ESOL Jottings

That's one small step ...

19 June 2010

Hi Sumar,
The theme of your lesson this week is “washing”.
The language point: “simple sentences made up of subject and verb”
Today we began by looking at various pictures of washing words. So “shower”, “tap”, “towels”, “soap” etc told us that we were talking about washing and bathrooms.
We took these words and saw that we could use them as “subjects”. That is, words which “do” or “perform” actions (it’s more than that – but that will do for now).
We also looked at “verbs” and saw that they are words which tell us what is happening or what is being done.
So we took the “subjects” and “verbs” and made the simplest English sentences. The sentences we made were about washing.
Remember the video of the woman in the Philippines washing her clothes in the backyard? Well – we were able to make a lot of sentences about washing from her.
Finally we saw the clip of the baptism again. This was to help us to understand the passage about John the Baptist and Jesus. The baptism was a like a picture. It illustrates what has happened to the person. Remember that I said that baptism is actually from a Greek word (baptizo) which means to dip or immerse in water. So the Greeks used to “baptise” their vegetables (to wash them) and their cloth (to dye it).
Baptism is a statement and a picture. The one being baptised is admitting that in their heart they are dirty and spoiled. It is their wrongdoing and wrong thinking that has polluted them or spoiled them. By going into water they are showing that they truly believe that “God has cleansed them” not with water but because of Jesus Christ. Baptism also shows that their old life is dead and buried and that God has given them a new life.
I shall say more about your pronunciation next week. For me, at least, it was a very enjoyable lesson.

Are you receiving me?

26 June 2010

Language point: Simple sentences (subject-verb-object)

Theme : Jesus calls the first disciples

We started by going over last week’s main points which you easily recalled (subject – verb). Then we went on to look at a word we mentioned last week. This was the word “object”. It was difficult to picture it but we used a drawing of a man throwing a baseball and another man receiving it. The thrower was a bit like “a subject”; the ball was like “the verb” and the receiver or catcher was like “an object”. We also thought that the object was like “a victim”. Of course there is far more to say about subjects verbs and objects, but this will do for the moment.

Our first task was to make sentences using this subject-verb- object (s-v-o) pattern. You did this well. We tried to show how a word can be used as a subject or an object. “The fire burns the wood”, “Dilip eats the apple” were just two of the sentences we made.

You read from the account of Jesus calling his first disciples. We saw that they were ordinary fishermen who were called away from their business to follow him. He was a rabbi. But that is more than a teacher. Perhaps it is more like what some call a “guru”. He certainly had more of the role of a master whereas his disciples were like apprentices. He came to announce the time of God’s rule. He wanted people to realise they had to repent. We spoke about the Bible’s teaching that we are all in need of a real “change of mind and heart”.

Another enjoyable lesson.

(Words which you pronounce beautifully “announced”.)

It's in the headlines

2 July 2010

Language point: elements of a newspaper headline

Theme : Jesus casts out an evil spirit (Mark 1)

Today we started by recapping on the subject verb object work you have been doing over the past few weeks. You were able to easily recognise these three grammar terms and have been able to identify examples of them in use.

We went on to look at the picture of the newspaper headline. You did not immediately come up with what the picture was about and so we took the lesson in a direction other than I had planned (no problem). We compared the types of print in the headline and the subheading. You saw the headline as larger and red in colour but you did not at first identify it as being in Upper case or capitals. So we did some work on this. Eventually after some box-the-man games you came up with the words “capital” and “headline”. We identified the more common letters in English words and worked on your pronunciation of “r”s which I said are not usually rolled except by very educated older people. After looking at uncommon and more common letters we completed the box-the-man. Well done.

You will remember my never ending sentence. In it I composed a short sentence but with no capital and no full stop. I asked you to tell me what was missing. Eventually I said that I wanted you to “stop” me going on and on. extending the sentence but you didn’t at first notice that I extended it because I hadn’t put in a full stop. So we had something like this “John went home- to see his wife – in the garden – playing with the children- while the burgers were cooking on the fire – under the tree.” We could have ended the sentence at various points by putting in a full stop.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to read the episode in which Jesus cast out an evil spirit (although you had read it quietly while I prepared). We will get onto this and the actual headline writing next week.

An ESOL D-Day

10 July 2011

Today was D-Day for our Hope English Classes. I waited at the church buildings for my first student of this new project and wondered if she was coming at all. We had confirmed the arrangement on Sunday – but – you never know. Anyhow I gave her ten minutes grace and was about to pack up and go to the park to see if I could give away a free lesson there, when she turned up. Her name is Madalina and she is from Romania (not true, but “she” is a “she” anyway). She has very little English at all (i.e. she wouldn’t be able to say “my name is Madalina and I’m from Romania” (Good job too because my name is Alistair and I’m from London). However, her English is 100% better than my Romanian).

Madalina came in through the open door and when I asked her how she was doing, she became quietly tearful. “No work” she said. Wow – week one – minute one – a tearful woman on her own with me. Thankfully, caution and decency are my watchwords. This is why, as usual, the double doors of the church were wide open and our class takes place in open sight of the street outside. After offers of water etc, Madalina quickly composed herself and was happy to make a start.
Our subject area for the month of June is “Going to the doctor”. So we began by introducing terms for the four main body parts (body, head, legs and arms). Our aim was to introduce and make simple sentences about these. We had loads of fun doing the pronunciation stuff, identifying pictures stuff and making mistakes along the way – but eventually, job done.
We then got onto the underlying Bible theme of the day which is “God our Creator”. In this, the first lesson I just wanted to introduce the truth that “God is the designer of our bodies” and that he has designed them beautifully. So we looked at this beautiful henna design and a wallpaper design, and drew a pattern. The logic? – Where there is a design there is a designer – and God, the designer of our bodies is very great. First we just looked at the initials CK, D&G and CD and PC (the first two of which she got). We looked at these as designers of beautiful (sometimes) clothes. (CD is Christian Dior, and PC is Pierre Cardin for those who are can’t keep up with the programme).
Next week we look at the hands. Pray for us. Pray especially for more students.

Mine's a Mocha

17 July 2011

Today after months of hoping, preparing and praying (not enough!) , something really exciting happened. Madalina, a Romania woman who has come for lessons for 4 of the last 6 weeks was waiting outside our church building with a friend. After hesitating a little I asked if they would like to have the lesson at a new coffee shop about 100 metres away on the main road. They were happy with this and so we decamped. Once there, coffees were ordered and we sat down for our lesson.

I prayed briefly for God’s help and we commenced. Today we looked at the short vowel “a” (as in “cat”). We also continued our work on the body and health. That usually gives us loads of opportunities to talk about how we are wonderfully and amazingly created. We have also spoken of how we are now spoiled and affected by illness and injury. Jesus was introduced last week as God’s son who had compassion on the crowds of sick people who came to him for help.

Occasionally the cafe manager interjected in Romanian and was obviously interested and listening to us. Eventually she asked how much our classes cost and where they were held. “They’re free”, I said “They are paid for by the Baptist Church just around the corner” (strictly speaking, they’re sponsored by our church – not paid for). She asked if she could join. A result! This was exactly why I had decided to temporarily break out from the four walls of the church. Even better, she was happy for us to have the classes in the cafe (business for her and attention for us :<).

The big question for me, as usual, was “Was this development just down to good marketing and publicity, or was God really in it all – or was it both?” (that’s actually 3 questions). There are after all many small businesses who use imagination and all of the other resources they have, to attract customers. They don’t say that “God was in it” (even though he is). But as a Christian the question for me should never be “Is God in this situation?” but rather “How is he in it?” I hope that will become more apparent as the weeks go on. For now I’m just grateful – and excited at the prospects.

Pray for us!

Small beginnings

21 July 2010

Another good morning. No. It’s not too good to be true (but do steady on, its early days and only small beginnings). Today at 9.30 there was nobody at the church so I went around to the cafe. Raluka had received a call from Madalina saying that she had to go to work today (you take work when it’s there). Five minutes later a call from Alina (good thing – these mobiles )
A new couple had been sent to us from the Friends of Asia Centre but they were at the wrong building (the local Christadelphian Hall). Quick phone call – quick directions and Rashmi and Nurul were with us all the way from Bangladesh.

Today’s lesson was a hotch-potch (I did a CELTA course so I wouldn’t fall victim to this). Anyhow Nurul had good diction and was ahead of Alina but both of them were way behind Raluka (you get the idea – they are all at different levels).
The last part of the lesson found me bringing the Bible to bear on the theme of the month – health and sickness. I retold the account of Jesus healing the man with the withered arm. Wow, how to teach something worthwhile to people who don’t know what “arm” or “withered” are! But thankfully at least they have heard of “Jesus” .
I thought, no sense in entering into the Sabbath controversy present in the account. So the question is “Did I butcher the text” by limiting its scope to “Jesus’ love and power”? I think they are clearly there (obviously). We said Jesus was at the synagogue/building. A man was there. He had a weak arm (yep – we did elicit the meanings of these words). Jesus called him. Jesus said “stretch out your arm”. He stretched it. Now it was strong. Jesus made it strong. Jesus loved the man.
Don’t know precisely how much was taken in (it is my job to find out though). Time to go. See you next week. That will be fun. It will mean missing part of the Holiday Bible Club at Church (I do the literacy spot). I continue to ask you to pray for this work.

Made in his image!

Monday July 30 July 2012

10 o’clock – tables set out – copying done – nobody’s here (am I nobody?). Are all of my projects destined to be like this – to be on the margins and pathetically small? Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Here we are – through the door come three Portuguese women all known to me from other classes. Great. Thank you Lord.

