to translate underpants. Drop me an email.