Learn to Appreciate and Appreciate to Learn - Set Examples.

The other day, I was in class with my partners checking homework of learners while the learners were busy playing game on mobile phones - the same racing game.
So, I was checking this homework of one of the students. The handwriting on the homework made me skeptical whether the homework was done by the learner himself or someone else did that for him. This occurred to me for 2 reasons : 1) The writing was very good. 2) Just a week before that, one other student had copied his homework. How did I come to know that he had copied his homework ? That's an interesting short story: Actually he himself was single and his friend (the one from whom he copied) was married. The homework was to fill in the blanks information about one's family. What he had done is that under wife's name, he had written the name of his friend's wife. It was funny and cute anyway. So, this time being doubtful was obvious.

So where were we ? :s
Yeah. We were talking about me being suspicious about the homework. I'm so much of a stalker as you all might know. But this very time, I was wrong in what I thought. For the first time my vibes were wrong. I thought that the handwriting was someone elses'. So without letting the learner (Whose homework was done in a really good handwriting)  know that I'm skeptical, I made him to write on the white board somehow. Turned out that it was his own writing. It made me really feel bad since I suspected, but I cannot tell how happy I was to see how good his writing was. So at the end of the class, when he was going back to work,he was with his friend (who is my student too and is the most harworking student amongst all) , so I told him that "Khelanand, your handwriting is really really good." I did this for two reasons : 1) It was really good :p 2) I wanted his friend, Laxmi , to take Khelanand's handwriting as a reference and improve his own handwriting.

Besides, Laxmi told me that Khelanand knows "Hisaab" ("Calculations etc") in Nepali and has done "BA" (I'm not sure about the BA- Bachelor of Arts- part though).

The next class, when I was checking homework, I saw Laxmi's handwriting to have been improved incredibly. I could not have been happier. (It was way way better than my partner's writing - my partner said it himself :p - Sorry Qasim, I had to disclose this :p)

Besides, Khelanand is doing great too. Infact, all the learners are doing really well.
Few of the learners now try to go further and do homework that we even haven't assigned them as yet.All in all, I just want to say that appreciation is really important, since it triggers learners to learn more and impress the teachers. I have learnt that from my teachers and being a mini-teacher, I have realised how important it is; it motivates the learners to learn more. It shows them that "We care about what we are doing".
Good Luck.

New Change

Throughout my life, I wanted to do something good for society. It was really difficult to do anything like that in school. My school did not have any type of program or anything else that would give me this gratification for helping people aside from other students. In 7 weeks of uni, I already have done more for society in university than I have done in school. Teaching the learners has been a great experience and I find enjoyment and happiness whenever I have class with the learners. It's a small break just to help other people and have fun with them. I did not know them in the start but we have learned stuff about each other and we have become a group that talk to each other. I am really thankful for Language Bridges for picking me to part of this wonderful experience.

A wonderful experience!

Being involved in this volunteering work has been amazing so far! To be honest, I could not think of a better way to reward all of the workers that work so hard to make CMU our second home. However in the beginning of this experience, I was a bit intimidated by the fact that my learners are older than us. But I was very blessed to have fun students that think of us as friends that are helping them to improve their communication skills in English. The fact that my students are in the advanced class, enables my colleagues and I to have more fun teaching them as their level of understanding is decent. There are six students in my class, and each one of them is very unique. But most importantly, I respect how they maintain their good mood, positivity and sense of humor during the whole class despite how much how tired they must be after working for the whole day. Therefore, I can definitely say that I am learning from my students as well, as they are constantly teaching me to stay positive no matter how much work I have. Even though, I wish to have some rest after a long day of classes, on Mondays and Wednesdays, I look forward to meeting my students hoping that they will benefit something from that class. It is definitely worth the wait, and I do not regret this at all!

Jake playing charades

My experience as a Freshman and an LBP teacher

Not so long ago we were getting introduced to what will be our home for four years and not so long ago we were all confused about what exactly we should do in our freshmen year. There are so many things to do here from being part of different clubs to having a paid job to volunteering - it's overwhelming. Honestly I can't remember how I got to be in LBP or who first introduced me to LBP and frankly I don't care. Why? Because what we do here is so much more than work. It is giving back to the society what some of us take for granted. We are all in a prestigious university which we pay a lot for ... by that I mean our parents do and sometimes we take that for granted. But LBP is the first opportunity I personally had to give back to the society, to help others towards perhaps a better life. 

We have six students in our advanced class and I must say they are all pretty awesome. Never have I seen someone who wants to study even after 12 hours of work. What is surprising is that they do their homework even if they have one day of holiday, their living conditions are not as good as they should but this is what real life is, isn't it?

