Change The World By Teaching ESL

Salt Lake City. I started teaching English because it was the only useful skill I had. At least the only one I could think of.  I was a college student looking for service opportunities. I didn’t have any medical, legal, construction, or musical skills.  “But, I know English,” I thought to myself.  “Maybe I could teach it.” 

I’ve since learned that being able to speak a language doesn’t mean you’ll be any good at teaching said language.  But I’ve also learned that motivated language students can still benefit even from an untrained, but enthusiastic teacher. 

And so there I was, every Monday night for several months, teaching the language I know to immigrants at Salt Lake City’s Guadalupe Center.  I taught small group lessons, no more than half a dozen students at a time.  Many of my students were coming straight from work and their sincere efforts to learn and make mistakes as adult learners, as well as their profuse thanks for my efforts, won my heart.¹  

Though not a professional ESL teacher myself, it helped that I had studied German and then Arabic in college.  Among other things, I knew the value of slightly slowing down my rate of speech and using familiar and simpler vocabulary especially with my beginner students.   

The time came to move back to Virginia and I said some goodbyes on my last night. Afterwards, the director of the ESL program, a gruff, “let’s just get this done” kind of guy that I had barely spoken with, hugged me.  He had never had a college student volunteer for their program.   

London. My next ESL opportunity was my only paid ESL experience.  Mrs. Anysecondnow and I – two people – were living in the UK, supported by a University of London fellowship for one. After a few months, getting low on funds, we started looking for extra work on the side.²     

Oxford Street in London has, among many other things, at least a dozen English language schools.  Going back to my “I don’t have too many skills, but I can speak English” mentality, I started knocking on (business) doors looking for side-hustle ESL work.  Not surprisingly, most of the schools would only hire someone with actual ESL teaching credentials, but one of them was willing to hire uncredentialledLooking back, it may have helped that I had a US law degree. In other words, 'Okay, this guy may not have an ESL certificate but at least he should be able to speak English correctly.' me as an on-call substitute.  

Unlike in Utah, where most of my students were older and Hispanic, I had young students from all over the globe in London.  Also, in contrast to most of the staff teachers who spoke British English, I was the slightly exotic American English-speaking substitute.  I would sometimes spend the last few minutes of class demonstrating differences between UK and American pronunciation and teaching some American slang.  They ate that up.  

One day, three students came up to me after class.  They had maybe 10 days off available to travel and decided they wanted to fly to the US and have an all-American experience.  More precisely, they wanted an all-American experience all over America – coast to coast.  What did I think? 

They just could not comprehend how big the US was. I gently explained to them that with only 10 days, they needed to focus on a particular area in the US.  I recommended California. 

“Fly to LA, rent a convertible and drive along the Pacific coast for a day or two.  You’ll feel so American you’ll be bleeding red, white, and blue.” I hope they did it.

Arlington REEP #1.  Back in the US myself, having moved from my Vienna home to Arlington, Virginia,  I volunteered to teach ESL classes for the Arlington Education and Employment Program (“REEP”).  I became kind of a permanent substitute for drop-in evening adult classes in my neighborhood.  

As always, I enjoyed the students and the teaching, but unfortunately, life got busier with work, a new daughter, and other community responsibilities. After a year, I had to quit REEP. 

Arlington Resource Center for a Better Life. Nearly 15 years later, with a little more time in my life, my church started an ESL program and I volunteered to teach.  For close to three and a half years I taught weekly classes at the Resource Center.   

Each term lasted 12 weeks and I taught classes from beginners to more advanced.  Although the student population fluctuated, most of the students were from Afghanistan, particularly at the beginner level.     

Several of my classes near the end of my time were largely filled with conservative Afghan woman who seemed intrigued by a male teacher outside of their culture. When discussing our favorite foods during one class, I mentioned how much I enjoyed the Afghan noodle soup aush. The next week one of my students brought in a pot for all of us to share. 

These women worked hard to master a new language, but I could also tell that English class for many of them was an opportunity to get out of the house for the evening and socialize with friends in their native language.  I would feel the same.  After cooking and cleaning for my family all day in the house, I can leave and hang out with my friends for the evening?  Sign me up!     

Arlington REEP #2.  After several years with the Resource Center, I wanted a change of scenery in a more professional ESL setting.  Mrs. Anysecondnow was in the midst of transitioning from a volunteer slot to a paid job with REEP and I rode her coattails to get back on as a REEP volunteer teacher.  Starting in January of this year, I ended up teaching Mrs. Anysecondnow’s former class – the Monday morning high beginner group.   

Though it had been nearly two decades, I remembered Arlington’s REEP program as a model ESL program.  I was pleased to see that it had only improved since then with even more teacher  resources as well as dedicated leaders.  

My students are again from around the world, older than my London students, but as devoted to learning as my first students back in Salt Lake City.   As for me, I’m still uncredentialled, but happy to be back teaching English to people building new lives in the United States. 

So, am I changing the world teaching ESL?  Kind of. I’m changing it in the only way most of us can — doing modest, decent things in our own modest sphere of influence.   Hundreds of people can speak English better than they could before. There are people out there that got better jobs, that don’t have to ask their kids to translate everything, that could take a class, and that got US residency and then US citizenship. My ESL teaching was a small part of every one of those great things.

Lately, for me, there has been another reason I like to teach ESL. There have always been Americans who demonize foreigners who come to this country looking for a better life for themselves and their families and hopefully become American themselves. For me, teaching English to immigrants has become my way of pushing back against that attitude.

In a previous post I noted how being involved in our community ameliorates feelings of helplessness. It’s hard to be completely cynical and untrusting when you’re personally out there in your community, trying to make a difference.

I taught about the symbols of the US flag in a recent ESL class. I then had the students draw pictures of their home countries’ flags and describe them to the class. In halting but understandable English, my students proudly explained how various symbols on their flags represented courage and strength or peace and purity and various other noble qualities. Not for the first time as an ESL teacher I thought to myself, they and their kids are going to be awesome Americans.

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1. If you are shallow like me and enjoy gratification, you could do worse than teaching ESL classes. The students always say thank you. Often with great sincerity. In my first ESL class this year with REEP Arlington, the students not only thanked me, but they applauded at the end of class. (This could have been a fluke.  Maybe one person clapped — or made a sound like a clap — and then everybody else joined in.  In fact, maybe some of them thought it was just an American custom to clap and didn’t want to feel left out.  It hasn’t happened again!)
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2. One of the entertaining ways we earned extra money was participating in University of London grad student medical and behavioral studies. They were always looking for volunteers and paid a much as 10-12 pounds for 30-60 minutes of your time.  If this is starting to sound like Dr. Venkman’s ESP test in Ghostbusters, you aren’t too far off.  Neither Mrs. Anysecondnow nor I got electrocuted, but we did participate in various oddball experiments testing visual and mental aspects along with aural reactions and behavior.  Maybe we even contributed to some useful breakthroughs.
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