We begin – I briefly explain that I will pray for God’s help. They nod approvingly and off we go. Today we are looking at how we are wonderfully and amazingly made. We are the crown of God’s creation and I want the chance to look at that. We have an Olympic theme. so that we can a closer look at the design of the human body.

We start with some phonics work (two letter combinations of the letter “a” plus a consonant – which was great fun – laughter is compulsory). We pass on to watching a video clip of Ussain Bolt smashing the 100 metres record. So much material to get from the info grids they put onscreen: nationalities, lanes, numbers, names – a real gold mine for an English teacher.

From there we read from a text in Genesis where we learn that God made man in his own image. We got out coins, and looked at pictures which referred to images. We thought about how amazing we have been made physically (hence Usain Bolt etc) but that actually, it is our spirit that is made a little like God. Who can deny that we are horribly spoilt by our greed, selfishness, jealousy, aggression even though we are capable of wonderful acts of patience, courage, kindness and love? But at bottom we really are fundamentally spoilt. We need to be put right.

Some enjoyable reading of the text, and comments from me ended what was an enjoyable and productive lesson.

A young man's strength is wonderful

Tuesday 31 July 2012

Today’s lesson was amazing (aren’t they all? – well… er… they’re not actually). Anyway, today’s was. The four Portuguese ladies were middle aged and were Entry One standard (that’s below junior school English).

We started with some Boggle (that’s a crossword game) and went on to watch a couple of video clips on jumping. Firstly “Freerunning” – that’s just toe-curlingly frightening. Martha thought it was t-o-o dangerous. I countered, that standing still on a chair is very dangerous if you’re a 90 year old. Next up we saw some great long jumping and high jumping from all angles and at different speeds. We started to describe some of the scenes in the clips using vocabulary clustered around “strength” and “power”.

For the next part of the lesson we looked at a second rate poem called The Jumper (written by me). It was a celebration of God’s kindness in giving people the strength, coordination and imagination to jump and to take pleasure in jumping.

All of this was leading up to the final bit of the lesson in which we read from Proverbs where Solomon speaks of the strength of young men being their glory. The link was seeing the young men in the videos showing off their wonderful strength. It is God who gives that strength and they who develop it. Of course too often we idolise the human form. But that doesn’t mean we can’t think of a body shaped and disciplined by hard work as being beautiful. God gave it this potential. That is why this 53 year old occasionally casts an admiring (and slightly envious) glance at the form of young men. God is the creator of those bodies and the giver of strength. We are accountable to him for how we use them.

Teaching!!?! It doesn’t get much better than this.

Born to swim

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Don’t be silly, only fish are born to swim (and penguins … and…) Well today was swimming day in English class. We began with a quick viewing of a fifty metre freestyle trial. Some work on their actions. Standing and bending,swiming and racing were just two of the pairs of verbs we used to build sentences around. Got lots of work out of this. We then played swimming snap with cards and suggested words associated with the photos.

We ended this part with a wonderful synchronised swimming clip. Lots of commentary noting the verbs associated with this event. We finished this time off thinking about the power, control and beauty of the movements.

Today on the rather tenuous link that breathing is done in the air not the water (lame) I pointed out that God gives us every breath we have and without that we have nothing. To Maria (11) I said that although her mum cares for her and looks after her she can’t look after her 24/7, as she goes to sleep herself. But God’s care goes on and on.

The learners each read out the short text from the book of Job and I unpacked its meaning.every breath you take. The upshot – the Bible teaches that God’s care in this life is even for those who live without him. But this will one day come to an end. In this life we all receive many good things along with our breath. But one day God will judge us. Only those who have asked forgiveness and asked God to change them because of Jesus will be cared for forever.

All of this was put much more simply, but that was the gist of what was said. I am happy to think that something of value was taught and reiterated here.

To be a servant - that's ambition

Thursday 2 August 2012

Throw a party – throw away a comment – throw a match – throw your voice. And those are just a few of the ways we use the word throw. There’s enough just in these to give any student of English a headache. Thankfully we limited ourselves to the kind of throwing you get in the Olympics. So we looked at throwing sports with javelin getting its own privileged slot.. We thought of the power and pent up energy (apologies to any physicists out there).released and controlled amazingly in a throw.

After some spelling and word games and a nice coffee (someone also brought in Danish Pastries) we finished off by reading from the text “A good wife works hard – her arms are strong for her jobs”. Juanita’s pronunciation is much better than the others although our 11 year old student, Maria, is catching her up and will soon pass her by. She, like so many children pick up language frighteningly quickly and seemingly effortlessly compared to us dinosaurs). Anyhow all of the learners read out the text as a group and as individuals. I paid particular attention to various features of connected speech (making it sound natural – not like the daleks).

I explained how one of my daughters (getting married) has had a very good example of a hard working wife. At best God wants us to be servants and to use the strength of our arms to serve him, ourselves and others. Wives serving husbands (and vice versa), parents serving children (ditto) is beautiful and is to be the order of the day. Lazy and selfish people will be judged by God for these ways. Jesus himself was the greatest servant of all and said that whoever wanted to be great had to be a servant. How counter cultural is that??!!?

Anyhow that’s all for today folks.

Riding for a fall?

Friday 3 August 2012

How would you define the word “riding” to a speaker of another language? It’s easy to think of riding a bike, or a horse. But what about the subway (an Americanism) or a skateboard.

We watched a long clip of some amazing skateboarding (we couldn’t really call it riding could we?) and cycling. The boldness, balance, imagination, coordination, judgement and determination were just so obvious. God has given us the ability to skateboard and ride (well some of us) but that we develop that ability by sweat and dedication. Whatever abilities we have we show God’s handiwork in us. However, it is just as obvious that we can use those same abilities to be a safecracker, a wifebeater or a pickpocket. Skilful, yes. Good, no.

The reading today said that “every one of the hairs of your head has been counted“. I described how mothers show great love for their children as they carefully comb through their hair; sometimes picking out individual hairs that are matted, tangled or dirty. But even they do not take the trouble (or have the reason) to count those hairs individually. God, on the other hand, is pictured in this text as having a complete knowledge of, and the utmost care for, his creatures; even for those who live without him. Jesus taught that this care will utterly cease when they are judged for a life lived without God. This will be a terrible time, unimaginably horrible. Jesus came to set things right for his people. He came to bear the penalty for all of those who will ask God, from the heart, to forgive them and to change them because of what Jesus himself did.

DIfficult to explain all of that with limited English but I think I said a fair amount. Thank God for the opportunity. Pray that he will be merciful to all.

A wandering thought

Sunday 5 August 2012

Sunday night and the communion reading is about the victory over death won by Jesus. My mind gets into gear and pursues this thought (not sure that its the appropriate time). Anyhow, off we go as quick as you like with a string of thoughts that began with

1. A good start

2. A terrible fall

3. A great recovery

4. A complete victory.

5. A wonderful celebration.

That will be the Olympically (!!??!) connected theme for next week’s ESOL lessons. Back to communion (or maybe that was communion). My point – this is the way it should be. The teaching we receive on Sundays should feed into our workaday lives in a thousand and one different ways. It’s great when that happens. That’s a major part of the job of our Church teachers – to equip us for our work as parents, children, neighbours, workers and, in my case, as an ESOL teacher.

Let’s flesh that string of thoughts out a little.

1. A good start : Mankind made in the image of God communing with God in the Garden and given great gifts and abilities to do his work

2. A terrible fall: Man distrusted and disobeyed God’s command bringing on himself the terrible penalty of guilt, separation, shame, frustration and spoiltness.

3. A great recovery: God took the initiative in unfolding a plan that displayed his love, grace and glory as he set out to restore man.

4. A complete victory: Jesus not only unfolded that plan by revealing it but demonstrated the extent of God’s love by rescuing men from the curse that was theirs.

5. A wonderful celebration: God being pleased with Jesus, wants him to be glorified and will supremely do this when he causes every one to acknowledge him willingly or unwillingly following his second coming

Watch this spot. More work to do on unpacking this theme and making the sporting and Bible narrative links.

The best start

Monday 6 August 2012

They said they would come. And so they did. Today Juanita, Maria, Elisabete and Luis (11) and Verna (11) turned up. No babies in tow. So my wife didn’t need to come in. We seem to be settling into a starting routine of random general knowledge while waiting for all to arrive. Today we looked at different types of cutting (chop, cut, dice, slice, slash, pare, trim, peel, excise). Oh no! Inevitably the word knife came up and so we googled it and came up with breadknife, fishknife, butterknife, cheeseknife, meatknife, oysterknife, tomatoknife?!?!! and various others (just add your own – we probably got it unless you’re a chef).

Our videos today consisted of sporting starts. So there was the slo-mo of a sprinter, and one of a coach describing starts. For laughs we saw Prince Harry beat Usain Bolt. Finally we looked at a swimming start. As you can guess there’s a lot of vocabulary and other language items we can get out of the theme of “starts”. and so we did. I wanted to think of beauty in the final part of the lesson so we introduced it here by playing snap with cards with beautiful sunsets, babies and cute children … you get the idea. We ended this by making sentences about the cards in the simple present tense.

Finally we got round to looking at the Psalm that says “I praise you for my body. It is amazing and wonderful. You made it.” Lots of reading work looking at pronunciation, intonation and fluency here. As we looked at the meaning of this text I said that God made the original man and woman beautifully in s-o-o-o many ways. He put them in a beautiful garden and gave them good work to do. Best of all he was with them. What’s not to like about that kind of start?