This past weeks have been awesome. Of course in the beginning most of the students were shy but now it is quite obvious they feel quite comfortable during the lesson. They are very enthusiastic about coming to class. They have repeatedly said that they wished this class would hold for the whole year, which means that LBP is doing a good job! 

We are lucky for having the advanced class and teaching them is quite easy. Two of our students even went to university. They all know what they are doing and so our job is quite easy. They are all working in CMU.

What we do is we read the texts and then we choose the words they struggled with reading and then we ask for other words they do not know. Their "weak" point is vocabulary so in the last few minutes of class we play charades where they get to act few of the words out like "bachelor" or they act out a movie using at least one of our vocabulary words. They enjoy it so much that they make up a charade for us and we have to act it out. Some people said that they probably don't know much about movies or music etc but you would be surprised how much they know! They even know about Harlem Shake so.... don't underestimate them!

This was one of the best ways to start out our freshmen year. No regrets whatsoever, this is awesome!

Charades

The Fall 2013 Edition: A hopeful Silvia

After all our meetings this week, I am hopeful that the second part of our Fall 2013 Language Bridges will run smoothly and will be a truly learning and rewarding experience for all!  Our Fall 2013 classes kicked off in September thanks to the Language Bridges Club members, the curriculum designers and trainers (Natalia and me!), other volunteers (Nada, Mollie, Swapnil, Chathurika, and Fazel), and a new set of volunteer teachers.  Thank you to everyone who made the beginning possible.  Running a community program is not easy, but we all managed to do it as a team.  Now after some hiccups, challenges, and headaches, let's remember why we are doing this and continue to work together as a team to deliver the best possible classes. There's only 1 month left!  Let's make the best out of it!  And let's come together for the Fall 2013 Language Bridges Celebration on November 24th to showcase the wonderful work and mission of Language Bridges!  Seeing the happy faces of our teachers and learners on every celebration reminds me that it's all worth it!  

A Great Experience...

I was a part of the RAEL program and teaching the workers English was one of the best experiences I’ve had. I definitely underestimated teaching and the skills required to effectively teach students. It takes patience and communication skills. The biggest challenge was getting the students to understand what we were saying if we were giving directions or if we were trying to teach a lesson. We had to make sure they understood the meaning of the words we were trying to teach them or the rules of the English language but we had to make sure that the information we were teaching them was being taught in a way that was appealing to them so that they would enjoy the lessons. The class I had was a basic level class- I along with 2 others taught this class. Another challenge we faced was the fact that even though they were basic level English, they were all still on different levels of basic English. Some students didn’t even know the alphabet and others could somewhat read and write but only words not complete sentences and their grammar was at a very basic level. So what we did was split them up into 2 groups in the class. We had one group that didn’t know the alphabet and the rest that could form words made up the other group. I was teaching the group that could form words and so I focused on their grammar and getting them to read, write and understand sentences. Our first few weeks we spent working on greetings and talking and communicating with others in written and spoken form. Then we went into writing and vocabulary. They were quick learners and they were always willing to learn. They participated in class and sometimes I would write a word on the board and they would take notes without me having to say anything. There came a point where we realized that we should make the lessons more “fun” instead of the worksheets and writing on the board we always did so we decided to play English games and watch English movies with them. They enjoyed this and made me realize that teaching doesn’t always have to be a lesson with set and structured notes, nor does it have to be quizzes and tests. Teaching can be games, as long as they are learning it can be enjoyable and they probably learn more when they enjoy what they are learning. One of the best parts of this experience is the fact that we got to teach CMU workers and now every time I pass by one of my students in the hallway I greet them and they greet me.  

LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE

Language Bridges Programme was a life changing experience for me. The first day I went to teach was really awkward as I was going to teach a class full of adults. It sort of took me time to recognize the fact that I was teaching adults. Although it is true, that I gained some confidence, but the thing which I learnt most in Language Bridges Programme was that it teaching a class full of adults gave me a lot of hope and motivation were the students themselves. These guys used to work all day in their jobs and would still show up regularly for the classes. Language Bridges took a life long lesson to me to be humble and to thank God for giving me the opportunity to study in a good University. 

Our Joyful Experience Serving Others

As part of Language Bridges Program’s teacher community, contributing to the learning abilities of migrant workers in Qatar has proved to be an incredible experience. Not only was it an eye-opening experience, but also our interaction with these students has contributed towards the development of our verbal and communication skills. On our first day of classes, we were skeptical about what to expect; however, all our doubts were proven wrong after the conclusion of our second class.

