Tutor Training

by Mary Higgins

In the 1990’s, I had the opportunity to become an ESL tutor. My mother glancing through the paper, came across the ad for tutors needed at the public library to teach English to foreigners.

I eagerly attended the first meeting held in October inside the children’s room of our local library. I had 12 years of happy memories in that room before graduating to the adult department up the stairs. Our pert ESL instructor with her short brown hair and perfect complexion, handed out packets of information stapled together. She informed us there would be three weeks of training to be held on Sunday afternoons. I certainly had nothing to do on Sunday afternoons. It was an opportunity to escape the drone of the football games my dad listened to on the TV all afternoon, first one game then the next.

Ten other friendly people joined me in training to teach English as a second language. The instructor with her interactive approach asked us in what ways would being unable to read English be a detriment? The group came up with some creative ideas. Grabbing the wrong medication bottle, taking the incorrect dose of a medicine, feeling frustrated at the inability to read a newspaper, (in those pre-internet days) and perhaps grabbing the wrong bag off the supermarket shelf with the unlucky person pouring flour all over her morning cereal, rather than sugar, came up as ready examples. We laughed hearing the predicaments spoken aloud, knowing full well it would be far from funny if some of these things actually occurred.

Each week, we reviewed the materials and I imagined what my student would be like. As a first-time one on one tutor, the materials I was given were full of pictures with the names for them printed in bold type. The packet making up our Teacher’s Manual featured the fundamentals of the English language starting with pictures of objects we take for granted; furniture and appliances that you would find around the house: chair, sofa, table, TV. Each page was devoted to a specific room. There were items that one would find in the bedroom and objects that one would encounter in the kitchen: saucer, pot, frying pan, kettle, spatula, refrigerator, stove, table, as well as items you would find in the bathroom.

It transported me back to junior high school- to the very first day of French class. The teacher spoke no words. There was no announcement that French class would suddenly begin. She suddenly plucked a ruler off a student’s desk and pronounced the French word for ruler then pointed to the window, pronouncing a beautiful-sounding French word, then addressed other objects in the room: a pen, pencil, a book on a classmate’s desk. Those days when I didn’t yet know a word of French but yearned to join the French conversations that my dad would have with one of my brothers. That night I proudly proclaimed at the family dinner table, that I knew eight French words!.

I wondered if my student would be a man or woman and what age the student would be. I envisioned a Spanish woman with long dark hair possibly swept up in a beautiful chignon, heavy eyebrows, and attired in a long black skirt. One evening in November, with a crisp 20 degree chill in the air, I felt so alive as I walked home from a meeting beneath the stars, enthusiastically anticipating both Christmas and the New Year when we would meet our individual students.

The day finally arrived! I was handed the name of an Indian man whom I met in the back room of the library amid a huge wooden conference table. He was close to my age and dressed in a buttoned down white shirt and a pair of twill slacks. I remember his ready smile. He worked in his parents’ Indian restaurant in Everett.

For both of us, new worlds opened as a result of that first meeting. I found him an eager student, ready to soak in the knowledge I had to present to him. The next week and thereafter, he came not only with his lesson book, but bearing a yummy plate of food for me, his tutor. It might be yellow saffron rice, beans with chicken or beef. Totally unfamiliar with Indian food, it was a pleasant adventure to sample something new every Tuesday when we met. I’d walk up the street carrying a hefty plate covered with aluminum foil and walk into the house savoring the aroma. I offered it to my family but no one else shared my spirit of adventure at trying new foods so I got to eat it all.

Ⓒ Mary Higgins May 2015 All rights reserved.