A terrible fall

Tuesday 6 August 2012

Today my wife wanted me to phone through the gas and electricity readings from Church. Solution? Simple. Give written instructions to my learners and ask them to do it for me. Look for the meters, do the reading, ring my wife and speak to her. Job done.

Next up Juanita and Luis google Waddingtons, Sorry and Rules while Elisabete and Verna use Android voice recognition to do the same on the phone. This got us into our board game of Sorry. Bonus points for conversational English between goes, debits for Portuguese.

Today’s theme was “falls”. We watched Derek Redmond tearing a muscle at the Barcelona Olympics. He was in agony, though he heroically got up and limped on. Eventually his father came to his aid, helping him over the finishing line. We stopped it at several points and thought about words like hop, limp, walk and run. We also looked at the various information sections on the screen and worked out what OR and WR meant (work it out, work it out) and that 43.29 is not read as forty-three point twenty-nine. Each learner then made a short sentence describing this remarkable 400 metre race.

This led nicely into the associated Bible text. We were thinking about the Parable of the Lost Son with special emphasis on how he “wandered” away from his father. We described the departure of Adam from God as a fall (and us, as being in the same position). He disobeyed the loving and trustworthy God. He implied he was a deceiver. We thought about how wronged and pained we feel when our children tell their first known lie. After this explanation we worked on the connected text “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way.” How depressing is that (without the good news of Jesus)?

The great recovery

Wednesday 7 August 2012

Only three adults and one youngster today (did I hear me say “only”??!). Yes! But I was truly grateful. The Pakistani chap who dropped in on the last half hour of Monday’s lesson hasn’t been back nor has the Indian lady who dropped in last week. But we have had loads of people peep in through the open doors.

Today I put the lesson aims on the whiteboard for the first time. They centred around prepositions of location again. That helped us when we did work on chairs. We made a long list of them sofa, armchair, stool, throne, kitchen chair, director’s chair, deck chair (it was great that Juanita connected deck – as in floor – with the sign she had seen on the bus).

After yesterday’s talk of falls today we looked at recoveries. One video of Lassie Viren’s fall and recovery and two heroic marathon runners (one a man, and one a woman) out on their feet stumbling over the line. Finally a brilliant cycling recovery. None of these was really analagous to the rescue plan God put into effect for human beings. But the language and concept of rescue was introduced.

I started by saying how it had been God’s desire to rescue people from their lostness. This is in his heart as it was in Jesus’ heart. It was one small step from here to going through the Parable of the Lost Sheep (and connecting it with the Lost Son of yesterday). Luis asked how God rescued people. His mum smiled as I said we will look at that tomorrow. Today I just wanted them to know about God’s deep desire. That is why we ended with the text “Jesus came to find and to rescue lost people” (Luke 10:19). We compared this paraphrase with the words of the NIV translation and were well satisfied.

A nice postscript

Wednesday 7 August 2012

“Can I buy a Bible?” O-o-o-h, I don’t get asked that question every day. It was the end of the lesson and Juanita asked me if the church could sell her a Bible. English or Portuguese, I wondered? She said Portuguese. My reply? “We don’t sell Bibles, but we are very happy to give them away”. So I will get one for her (and an English). My homework? – to source a reliable translation of the Bible in Portuguese. Thank God for little encouragements like this. Pray for this middle aged woman and her son. Pray for my other learners and for this middle aged teacher (me). Pray that God will give true faith to those who come to our classes and that he will help me to be a faithful signpost.

Citizenship

9 December 2013

Where did she get my number. From a friend, from my publicity, or maybe from a student or the internet. However she got it, she called and we arranged for Estelle to come to our English Classes (that’s a grand word for them) this Wednesday.
It soon became obvious that her standard of English is beyond that of our beginners so it was just as well that she was the only learner in today (beginning of term). She wasn’t so much after a lesson as a chance to take the UK citizenship Test. She had no NI number so was not eligible for lessons at state funded colleges. I am so glad not to be limited by this kind of bureaucracy. She has been here for over 5 years and wants to apply for citizenship.

I made numerous calls to colleagues to find out what she needed and where she could apply. We then went on line together to find out about the test itself and ended up taking a sample test. I guess 90 per cent of the street would have failed it (UK citizens or not). I found some of it very tough. I advised her to get the book from WH Smiths and to study it with a friend. The most I could do was to offer a quarter of an hour slot for citizenship during the course of our ordinary classes. She seemed very happy about this and was just glad to see somebody helping her. I told her that the usual format of the lessons was to find a subject which was useful to those living in the UK and to study it and find some connection with a Bible theme (especially to do with Jesus). So if we looked at Work or Employment we might look at how God has equipped us to work in this world for his glory and our good. We might also look at the idea of service and how God wants us all to see ourselves as servants where we are parents serving our children, or teachers, cleaners or whatever (how does Wayne Rooney fit into that one). I would also want to see Jesus as a worker and particularly as the servant of God. She smiled at these examples and again seemed very happy with the idea.

A crying need

December 2013

Enrolments again. In another life I would burn all paperwork. Call me lazy or incompetent but I just like to get on with teaching (and talking). Paperwork is a necessary evil (IMHO). Anyhow, back to the enrolments. As usual you meet all sorts of people in all sorts of situations in an inner city environment.

Take Maria, she is from Lithuania and her young son is at home there while she tries to prepare the way for him to come and live with her here. She works for little money. She has no spare money and even to come to the enrolment costs her. Well the college had no spaces for her. So in I come like a knight in shining armour suggesting that there are other alternatives including private lessons in small groups at £5 per hour (my private lessons). Without a second thought she said “There was no way I can afford it”. The sad part was, this was not a negotiating position in which she tried to haggle the price down. No. She just had no spare money. She looked at me as if I just couldn’t understand – she was saving to bring her son over. I felt useless. What a reminder of the tough places people can be in.

Gobsmacked!

11 January 2014

What a morning. Butterflies in my stomach (no change there then) as I wondered whether I would get any learners at all (it’s not compulsory for them to come). So I got the classroom ready and went across the road to get some good biscuits for the class (if they didn’t come at least I would get something out of it). By the time I got back there were three learners at the door (early!). So in we go. By the time 10 o’clock came it was almost a full house. Nine learners out of the 10 expected. Great (why did I ever doubt? Because it’s not compulsory for God to work in this way – and there have been times when he certainly hasn’t – he just does his own thing as he is entitled to – he is God!).

We start with my lesson plan (which usually goes the way of all flesh and eventually morphs into a vague guide). The time is passes quickly and I haven’t met half of my objectives (surprise surprise!) so I ditch the choosing of learning targets. Time for tea. We break and everybody is ushered into the kitchen. At least the coffee was hot. We return to the warm room where I distribute copies of Mark’s gospel in English and the first chapter in Romanian, Italian and Bengali. Why foreign text in an English class? Because simply hearing syllables or individual words of the Bible does no good at all. God uses his words to communicate his thoughts. I couldn’t pat myself on the back if all I have done is to help the learners to decode the sounds of English without the slightest understanding of whether they were reading the Shipping Forecast, Oliver Twist or the Daily Mail. What is the point of that?

From that first chapter we read and thought about John introducing Jesus. I said that was the job that God had given him. John taught people that they were dirty in their souls. One of the Bengali ladies picked up on this and said “dirty inside”. She really got the idea. Some others followed that too. So I explained that by washing in the river they were “showing” that they felt they were dirty and wanted to be clean. The kind of dirt we were talking about was lies, stealing, cheating, jealousy , greed and so on (surprising what you think you can mime with your hands). We ended up with me saying that Jesus is the one who God sent to make us clean in our souls.

Am I encouraged? You bet your life I am! Do I think God was in it all? Yep. Do I know what he is doing? Nope. Am I nervous about what it will all amount to? Am I the happiest person on the planet at the moment (excluding happy brides and grooms – it is Saturday after all)? Oh I am so happy. I get to teach and to talk about Jesus. What could be better?

Language of the heart

18 January 2014

Just six this morning. Three men and three … women. Still, today proved to be just as exciting as last week. In fact, moreso, because of improvements to the end of the lesson.

We started with each learner writing their name on the whiteboard so that others could copy them down (as far as teambuilding goes – it beats dunking each other in cold custard). Eventually it’s coffee time. No posh coffee this week. This is always a good time for catching up with unfinished written work or chatting (chatting being infinitely more important). After coffee we play an audio in preparation for next week’s lesson. The learners are to listen and hold up their picture card when their gerund is mentioned. The audio is about working in a supermarket.
Now for the improvement – at least I think so!! Last week it was really excruciating for me to hear the Bible read out by people who couldn’t distinguish its content from the contents of the shipping forecast. This week I felt as though I could hardly be happier. Our Bible reading was the passage in which Jesus calls the four fishermen to follow him (Mark 1:14-20). I had printed this in Bengali, Hindi and Italian alongside my brief simplified English summary. Well, for me to hear the Bible read out in foreign tongues was really moving. It makes me dream of what God could do here (if he chooses to), and what he will do one day. What’s that? Cause people of every tongue and nation to praise him for Jesus. Why this new approach from me? Because of the slowly growing conviction that to teach somebody the Bible in a tongue other than their own is usually inefficient, unkind and perhaps futile (that’s a whole lot of negative adjectives). No. Speak to them in the language they think, wish, hope, cry, love and sin in.
Finally, packing away time – after everybody else had gone, Luigi (E) spoke to me in the most broken English (mixed with bits of Italian). At first I thought he was criticising our use of the Bible. He started by saying that it was written long ago. But it became clear that he was saying the opposite. He said that although it had been written long ago it seemed as though it was written yesterday. He used the word “fresh” to say this. He touched his heart and said that the Bible was like an “invitation” (well that’s what I thought he was getting at). Wha’evuh… he was moved. I said the Bible is a moving book because it is God’s words. I draw no conclusions about Luigi, except that he seems as emotional and open as I. But I do dare to hope and certainly to pray that God will take that interest and the time we spend together and bless him greatly. Amazing. What did I do to deserve all this?? (absolutely nothing – it’s just that God is s-o-o kind).