Teaching our students wasn’t as challenging as we perceived it to be, especially since our students were intermediate speakers of the English language. Saying that we had underestimated our students’ ability in speaking and writing is an understatement, even more so when they had shown up to class with their essays completed. Recognizing the evident commitment and excitement felt by our students’ about their classes had motivated us to work harder in truly making a difference in their lives.

Giving back to the community is an essential step towards making a difference in today’s world. By giving back, we are showing our gratitude towards and a sense of appreciation of these migrant workers’ endless efforts and hard work.  

Reem Al-Hail

Bashayer Al-Malki

Noora Al-Nassr

A Life Changing Experience; By Aysha Fakhroo

Being a part of the Language Bridges Program gave me the opportunity to help those who are in need, something I've always aimed for. It also helped me learn some communication skills as we were expected to communicate with the students that we taught. However, there were some challenges that I personally faced and learned from at the same time. One of the difficulties was having intermediate students and beginners in the same class; which was hard to deal with at the beginning. Some students didn't even know how to write the English letters while there were others who could write a whole essay. But we managed to teach both levels students and we made sure that each students benefit from the program. 

In order to achieve that goal, we asked the students themselves on what they want to learn, and we did our best to give them what they came for. we also made sure that the students don't get bored of the classes, we tried to entertain them whenever possible. For example, in one of the classes we showed the students a movie that was entertaining and helped in motivating the students to learn English at the same time. The story of the movie was about an Indian woman who wanted to learn English because her husband and children used to make fun of her, they underestimated her ability to learn English, thus she wanted to learn and prove herself at the same time. the Students said that they enjoyed the movie and that they were touched and influenced/motivated by the main character. 

As a member of Language Bridges Program, I learned a lot from my experience. I learned that patience is very important when it come to teaching. I also felt good about myself knowing that at the end of each class, students left happy, learning something they didn't know before. 

Teaching is not as easy as it seems

Teaching is not as easy as it seems

Most people think that teaching is easy and does not require a-lot of works since they see their teachers/professors explain their subjects with ease. However, in reality it is not as easy as one thinks it to be, and that is what I have learned during my time teaching the UDC workers for the LB program.  Furthermore, me and my team had a-bit more work to do since the materials that were given to us to, both the  beginner  and intermediate teach the migrate workers  turned  out  to be  actually very  easy for them .

After discovering that the course work was easy for the migrate works, me and my team decided that we should find out what area were the students weak in and try to focus on that. To find out the areas the workers were weak at, me and my team asked them a few questions and made them write a few sentences. Looking at their replies and what the workers wrote, we saw that they can read and write and know most of the basic stuff, but were lacking a-bit in the grammar and so me and my team decided that we will focus on improving their grammar.

Our main focus  was teaching them grammar, however, from time to time  we try to  ask out students  what do they  want to  learn  because  the whole purpose  of the LB program is to help  the migrate workers in their work life. So we preformed some skits and taught them how to give direction, how to answer questions, and mainly how to communicate with their customers & managers since that is what they really wanted.

As it can be seen it  was not easy for me and my team since  we had to find the right  thing to teach the workers  and develop new course work  other than what was given to us  to help  the worker. But in the end I actually am happy that I taught the workers English  since  it really is  an important  tool of communication  and  I am glad that  they  will  do use what we taught them in class in their  career.

An unforgettable experience

I have always had an ambition to have a positive impact on others’ life. My willingness to do something useful and to contribute to people’s life has led me to participate in the Language Bridges Program where I was able to teach English to some workers. Being part of Language Bridges Program has provided me with an unforgettable experience.

In the first day of classes, the students have introduced themselves to each other. The first question we asked them was about the reason why they wanted to learn English. Their answer was because English is an international language and they have to acquire it. Besides, learning English will help them get a promotion in their jobs. Thus, learning English is very important to them and yet my role as their English teacher has become essential and will help them improve their life style and strengthen their education and their abilities.

In one of our classes we decided to watch an inspiring movie called “English Vinglish.” The movie talks about a woman who had to travel to New York and she went through many embarrassing situations that she decided to enroll in an English class. She was able to prove it then to everyone that she can communicate in English like everyone else including her family who were making fun of her. The reason why we chose this movie in particular was to show a role model who was struggling in English and with a strong optimism and ambition, she was able to take all the challenges and reach her goal. Through this movie, our expectation was to motivate the workers and encourage them to challenge themselves and eventually succeed and not give up. The workers felt very excited and interested in this movie, as many of them were motivated to learn grammatical rules that they usually faced difficulties with.

Language Bridges Program gave me the opportunity to enhance my skills in communicating with different people. It also held me accountable to help those workers who are struggling by overcoming their difficulties as it allowed me to be a greater teacher. 

