Catalina - TP #1

So, I officially started my tutoring process today. It's going to be baptized as my super sketch tutoring, from now on to be known as SST. It started out with me asking my flatmate if she knew anyone that wanted to learn English. She´s that type of amazing person that everybody just gravitates to and ends up talking about whatever; the endearing old lady that tells tales about her youth or the crazy drunkard that rambles on about jazz in the streets. It’s a talent and I think she should get paid for listening. It worked perfectly for studying abroad, which is how I met her, and, let me tell you, she definitely is one of the people that got most out of language learning while in Spain.

She currently works at Best Buy´s photo department and has already told me tales of her wondrous encounters: an old guy that wants to photograph stars with a small camera and a young designer that asked her for her e-mail to send her his ´space art collages´ …. She´s planning on getting them in contact with each other! She is also the only resource Best Buy has to speak to Spanish people, so when Tony walked in wanting to buy a computer, they called her to help him out. She sold Tony the computer and, obviously, got his number and e-mail in case she could help him out in learning about English classes or computer courses. So this is the phone number she hands to me with no other description than ´he seemed pretty normal´. Of course, I called him!

I spoke to Tony and tried to explain in a coherent way why I wanted to give him free classes. Free just always sounds suspicious, or like some sort of religious nut, so we decided to meet the next day and clear things out. I told him I would text him the location as soon as I figured something out that was a neutral place to meet. I asked around and Starbucks – however much I normally avoid it – sounded like a pretty good idea. So I texted him with a question… Starbucks at such and such 7.30pm? He never answered.

… and there I am, with my bike chained to a handicapped sign pole, waiting in front of Starbucks at 7.30pm not knowing if Tony will show up or not. And at exactly 7.43pm my landlady decides to call me to see how things are going. More or less when I wanted to call Tony to see if he was coming or not, of course. And there I am, standing in front of Starbucks, and my phone, which I´ve had for about a week, starts making weird noises and I don´t know if it means that someone else is calling me or calling my landlady and I´m getting nervous while trying to keep up a more or less coherent conversation… and a white pick-up truck pulls in with a guy on the phone that calls my name… Stress!! So, I tell my landlady to wait for a sec, tell Tony to park – that I´ll get him a coffee –, say good bye on the phone and I am ready to meet my new estudiantes!

Tony, my SST student number one has come with a friend, Alberto. They are very interested in learning English but a bit skeptical about my motivations. They are both from El Salvador and are very reassured by the fact that I can speak Spanish. I pull up a generic sort of conversation about how long they´ve been here, what they work at, etc to try to make them feel that I am a normal weird human being that strangely enough, wants to give them free classes. Both of them work in the construction industry and have been in Tallahassee for a large number of years but say that they speak almost no English at all. The only word I heard Tony say in English at all during the conversation was ´scaffolding´. Claude, this has to be some sort of sign.

The first issue is where to give them the classes. It will be at least three of them taking them: Tony, Alberto, and Tony´s girlfriend. I throw around some possibilities, but don´t have too many resources. So we decide that Tony´s living room might not be a bad idea. He only has three kids (that he can send to their rooms to watch TV, of course) and lives in a trailer. But he can come and pick me up, so it works out! (if you don´t see me next week, call the police)

Second issue is exactly what they want to learn. They seem to think they know basically no English whatsoever, but I am skeptical. Therefore I plan on doing some evaluation activities to start out. Taking in account that the first class is tomorrow at 4.00pm, I don´t have exactly too much time to organize those. Tomorrow morning I await divine inspiration. I am planning on trying to combine things that they think will be useful for their life as business men (polite e-mail writing, ordering materials, phone conversations, etc) with general everyday situation activities since they say they know neither (supermarkets, restaurants, hairdressers – since Tony wants to get highlights one of these days…)

We end up staying in Starbucks with our white chocolate frappe mochas (or something of the like) for about two hours and end up talking about relationships between men and women. These are now mis amigos!

Tomorrow at 4.00pm will be the big day! Will I be able to make adults speak to me in English even though they will feel embarrassed and they know I understand their Spanish? Will the three and a half year old decide she wants to join the class? Next chapter of SST to be read soon here… at TEFL class 2010!