The best laid plans ...

25 January 2014

Always feel a bit guilty when I am flying by the seat of my pants. ESOL teachers have a name for this sort of thing it’s called “dogme”. I reckon it’s a bit like skiing off-piste. I actually prefer doing that – but only because I’ve been teaching for almost 30 years.

I had planned for us to listen to an audio track about people working in a supermarket and to get some written and spoken work out of that. But then I did something that is always fatal to my lesson plans (it turns them into wonderful works of fiction). I got distracted and ended up doing a Personal News slot in which each of the learners had to give two sentences about something that happened to them during the week. We got some “Simple Past Tense” out of this and looked at verb endings and forms (How on earth does “go” turn into “went”?) We took each person’s event and corrected it together and then had a competition. Loads of willing-on, laughter and effort and learning. Success.

Only two takers for coffee today. But I am so glad for this respite. It means we can change gear and start talking Bible. We continued with Mark’s Gospel. Couldn’t do the “work” link I had planned (supermarket work/ Jesus’ work) so we just got on with the reading (a little bereft of context). I drew a deep breath and got on with it. D-o-o-o-h!! Mistake number one. I had “cleverly” taken off the verse numbers from the translations of Jesus casting out the evil spirit (Mark 1). Still, we approximated and managed to read around and get lots out of it. Several showed understanding of the word “authority” and “power” as they connected it with “signatures” and “strong” respectively. After the reading and language work on the text I ended by saying that Jesus had powerful words and actions to make people well. Couldn’t finish without saying he has a greater power – the power to make us good or clean (yeah I know it’s not quite the same as “justified” or “righteous”, but…).

As usual I went dewy-eyed (inside) at the sound of God’s Word being read in other tongues. I am just so grateful to be the one who has the privilege of putting these words into the hands of these dear people. How much do I have to pray for God to be really merciful to them? (I know it doesn’t quite work like that). I force myself to remember that the mere reading of the Bible is not some sort of victory for Jesus. Not at all! That’s not the sort of “victory” that he wants anything to do with. We could get parrots to recite those same words. No. We want God to work in the hearts and to use his Word to win people for him. I’m sure that’s his great victory. And it’s one he hasn’t shown me as yet.

A footnote

25 January 2014

I used to get pumped up for the big games. I’d trek through the fog; play through the rain and willingly go through the aches and the agonies of body and spirit every Saturday. Like a 54 year old schoolboy I would hope to be picked and was desperate to play. You get the idea – I really loved my football. But I gave it up last year in the hope of doing something better with my Saturdays. I found it! (Although I’d still like to play football too). I get the same sense of anticipation, excitement, and vulnerability as well as the nagging question “Why do I put myself through this?” But this is my true love. Teaching – in this case, teaching English to adults. Being part of the lives of a disparate group of adults who show such engagement, gratefulness and willing spirits is humbling and amazing enough. But on top of all of that – I get to tell them about Jesus. What could be better?

Nervous of what?

1 February 2014

A new Bengali learner came along today – with her daughter. She was followed by the rest of the class at 10 o’clock. Then in came another newbie – another Bengali woman and her blind husband. His English is superb – he’s just along for the company and the ride.
So we begin with introductions (again). Then a lovely surprise – one of our Church members came in and joined us for a while before going off to do some work. This encourages us to think that we are doing something valuable. We rope him in to the introductions, and the class are really happy to see and hear him. Today we work on positions in the family (oldest, middle and youngest child). This piece of language emerged from a mistake of one learners. I have been trying to encourage them to record parts of the lesson so I was happy when one of the ladies got out an IPhone and asked me to record some work on “supermarkets”. We then listened to a couple of audio excerpts from supermarket workers and used it as a template for further spoken work.

We start the Bible session late for two reasons. One, I’m no good at timekeeping; and two, I want to cram in as much “ordinary” stuff as possible so that the learners feel they are getting value for money in these free classes. (Did you spot that actually meant I’m nervous about doing “Bible talk”, even though nobody has hinted that it’s a problem). We read the translations of Jesus and the leper (Mark 1) with some being a little too enthusiastic and reading more than their allotted verse. Nice Problem. We stop and look closely at the word “leper”. Thankfully, the word is very similar in Italian and Romanian. We were then offered the Bengali and Gujurati versions too. How to get across the idea that the leper is not dirty or morally corrupt because of his leprosy? How to get across the right picture to people in cultures that sometimes wrongly see disease as consequence and punishment? Well we tried. They seemed to get the idea of not touching a leper and the thought that Jesus, who could have healed him just by a word, actually touched him. We thought about the preciousness and importance of touch. Don’t you think it’s important not just to retell “Bible stories”? That is why there must be some sort of the crunch point (application). This week it was telling the learners that God says that we all have a kind of disease (the worst kind of disease). This disease means that we lie, steal, are greedy, selfish and do many other bad things. We are “no good for God” we read. But the same Jesus who healed the leper of his horrible condition is able to heal us of ours. Bit by bit, by God’s help, I hope this teaching will be understood and that God will give the faith without which all is lost. Pray!

The trouble with Babel

8 February 2014

I got a look of disappointment at the end of the lesson. This was in response to my announcement that there would be no class next week. It’s nice to be wanted. But it’s half term and I get a break from teaching (I get to have a full-English breakfast with a friend and indulge in a “Chess Morning”). We are really gelling as a group now. With learners prepared to have a little joke at each other’s expense. But we need to be careful, because lack of language means it’s easy to be misunderstood. This happened at one point in the lesson when a Hindi speaking lady asked a Romanian why she had the worksheet in English. The Romanian insisted, with some frustration, that it was in Romanian, while Hinal just as insistently inquired about the English. It turned out that neither realised they were talking about “scripts”. I went through a few different scripts and it wasn’t long before a groan of satisfied realisation was heard (when somebody mentioned Chinese writing). Of such molehills are mountains often made.
Today I was determined to get through a worksheet that has been on our agenda for a couple of weeks. I get distracted with other useful stuff and run out of time. This week for a while it looked as though the clock would defeat me again. But we managed – just. The worksheet had a chart about full-time, part-time and shift working patterns. We had to listen to audio recordings and use their information to complete it. We are doing the subject of work because it is easy to justify it to people who are looking for work and whose hold on work is all too often tenuous. Equipping them for their every day lives in this way is a privilege. But there is also loads of Bible truth (should that just read “truth”) in this subject. God works, human beings were created for work, Jesus had work to do, image bearing, sin, servanthood and tons, tons more.
Our reading was Jesus healing the paralysed man in Mark 2 (don’t you think “paralytic” makes him sound as if he is drunk). The biggest challenges were to cut to the chase in what is a complex story, and to interpret the word “forgive”. I mangled “forgive” and it came out as “make right with God”. That sounds a mouthful but I spent some time teasing out one meaning of the word “right” as “correct”, “good” and so on. Then I asserted that although we also do good things, we are not right with God (according to the Bible). But this episode (sometimes I do squirm at the word “story”) shows us that Jesus can put things right for us. He has the power to make us right for God. He does this for those who trust him. Hopefully that doesn’t sound too trite. Please. If your imagination is in any way ignited by this account then do pray for us.

Why so thankful?

22 February 2014

It is so important for our learners to be able to interact with the health services. It seems to be in the top three of many people’s needs. That’s why we are looking at the subject of “Health” this half term. This should give us plenty of opportunities to look at God our Creator, and Jesus our Healer.

Today we used the Skills for Life material to do loads of pronunciation, spelling, and reading work. One of the ladies said that she needs this because she doesn’t know what to say at the doctors. Just imagine being responsible for your family’s health and not being able to describe symptoms, read labels, understand the doctor’s diagnosis, or follow medicine instructions. Frightening! I was in that position in Morocco once, and nearly had a doctor shove a thermometer up my rear end because I couldn’t make it clear that I had a common cold. I can laugh at that. But I’m sure you can imagine other, more nerve-wracking or terrifying scenarios. This should help us to be more aware of why learners of English are so thankful to people who help them to function effectively in the UK. I want the credit for any good that I do to go to Jesus. He is the one who has put the people, gifts, experiences and opportunities into my life that have made me the teacher I am.

After coffee break it was back to the main room for the Bible reading and talk. This week it was the calling of Levi (Mark 2:13-17). We went through the passage in the usual way (reading in learners’ own languages) and then got onto the simplified summary. We talked about Jesus coming for those who were sick in their souls. Christians should always be aware of the temptation to exaggeratedly paint people as corrupt and sinful as possible. The trouble is, the patient, kind, loving, generous man or woman doesn’t recognise themselves in that kind of description. This is why I always have a preface for this sort of passage. I say that people do lots of good stuff. (Jesus himself pointed this out). The problem isn’t that we do good. It is that we are spoiled and that our spoiltness is worse than we think, and is more offensive to God than we imagine.