Teaching is a fun and challenging job

Teaching is a challenging job.
The language Bridge program helped me to realize the importance of teaching and how it feels to be a teacher. as a teacher my team and i had to plan for classes in advance, choosing the best material to help our students was one of the biggest challenges. throughout this experience we wanted not just to teach English but also to share information about the local culture and reflect the culture's image in the best possible way. 

we tried to help our student by engaging them in activities at which we can help them to improve their English but also help them in their working life. we taught them how to handle interviews, on job problems and how to communicate with customers. the seemed happy about this experience and demanded more of such exercise.

by the end of this class we wished the best for our students and we are looking forward to have such a great experience in the future (In Sha Allah).

Being a teacher for the first time. Moments we won’t forget.

Today I decided to share my amazing experience being an English teacher. Although we have all taught our younger siblings or other family members before, this experience was really different. Language bridges program gave us the opportunity to be teachers and teach people that wanted to learn for their benefit. It was not to get good grades in class. The real reason that the students we had attended classes was to be able to help and guide the people in they interact with daily in their career life.

Since the first day of classes we realized that these people are serious about learning and want to make the best of this opportunity. This made us as the group of teachers put in the best effort to try to come up with different ways to have useful yet engaging and fun classes. The classes did not only consist of us lecturing and making sure they take notes. It was the complete opposite, we would usually ask the students to give us the right answer and explain it to us, which would assure us that they understand the material and are not just answering correctly by luck. Another thing we used to do is let the students help their friends when they had some difficulty. This way allowed the student with difficulty to understand things clearly and the other student to interact in English, which is good practice for him.

Our students were motivated to attend classes as I mentioned to be able to do a better job in their careers. What motivated me and my fellow CMU-Q students in my group to attend and look forward for these classes was the great that we saw it as a great opportunity to give back to our community.  It was something that we believe will have a direct influence to those students and the also the people they interact with. An example would be one of our students who’s current job is a security man in the pearl island. Seeing him learn and him personally telling us that these classes are useful to him made us happy because he learned and was able to use this knowledge straight away. This is why we believe that there is a direct positive influence given back to the community.

<ending last class with a group photo filled with smiles>

It was great having this opportunity and I will be looking forward to join similar programs in the future where we can give back a little to the community that gave us everything we have. 

LBP Experience

I would firstly like to show my gratitude to the team of LBP for giving all of us CMU students this chance to contribute to the society.

In the first week of the program, me and my team members spent time to get to know the students and about their background. The main thing the students were looking to achieve through this program was to develop their communication skills, because according to the students they don’t get enough chance to use English during their day to day activities. For them the chance to come here and communicate in English was seen a great opportunity.

Throughout the rest of the weeks, our team developed several different activates which allowed them to achieve this goal.

During the last class, we requested the students to tell us what they gained from LBP and whether they enjoyed, and the responses we received were very positive. They said to us that they had a good time and they are happy to have had such a chance to learn English, which would help them ahead in their life.

 

<Practicing the song for the graduation>

This experience was me was really remarkable. It may have been a very small contribution to the society but it surely did give me a great deal of intrinsic satisfaction, and I am glad that I participated in this program.

Thank you :)

Language Bridges Program, an experience to remember

For this blog post I will talk about my experience at Language Bridges Program.  To me this club was not only about teaching English to workers, in fact I learned as much as the workers did. I know how English is important to them, and so my primary goal was to teach them English, but at the same time I wanted them to have fun and enjoy their time in class. In the first class, I was able to know all the students, their levels and a little about their lives. 

So, my group and me decided to watch a movie for one of our classes so that they can come the next class and write about it. The movie was English Vnglish and it talks about an Indian woman who went to America to visit some relatives there but didn’t know how to speak English. She faced some problems with communicating with people, which made her want to learn English even more. I think this movie has a take away lesson, because being in a foreign country where no one understands you language is hard. You will eventually find a language that will allow you to communicate better with people around you. And this is what we told our students, is that learning English is important or otherwise you will not be here learning it. Its not easy but not impossible. The students actually liked the movie very much and in the next class, which was a writing class we asked them to write about the movie and they all talked about the importance of English. 

 We’ve decided to tech them things that will benefit them in their daily lives. So, we asked them to write down on a paper the things they would like to learn. And almost all of them wanted to learn how to deal with costumer and what are the vocabulary they should learn that would make them better with dealing with costumers. In the following class we arranged the class where every student will have to sit with a teacher and play the role of the security guy and teachers were the costumer, and vice versa in the second round.

This experience with LBP has developed skills in me, such as teamwork. We (the teachers) as a team worked so hard to give the students the best education we could in a limited time. We also wanted them to enjoy being here and want to learn even more. So, this teamwork experience I believe was beneficial for me as much as it was for the students.