Please, Please, Don't Eat the Playdoh!

I spent part of the day not long ago digging madly through my backups and folders, looking for the English as a Second Language worksheets that I used with one of my students who, when I started with him, had only oral English that he had taught himself by watching American movies. He did know the alphabet, but his preferred method of learning was oral. And he was amazing. His ability to retain and memorize was absolutely incredible to someone like me who had always dealt with book people. This lad had not had books – other than a copy of the Koran placed in front of him at his madrasa, maybe. But he knew how to learn.

I have done a lot of ESL teaching over the years but my students have always been people who had at least some schooling of the kind with which we, in North America, are familiar. You start the kidlets with the alphabet, you read to them starting from age zero, practically, and you and they rely on the printed page to tell them things. Or, um, they used to. Now we rely on the computer screen. Where I snarled at my offspring to ‘look it up’ and I meant them to get the dictionary (or whatever), now the word is ‘google’ and a world of information pops onto the screen at the touch of a finger. And so, most of us are visual learners. We see the word; we learn the word.  This young Syrian lad heard.

Earlier I had received a call from a fellow ESL teacher who has been asked to take on another of these young men. She wanted to see some of the materials I used and talk to me about how to go about working with this kind of student. She is not sure, she says, if he is literate. Of course, when I finished with my last Syrian student, I tossed most of my aids, material which was all on my computer. I have a nasty tendency to make my own -- worksheets, reference materials, teaching aids. I had a fine set of photographs of the Canadian seasons, with the months of the year and words for snow and ice and biting bugs. It seems to have disappeared. I have hauled out a few examples, but the bulk of what I prepared for two Syrian young men is gone. This is not entirely bad, as I do believe that the material, especially when you are, in effect, tutoring, ought to be tailored specifically to your victim. Oops. Student.

I still hug myself with great enjoyment when I think of one young man who arrived here in eastern Ontario in July. I used the month photographs with him and came to realize, as we worked through the fall season, that he was dreading the onset of Canadian winter. In fact, he was really worried about how he would cope. And so, we had a lesson in Marks Work Wear and he acquired a toque, a storm coat with lining and hood, boots, mittens, several scarfs and, here is the fun part, long underwear. When I tried to interest him in waffle weave long johns, I was given to understand that only Old Men wore those and he would rather freeze. We found a more acceptable substitute. He also chose a very stylish red storm coat, and was a lot happier, although his growing command of the language was employed, through January and February, in a lot of complaints about how difficult it was to walk anywhere.

What I started to post about is that we have two young Afghani families coming in and they are going to be located, for the nonce, quite close to me. I have undertaken to start their ESL for them. I am told that the ability level varies from good to none among the four adults. And so today I launched off to pick up some starter materials and some distracting toys for the young children to receive while I assess the parents. I was able to find a lovely little game of Playdoh where you press alphabet cutters into small pots of the dough and form the Roman alphabet.  If I can get across that the dough is not for eating, that may be a useful toy for mother as well as child. There was a numeric Lego too, that I picked up, suitable for the youngest of the crew. And parents. These purchases fill me with glee as I cannot think of a better method of teaching the mother who needs it the alphabet. Without being rigid about it.

The saga of ESL in the bush will be ongoing – I am going to keep a bit of a narrative diary here for my own amusement and, I hope, as part of the group dynamic.

So, stay tuned.

Cripes, I hope I can convey that the Playdoh is for playing.