We ended up with something new at the end. I asked the learners to choose a verse from the passage which they felt was very important. I said it could be something they hadn’t thought of before, or even something they disagreed with. Why? Because I wanted personal engagement with the text (and a chance to see where they are coming from). Nearly all of them chose “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” I was so glad that they all saw this as the main point of the passage. We can work with that – later.

Lost in translation

8 March 2014

Today’s subject was “Registering at the Doctor”. All but one of today’s eight learners are registered so we made use of this for pronunciation purposes and to give them a small chunk of language: “I am registered at …” The importance of little words and sounds was hilariously and powerfully demonstrated when one of the learners offered “I am not patient”. Amazing. It took some time, explanation and drilling (practice) for her to see that by missing the word “a” she was completely giving the wrong idea. She eventually got it and corrected herself saying, “I am not a patient.” From this we went on to do matching and listening work associated with a patient registering at a clinic.

After coffee we studied the Parable of the Sower (or is it seeds, or soil?). My introduction may well have been thoroughly unnecessary and may simply have reflected my own prejudices. I have grown up in the West where scepticism is in the air I breathe and where Bible stories are often seen as being for children. Maybe that causes me to be overly defensive and to assume that I am always talking to people who don’t want to believe. That really complicates stuff. Anyhow, I ploughed ahead with the idea that adults are big consumers of stories whether they know it or not (and so Jesus’ stories are aimed at adults). But perhaps I was speaking to the wrong audience (I suspect I was – but they do have other reasons for not believing). I think all Christians could benefit from giving thought to the question “Who are we really talking to?”
Just imagine trying to explain “Why did the chicken cross the road” to somebody who speaks little English! Now you can see why the Parable of the Sower was particularly difficult (it’s meant to be) to explain today. Trying to explain the facts of the story let alone its meaning carries the risk of getting mired and stuck in a jungle of words and imagery. That’s why we get them to read the text in their own language. That’s why we really should pray for our preachers, evangelists and for ourselves as we offer the Good News of Jesus to others. How dare we dress up such an important story in so-called “Christianspeak”. It’s hard enough to tell without hiding and obscuring it beneath a ton of unnatural words and constructions. It’s absolutely no good if we the “in group” understand what we are saying if we are actually talking to those who aren’t in-the-know. When we remember that people need a god-given “faith” to truly understand what they are hearing, and we begin to see the challenge and the difficulty.

Thank God he is willing to give that faith and thank him he is willing to use our imperfect and halting attempts to represent his truth.
Pray for our class as we try to understand that truth that Mark has presented to us in his gospel.

Asking for success

15 March 2014

So here we are at 10 o’clock, with nobody here (except me). Will God always have us live on a knife-edge of wondering? (I think it’s called faith). Okay, it’s not quite that dramatic. But will he give us success? We can try to “fix” things so that we always have “success”. How? Just work hard, use all of our resources, and say that it is God who gave us the result (but we know it was us really??). Or we can lower our expectations and be glad of anything that happens. How to do what we ought and trust him for the result! That’s the question. By about 10.15 we have four learners plus one husband. I would be delighted with one – but I’m never happy with uncertainty. Never mind. One day I’ll learn to accept that uncertainty, and I’ll call it “the sovereignty of God”.

Today we started with filling in forms and practising “wh” questions. We also read and responded to a Doctor’s Surgery Information Leaflet. After the Grammar (and coffee break) it was the Stilling of the Storm (Mark 4.35-41). We followed our usual practice of reading in native tongues (sounds great on so many levels). But today brought its own wonderful and welcome challenges. How do you respond to a Muslim who enthusiastically says he believes all of this story (in the Koran?)? I don’t want to be offensive and in-your-face on this one. Nor do I want to spend time denying errors about Jesus (if I can help it). No. Just give me the chance to clearly portray Jesus as the Bible does. I trust this is not cowardice. I just don’t think that we can persuade anybody to have faith, even by our “brilliant” arguments and wonderful eloquence.

In what is a new development, I got each learner to retell the story (starting with the best so that the least confident would get to hear others before giving their own account). We talked about the three questions appearing in the text. We accidentally started with the most important “Who is this man?”. That’s the question I want us to come back to again and again. Why? Because I want God to show them that Jesus is the Son of God and the Saviour of those whose trust him. But here we have the story of his closest followers not knowing who he really was. It took three years before this fully dawned on them and even then, they momentarily deserted him. I want God to cause this truth to dawn on these friends. He can do it all at once if he wants to. In the meantime it’s not my duty to shoehorn in some wonderful “Accept, Believe and Confess” message each time I teach. No. Instead, I want them to understand who Jesus really is and what he came to do. Pray that God will give this kind of success (and that he’ll make me a good teacher too).

You of little faith!

22 March 2014

The main language work today was “asking about, and describing illness”. We worked through this with the aid of a wordsearch and some drilling of pronunciation. We focused on typical pronunciation errors. The confusion of “b” for “v” in Bengali, and the “d” sound instead of “th” in Gujarati being just two. This kind of error-work is always a great ice-breaker. It finds learners outside their comfort zone and leads to lots useful learning and laughs especially when class members feel they are among friends.

We passed on to the Bible time. I thought maybe I had chosen far too long a passage for reading. As usual (when will I learn?) I was wrong and had underestimated the willingness of the learners to engage. Go easy on me – this was 20 verses being read aloud by people who don’t necessarily do this every day. The reading was fine. What I had I had feared was that an impenetrably dense, toe-curlingly long passage would be off-putting. It wasn’t. It would have been “torture” to do this even in the most simplified English though. There is just too much to say: spirits, mental illness, unclean animals, broken irons (just think of the physics behind that), legions, social exclusion (to say nothing of “Where on earth did he get those clothes from?”)

The disturbing nature of today’s episode only added to my uncertainty and nervousness (it’s okay reader- I’m a good actor!). In the back of my mind was the place given to demons and jinn in Islamic and Hindu cultures. In my dim and distant past as a school teacher I recall several children wearing charms to ward off spirits. This is why I wanted to tread cautiously in addressing the subject now. But on the other hand I was confident that this was another great passage for presenting the power of Jesus.

I committed the language teacher’s cardinal error in asking “Did you understand the story?” What else could a polite student answer but … “Yes”. Half-redeeming myself, I asked them to retell the episode. Their responses were in very broken English with little value linguistically. This was hardly surprising as I hadn’t set up the lesson to equip them for this. Why? Perhaps it’s because I am aware of a “need” to reassure learners that they are learning “really important stuff” like: how to talk to the doctor; buying a train ticket, and so on (and it is “really important stuff”). But we also want them to know about Jesus.

I will admit that it took a lot of clues and leading on for the connection to be made between the last two weeks’ stories. In the first, the disciples saw evidence of Jesus’ power and became fearful (but went on to have faith). In this story the townspeople saw evidence of Jesus’ tremendous power. Having no faith, their fear led them to beg him to leave. Amazing!! Pray that God will give that faith to our friends here.

Here's one I prepared earlier

5 April 2014

How different was that? Very different! Today we turned the class into a planning session for our upcoming International Evening. I began with a lame attempt to get some language work out of our activity – “planning for the evening”, “planning for a wedding” “planning for …” You get the idea. After this died on its feet (of turgidity) we got on with reading from the International evening. Then we looked at myriad photos of Romania, Bangladesh and India in a Powerpoint I had prepared. We also looked at photos they wanted to be included. I wanted to make sure that the material was from the right region of each country and that no political or religious controversies would be inadvertently stirred up. But it wasn’t to be an anaemic celebration of traditions and countryside etc. That is not people’s lives. Instead there were a mixture photos of landscapes, crafts and industries, religion, family life and monuments all ripe for comment.
We went around the class with each member saying who they would be bringing. It looks as though there might be about twenty friends and family (including the class) and fifteen from church. I have kittens about this type of event. Will people actually turn up? Will I have prepared thoroughly enough?(No!). Will it work out as planned? I don’t know. I just ask God to help us.
Each of the groups will have 25 minutes to introduce their country to us. This will include a slideshow; going through a national newspaper; presenting the National Anthem and other music, and talking about an item from the country. Three of the learners actually volunteered to sing a Bengali song. Some would do some Mehndi. Next came the matter of food. We agreed that each of us would bring enough for just about 4 people. The Romanian half-apologetically said that her traditional dish included pork. The Indians talked of bringing vegetarian dishes and the Bengalis offered vegetarian Biryani (I insisted on meat too). You can imagine the possibility for upset in all that. But it was just so obvious that everybody wanted to be accommodating and to make it work – end of.

All coordinating will be done by text, email or through our website (aren’t we twenty-first century?) We are almost there. Powerpoints and music and photos emailed to me by Tuesday (no Last Minute Dot Com).

Why are we doing this? There are at least three reasons. Firstly, so that we learn more about each other (class building). Secondly, we want our church members to learn more about the people of our community. Thirdly, so that our learners get to meet Christians in a setting which is chatty rather than teachy. Next, so that I get a chance to present and explain one piece of Bible truth to people who don’t hear it every day. And lastly – the food!!!

International Night - Guest Blogger

12 April 2014

Tonight we went to an International Evening at Hope Baptist Church. It was an enjoyable evening where people from the class were able to practice their English and share information about their countries of origin with members and friends of Hope Baptist Church.

The evening started with a series of short talks from members of the class on India, Bangladesh and Romania. We then ate together, tasting dishes from each of the different countries and chatting together in an educative yet informal atmosphere. It was obvious that everyone was enjoying the time getting to know one another. One lady brought Mehndi and decorated the women’s hands with intricate patterns whilst another contributor shared some refreshing home made Lassi which was greatly enjoyed by the attendees. (Especially me!) An especial highlight was a reading by one of the children, from a child’s version of the Qu’ran about the prophet Isa, which was helpful in illuminating some of the Islamic teaching about Jesus. Ferris used this to lead into his short message by helpfully reminding us how necessary it is for us to know what other religions teach about Jesus. He then asked some of the students to read a verse from John 10:10 in their mother tongue and afterwards translate it into English. This led to a discussion on the difference between a “good life”, and “life in its fullness” which then enabled Ferris to draw out that our lives, whilst containing good things, are also constantly tainted with wrongdoing and therefore broken. Jesus came to give life, and life to the full!

The evening was informative and a wonderful opportunity to get to know a great group of people in the area. It was an effective format, simple and relaxed enough to introduce the church to people from their community and vice versa. It was exciting to be here for the evening and very encouraging to see how God works through ordinary people, and the passion he puts in the hearts of individuals to share his great news in ways like this. It was also good to see that it is not about how many people turn up but about the receptiveness of those who actually come. We really enjoyed this evening and hope that maybe it can become something that happens more often and that Hope Church will become known as people who love their community and are taking steps to be friends with them

It's all Greek to them

3 May 2014

I walked rather than cycled to class this morning. I went with heavy heart (I do have a life outside teaching). But then like a true pro (??) I put my worries behind me. Why? Because walking in front of me was one of our class members. We got talking. I asked him about his week and the sign shop he worked for. Then I decided to ask about his limp (not too severe, but noticeable). That’s where things got more interesting. His description really held me. I thought – okay we’re doing “health” today, but let’s use his story as a basis for that work. Always good to do stuff that’s relevant and important to your learners.

We moved twenty-five years ago to be nearer to the community around our church building. So I am grateful to God for the chance to bump into people like Lat – people I work with in this part of London. My “witness” ain’t great but it’s what I do. I’m also up for befriending the different people God has put into this neighbourhood during that time. Last week I had told the class that they could invite along a friend. So imagine my surprise when one of them did. In came Fatima adjusting her full-face veil and lifting it over her head to reveal a middle-aged Bangladeshi woman. She smiled, settled and introduced herself.

We got Lat to talk about his accident (knocked off his bike by a van). I chose some grammar and pronunciation from it. Then the class retold it. We stumbled over the amazing letter “v” in “van”. So many ways to mispronounce it. Today we found three and corrected them with the use of a “mirror” and “google voice search” (“buh”, “ff” and “wuh” if you were wondering).

We ended with fifteen minutes on the Bible passage from Mark in which Jesus is rejected by people in his home town. Our session was an object lesson for preachers and evangelists (of whom I am not one). Make sure that your listeners can understand the words you are using. It is all too possible just to plough on, being pleased with the sound of your own voice and with the beauty of your material (without actually doing any good at all). There were so many words and constructions which were not understood. This is why I am so glad the learners had the text in their own languages. Words like honour, jealous, wonder, amazed, miracles and hate were “all Greek” to them. These words needed to be understood through usage, illustration or explanation.

I hope they understood that although many were amazed at Jesus and his teaching, many also hated and were jealous of him. (Actually – did I get that wrong? Didn’t they ALL despise him? Whatever – they didn’t have the faith or trust that God wants to bless. I didn’t do a great job. But I did do a job. Please God use that work and make me a better teacher.

Zero Dependence??!

May 10, 2014
This morning I wondered if I pray enough for this work. But how much prayer is enough? (I’m sure God doesn’t have a meter running). Then I wondered why I should pray for this work at all. It’s obvious that God wants us to depend on him for everything we do. But I ask the questions again. Why pray and how much should I pray?

I occasionally remind myself that there are many successful English lessons happening out there in which the teacher feels zero dependence upon God and yet God blesses them with amazing ability, creativity, resourcefulness and wisdom. I sometimes remind myself that I wouldn’t want to be in their position when they stand in front of him having been unthankful for those gifts.

Anyhow. I suppose I could pray for me. I could pray that I will be the teacher/man that God wants to use (that sounds safe enough). I could pray that he will help me to teach better (what would that mean?) I don’t think I should ask to prepare better (I should just do it). Perhaps I should ask for the wisdom (common sense?) to use my time well. I often beat myself up that I don’t prepare for these lessons as thoroughly as I might (understatement). But then when should I prepare? What should I give up? Some of my activities keep me fit(tish). Some keep me sane and others just keep me up (when I shouldn’t be).

So yet again I am really grateful that I have loads to call upon from 30 (yes 30) years of teaching. I have been given so much instruction, advice, rebuke, help, encouragement during that time. That’s why I feel able to stand in front of an ESOL class for 90 minutes and “just do it” on adrenalin and experience (and God’s help?) Anyhow enough about me. Only 6 learners today. Need to contact the missing ones and offer places to others. But the class went great (I know that’s poor English). We were delighted with the connected speech as we read about Lat’s accident again. Then we did some pronunciation and listening work on the subject of “At the Chemist” (still working on the general topic of Health this month).

What struck me most towards the end of the lesson was the tortuous manner in which we worked through the passage on the Feeding of the Five Thousand in Mark. It was a joy to have them read the passage in Bengali, Gujarati and Thai. But the moment we looked at the simplified version in English the wheels seemed to come off (or at least it was difficult to tell how much was going in). I just had to hope that the important bits got there. Come to think of it that’s something I could ask God for. Help me to always explain your Words carefully, faithfully, interestingly, appropriately, lovingly, simply and CLEARLY to whoever is in front of me at the time. Help me to prepare.

It’s all in the preparation

May 17, 2014
There were nine learners today and they were all vying for position to read, offer answers or do anything at all throughout the lesson. It’s great to have this level of participation in a class. It is the teacher’s job to purposefully harness that enthusiasm and to ensure that it doesn’t spill over into one or two dominating the others. And they are enthusiastic. Today they sang Happy Birthday (to me) and even better, one woman brought her husband along and he thoroughly enjoyed the lesson even though his English was much better than hers.

Over the past week I had been thinking about the question of preparation and prayer for this kind of work (alliteration unintended). As a result I thought this lesson was one hundred per cent better. But then how would I know? Well for starters I had a hatful of pictures ready to support today’s Bible lesson. They illustrated the words “deaf”, “beg” and “power”: all words we would be using later. But we began with the word “instruction”, which was to be at the heart of this section. We saw how important it is to be able to follow simple instructions, particularly when it comes to taking medicines. We continued by jointly doing a written exercise on medicine taking. Lots of pronunciation and some drilling of short phrases around the subject. It’s really important to ensure that answers are not just of one or two words, as our learners need to develop much needed conversational skills. For this reason I usually reject the shortest answers and tease out longer ones.

After coffee we settled down to read Mark’s account of the healing of the deaf and mute man. I was so-o-o pleased that we had prepared well and that some important words and concepts had already been introduced. So pictures of a singing bird and a boy playing a guitar (that’s sound and hearing covered). Then we come onto pictures of men kneeling (not something you see very often). One or two concluded that they were praying. So we turned that into “beg”. This was because we were to look at people begging Jesus to heal their friend. I also wanted to establish the thought that we are beggars in relation to God and that we utterly depend on his kindness.

A new venture today. After we read the story we turned the papers face down and in small groups retold all that we could. That really worked, as several learners offered, corrected, suggested and generally helped each other to get the facts right. Having done that I drew some conclusions. I never want to simply tell stories. These stories have applications. They mean something. They tell us about the most important person in the universe and how he relates to human beings and to us in particular. I want God to be kind to these friends and to make them understand how wonderful Jesus is and how they need him. Pray for us

One for the long grass

May 24, 2014
Just five today. Happy? Of course I was happy. I don’t think of numbers when I’m teaching individuals. 100% is 100%. An interesting person is… an interesting person. But today’s lesson plan was ditched five minutes in. I got distracted by my warmer/introduction (surprise, surprise). I had pointed out that I had had a haircut. One of the learner’s responses included the word “headcut”. So a bit of correcting and a lightbulb moment. We introduced the parts of our head with hair (eyebrows, eyelashes, moustache and beard – I just about avoided focusing on nasal hair). From “haircut” we got on to “trim”, “shave” and other verbs and nouns connected to hairdressing. They then chatted about their barbers and hairdressing without much input from me. Success.

Today’s episode from the life of Jesus was problematic in the choosing as well as in the teaching. I am trying to get through Mark’s gospel and we are making fairly good progress. I chose not to do it verse-by-verse for several reasons. Firstly there is so much and there is so much that is difficult to understand. Secondly “Who am I to make the judgement call about what to leave out and what to include?” (That one can be a bit scary). But once my mind is made up I have to think about what is manageable each session. Today I looked at Peter’s confession in Mark 8 but it was just four verses (among the most amazing in the Bible). I really wanted to look at them. But then I thought this section was too little. So I thought let’s look at the next three verses about Jesus speaking about his death. I’m not convinced it was a mistake to do this. But to choose a second passage just to lengthen the first?? (Doesn’t sound great to me). Still, on we go.
We read in mother tongues and asked for a summary in English. I was so pleased that most of them realised that Jesus’ big question was the central point. In my simplified paraphrase I had written that he was the “Special One” from God. I avoided using Messiah (because that would need explaining even more than “Special One”. But imagine my surprise when it came out that the Bengali translation actually said “You are God” at least that’s what two of the learners took it to mean. I mean it’s true (but does it actually say that in this text). How to handle this one? Don’t we Christians actually believe that he is “God”? Yes we do! But is that all there is to it? Not by a long chalk. So I’m afraid this issue gets kicked into the long grass for the moment. It did take Jesus’ disciples three years of being with him to answer the question correctly. Pray that God will help me to faithfully show these friends the answer to that question as we encounter Jesus in reading his teachings, his actions and his character.

A quart into a pint pot??

May 31, 2014
Maybe I should have been more disappointed at the end. I didn’t manage to get my planned Bible reading in today. I did the preparation but another part of the lesson ran away from me. As for the language teaching – that went well. We started with a revision of last week’s work on facial hair. That sounds almost as weird as it actually was – but it was fun. After this it was time to introduce the vocabulary and phrases on health. We had to practise a telephone conversation to a college explaining an absence (owing to illness). We continued trying to produce the “tr” and “br” sounds with some difficulty and with great hilarity. This week we tried a low barking sound from the back of the throat to produce the “r” sound in them. Some success.

I tried something new again this week (new for me anyway). I made sure that we learnt and practised the language that was in my paraphrase of Mark 9. I wanted to prepare the learners as much as possible so they would have as much understanding as possible. I had the same trouble as last week in choosing the passage. This week I was had a feeling of angst over whether I had “bottled out” of the passage in front of me. It was Jesus’ transfiguration. A real teaching opportunity. A chance to say something really special about Jesus. The other candidate passage was the demon-possessed boy. Well we had already studied at least one case of deliverance from a demon this term. But the Transfiguration passage, although not too long, would need an awful lot of explanation.

I opted for the more straightforward passage. But it wasn’t so straightforward after all. It was too long (sounds like somebody telling Mozart his music has too many notes). I wanted it to fit on half a page of A4. So I cut it. I cut and pasted from the time Jesus saw the boy right up to his leaving with his disciples. Didn’t feel comfortable about that. I reckon the introduction really does set the scene for Jesus uttering the words “Oh faithless generation. How long do I have to stay with you?” Still, you can’t say everything.
Quite late on, a francophone African woman joined us. She used to come a year or so back. We welcome her and continued looking at things that trouble us and people who could not help us. We also practised using the phrase “ask about” and “told… about”. These are all in the paraphrase. The evil spirit “troubled” the boy, The disciples “could not help”; Jesus “asked about” the boy; and the father “told him about” his son. All this preparation and we ran out of time for the reading and discussion. Never mind. We’ll do it next time. In the meantime they can take home their copies of the passage to read for themselves. I can pray that God will use what they have in their hands.

There is no “i” in “team”

June 7, 2014
No angst, uncertainty or questioning today … (joke!) But seriously, I am happy. I just don’t want to confuse my happiness or adrenalin (which go up and down with the weather) with success. Just because I am happy doesn’t mean that I am wise or right. I am fairly confident that I can teach the language stuff tolerably. That’s not my problem. But sometimes I feel so pathetic in the Bible part of the lessons. I feel as though there is an open goal but there is no striker to put the ball in the net. There is so much willingness on the part of the class to participate and to engage, but the limitations of their language means that I need some really clear and simple objectives to ensure that a coherent gospel is presented overall.

I’m not worried that we don’t get the “whole” gospel “in” every week. Not at all. Jesus didn’t teach that way did he? Where is the gospel in the parable of the Prodigal Son? It’s in the news that God the Father has an amazing, forbearing, yearning love which reaches out to those who have previously rejected and spurned him. I dare you to find anything there about the atonement (or election). You’ll just find the love of a Father. Isn’t that good news? It really is. But how do I make sure that at the end of a term they have heard enough to know that they urgently need to turn to that Father (who is also a judge)?

Part of my problem is that I am not part of a team. Yes my church backs me and is interested. Some friends have even said they are encouraged by this work. But I don’t have the kind of close support of a colleague who constructively criticizes and helps you to get things in proportion. Don’t you sometimes feel you need the same? I do. What to do???I know!.. I’ll pray for one.

Today the seven Gujarati, French and Bengali speakers went through the story of Jesus healing a demon possessed boy (Mark 9). When it came to reading out loud – they all do so really willingly (that is an assurance to me that they don’t simply tolerate this part of the lesson). One significant challenge today – in the discussion of the passage one of the men pointed out that only “the prophet” (he didn’t use the name Jesus) had power to heal this boy and to do all of the things which we had been reading about in previous weeks. I didn’t want to enter into a controversy over him being more than a prophet. So I just pointed out that Jesus had been disappointed with the disciples precisely because they hadn’t shown the faith needed to help the boy. It’s great to have this kind of engagement and challenge. I just pray that God will make me “up to” responding wisely.

No class next week. (I’m off to Legoland with my family).

Post in Progress – Help!!!!

This is an odd blog post. It is a subject that has been brought into sharp focus for me. I am looking for help. Firstly where there are things wrong in this post I want to correct them and secondly I want it to conform to the template of the rest of the entries (500 words) that means losing about 250 words from it. CAN YOU HELP. Post away.

I am a witness. A witness for Jesus Christ. My job is to try to live well and to tell others about the Good News of Jesus and what it means for us. This ESOL class is just one of the myriad platforms God has given us to do this. Giving a cup of cold water to an enemy is another, living lives of integrity in the middle of crookedness are other means God gives opportunities for us to tell that Good News. We don’t need badges or bumper stickers for Jesus. Nor do we need to see how many times a minute we can turn a conversation to mention “God”, “Jesus” or “Sheep”. Ahh but being a witness definitely does mean being wise to those opportunities. And it will involve overcoming the fear of being thought a weirdo. So there is a bit of a tightrope here. But it’s one I walk as an ESOL teacher (and as a dad, and a teacher and as a neighbour). Who do I tell? What do I tell? and When do I tell it?

I know the number one specious argument in this area, “If you believe they are going to hell you should be out there all the time telling them to be saved”. But it doesn’t cut it with me. I ask God (not enough) that he will give me something worth saying. That means the more I know a person the more I can legitimately (or sensibly) say without putting my foot in my mouth or being like a bull in a china shop. Of course this Good News also carries profound offensiveness in it. But if I am to cause offence I don’t want it to be because of my stupidity and insensitivity.

So what is worth saying? Well any of the truths of the Bible that are appropriate to a particular conversation at a particular time. There is obviously stuff you really want the chance to say. But you can rarely say it all at once (no good teacher dumps everything there is to say all at once). So what do I think are the things that we all really need to know. I really want my ESOL class friends to know that God is their creator and that he has been kind to them in more ways than they could count. I also want them to know that they offend God in more ways than they could imagine (through their choices, inner lives, thoughts and behaviours). I really want them to know that one day God will judge our lives. We have to know that lives lived without him will lead to an everlasting death. That is what everlasting separation from God’s love is. This is really bad news – but I want them to know that they really do deserve that everlasting loneliness, regret and pain.

Of course most of all I want them to know the good news. I want them to know that Jesus is the most amazing person who ever lived. I want them to know that he perfectly shows us God’s character. If we want to know how loving, just, patience, merciful or wise God is we simply look at Jesus. There is not a cigarette paper width of difference between them (because they are one). I want them to know that Jesus did a very amazing thing showed the most amazing personal love when he came to be a man and to take the punishment deserved by people like me. I want them to know that they need to talk to God as honestly as they are able owning up to what they understand about themselves and asking him to forgive and put them right.

There are a hundred and one Episodes, songs, histories, characters and teachings that God has put into my hands when I have a Bible. The question is which ones are appropriate to share with a given individual at a given time. Certainly not some “off pat” formulation which takes no account or care of who I am speaking to. No. Rather, like Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman I must listen carefully and allow the person to question more or to close down the conversation. But I must speak intelligently to the person in front of me (not to some imagined or worse still “generic” person). So in short. In these classes I think I must ask God for the chance to share the things he seems to have taught me are the most critical things. But if my hearer doesn’t engage at that level I will try to share other, more relevant but less amazing things.

What are you smiling about?

June 28, 2014
Can it be true? Is it possible? Is it allowed even? I was happy. Not deliriously – just really happy with the way the lesson went. It wasn’t perfect. I could find some holes in it if you like. But it did go well. It’s down to that little word again – “preparation”. Last week I found that the Bible part of the lesson was turgid in that it was just so difficult to read even my simplified version of the text. So this week (last night actually) I went for shorter sentences each of which had a single simple thought and which were adverb and adjective “lite”.

We recapped on last week’s work on prepositions of time: “at”, “in” and “on”. They remembered how to use them for large (in), smaller (on) and the smallest units of time (at). This was a good start. I had planned to build on this. We did this first by having them chat together and use a gapfill exercise as a template for making their own sentences – really good.

Then came the fruits of the preparation. I gave out several cards which had short phrases or single words on them. The learners didn’t know that all of these words would be in today’s Bible reading. So they read and practiced pronouncing these words. Then they had to talk with partners using the phrase or words in short sentences. This worked really well with several of them forming interesting ones. We all laughed when one woman said “My husband left town for me” (because of love- work it out!). Such moments are small but precious helps in building relationships. I collected those cards in and gave out picture cards which illustrated the same phrases and words. The class managed to match all of them. My confidence levels were really high at this point because I really thought that when we came to read the Bible text we would already be clued in. This proved to be the case.

When preparing and choosing the passage I had actually forgotten that one of the learners was blind himself. So while the others were reading or chatting I told him what the episode was about today. It was the story of the healing of Blind Bartimaeus. (What a name to have to pronounce). I probably should have just said “the Blind beggar”. These stories are easy to tell. But again they can remain at the level of story. So at the end of the reading and discussion I concluded that God says that we are all “blind” in our hearts. We just don’t understand. We don’t understand him or just how wrong we are and how we have offended him. Jesus, who gave understanding and sight to this blind man can give us that same understanding. The man really believed Jesus was God’s Special One who could help him. I finished off by saying that we can ask Jesus for that same faith and understanding now.

Getting better all the time

July 5, 2014

Gladder and gladder or more and more self-deluded? Obviously we can be both at the same time. But I choose to believe that God is helping me improve in my teaching. Little by little; two steps forward, one step back. But forward nevertheless. Today’s lesson went really well. We had just three. (The month of Ramadan and a job interview accounted for most of the missing.)
We introduced the six verbs, “go, come, ride, welcome, think and tell”. Why them? Because they all had something to do with today’s episode from the life of Jesus. We worked them out from pictures and then looked at some rules for their usage. We came across several mispronunciations common in each of our language groups. There seems to be no “rhotic” or “r” sound in Bengali, so “ride” was a problem. Then the “th” unvoiced sound in “think” was a problem for the Gujarati speaking Indian. I really need to start taking down notes on these.
So this is week 18 and we are onto Jesus’ Triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In my personal readings I had studied Mark 11 several times this week and had read a William Hendriksen commentary to help me to sort out the wood from the trees (he was great). So my simplified English paraphrase was based on our chosen verbs and on insight from Hendriksen. It worked really well.
We read the passage in mother tongues, and then I asked for something new. I asked the learners to retell the passage in those languages. The point? To get them familiar with the facts and the narrative before going on the recount the passage in English and to uncover its meaning. We should put a premium on understanding (rather than mere “hearing”). I know that without God’s mercy and the gift of faith that he gives, all this understanding will count for nothing. But if he says to love him “with all your heart, MIND and strength” then we must make our gospel as undersatandable as we can.
You can only imagine my delight as the stories we had previously studied seemed to roll off the tongue to give meaning to this triumphal entry. The class did more than acquiesce. They recognised that the Jesus they had been reading about was amazing (of course as Muslims they see him as just an amazing prophet). This is why I feel the need to gently assert that he is more than either a man or prophet. He comes straight from God; he is the Son of God (that formulation is meant to get me out of the hole of saying he is “God the Son”). He came to suffer for the wrong and guilt of his people. He came to rescue those who believe in him (I was so happy to have one learner offer the word “trust” instead of believe). If you pray then continue to ask that God will give opportunity and will bless this little work with usefulness.

Only a Messenger

4 October 2014

Eid al Adha today, so nearly all of the shops I saw on the way to class were shut. Why mention this? Well, about half of those who had registered for places were Muslims. So how many students would turn up today? When I turned the corner I saw three women waiting outside the building. They were Lithuanians. I opened up and they were closely followed by a Pole and several Romanians. Great to see men and women wanting to learn at 10 o’clock on a Saturday morning. A little later in came an Indian and a few Bengalis. Wow. By the end of the morning there were seventeen.
Today’s lesson began with introductions. After a “tour” of the premises we wrote our names on the whiteboard and told everybody a little about ourselves. I sat back and listened to their intros. Some had broken English, some almost non existent but all were willing to share something. It’s really humbling to think that God has woven these friends’ stories to bring them into this class at this time.
We began the lesson proper, with work on “Warnings”. There is tons of language to be got out of this as we looked at slipping, tripping, hitting and falling. We went on to study “invitations”, using some of the words and events that go with them. What’s the connection? In our study of Mark’s Gospel I wanted to introduce John the Baptiser as the bearer of a warning and an invitation. We read the sheets which consisted of the text of Mark 1:1-13 in their mother tongues along with my simplified summary. One of the older Lithuanian ladies seemed a little distressed. She asked if the church was a Christian Church. Was she about to say she couldn’t take part in the reading? She said she was Catholic. But she seemed to be asking if it was alright for her to be involved. I reminded her that when I had prayed at the beginning I had not asked them to participate. I had also said that we were going to read and talk about Jesus (not be involved in worship). She was relieved and then reassured by her friend.

We stopped at the end of each sentence of the reading to check understanding. It was great to be able to describe John the Baptiser as a messenger. To reinforce this we discussed the words courier (DHL, Parcel Force etc), runner (taking messages) and ambassador. I said that essentially an ambassador was “only” a messenger. He doesn’t speak for himself at all. The best ambassadors see themselves as messengers (even though they are highly skilled). I wanted to position John where the text put him. He was only a messenger who marked the coming of God’s Great King. I’m really looking forward to being a bit like John in the weeks to come. Pray that I will be a good messenger and that I won’t get in the way of God’s amazing message.

A glad teacher

October 2014
What is it that validates me? What gives me my sense of self worth? Jesus tells me to be really glad that I am counted and remembered by my Father in heaven. So I reckon when nobody looks at my facebook or blog reports; no student effusively thanks me; and the class is down to zero I should remember that God is good and great and that he loves me and knows what he’s doing even if I don’t.

Our church family asks God to make us useful to neighbours. We ask him for the chance to tell neighbours about Jesus by sending them into our ESOL class. And he does it (and in our eyes, it is amazing). Well, there seems to be no pleasing some people. I want more. Why? It would be great to have somebody working alongside me (no violins please). A work like this needs more than just a teacher. There is registration to be done; furniture to be moved; refreshments to be bought and prepared; photocopying to be done and stuff I can’t even think about at the moment. Then there is direct face to face teaching and relating to the students themselves. That “should” be done by more than one person shouldn’t it? Don’t get me wrong. It’s great for me to be involved in the way that I am. But it is lonely too. And then there is the temptation (for me) to think it’s all about me (really?). Then there’s the temptation to bitterness too (towards God or others). Most insidiously of all (??) there is the tendency to think that things are great because “something” is going on.

Enough of this self-flagellation. What a tremendous privilege to be able to present God’s good news in this way. I don’t deserve the honour of being involved in these people’s lives or of helping them to understand this, the best of news. Even I can see something of how haltingly I express this. Even I can see what a small and seemingly insignificant work it is but I thank God for all the people he has used to invest in my life and to make me the teacher that I am. Any good thing I have comes from him.

If you feel inclined to pray, you could pray that this door of opportunity will stay open and that others will come alongside and that I won’t mess up. You could also give thanks and praise for this little work here in east London.

The best laid plans…

October 11, 2014
Six minutes to go and nobody here. But these days I am long past hyper-ventilating over whether anybody will turn up or not. Five minutes, four … then in comes the first learner, followed quickly by others. By half past nine we are good to go, with thirteen seemingly “beamed in” from nowhere. We begin the lesson with pictures of policemen, parents and weightlifters. This is to introduce vocabulary and phrases around authority and power. Why? Because later our reading will be on Jesus the king (Mark 1:14-28). Then a most pleasant surprise. In comes a Christian friend from our church. She has come to help. Wow! Only one problem I haven’t planned her into the lesson. I don’t want her to sit there feeling like a lemon so we involve her from minute one. We all give our names and I jokingly offer her a tenner if she can remember them. She has just heard a dozen Bengali, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian and Indian names They were spoken at different speeds and volumes with varying degrees of clarity. (My tenner is safe). We laugh and carry on with “free speaking” work that collapses like a bad souffle(??). They are not yet confident of making mistakes in front of each other.

Today I found that an hour and a half is plenty of time to get lots of useful stuff done. We won’t even have to rush the Bible reading (if I can stay disciplined). I distributed the texts of Mark 1 and they read them in their own languages. We followed this with reading aloud the simplified version, looking for points where it matched the original.
A ten minute break and we start the second class. This one couldn’t have been more different. I was amazed. My lesson plan went out of the window after two minutes of ice-breaking. What had worked so well “languagewise” in the last lesson hadn’t been great socially. So this time we began with the half dozen or so learners writing their names on the board in alphabetical order (let’s see you do that without talking!). They talked a lot, laughed even more and got a bucketful of English out of it. What’s not to like?

Only one cloud on our horizon today. This class is generally weaker than the first one. I reckoned the Bible reading task is beyond most of them. So with some disappointment I ditched it. Instead I wrote on the board the words “Next week we will learn about Jesus”. I read it and gave a short explanation. I felt this was not satisfactory because it was rather “parachuted” in. But I did want to put down a marker so that they knew that in future weeks we would be learning about Jesus. If I had been quicker on my feet I would have found something in the lesson that would have naturally leant itself to “Godtalk”. But not today. Ah well. In God’s goodness there is always next week. Pray for us.

Help at Hand

11 October 2014
Was it my wonderful personality and powers of persuasion or was it God at work sending this friend along to help for the day? He seemed really up for it, and so was I. I was so excited. Somebody who could help and who would see the wonderful situation I think God has been crafting over these weeks. Fourteen learners have faithfully trooped in by the end of the lesson. But we start with twelve who go through a Powerpoint on the language of health. This will help us to read and understand our Bible passage later. I get carried away with pronunciation and with ensuring that their speech sounds fluent and natural rather than stilted and electronic. My fellow English speaker intervenes at regular intervals and makes some great suggestions and corrections to the language of the class. We then go on to produce our written work. This gives us a chance to go around to learners individually and to check work and understanding. It means that the extra pair of hands is used to good effect and my voice gets a rest. I hear my friend give the learners loads of encouragements and this is music to my ears. I’m convinced that encouragement needs to be given in a measured and appropriate way (by the bucketload!) This is how (along with liberal doses of humour) we reassure adults that it’s okay to make mistakes even when they feel their limitations are exposed to all and sundry.
We miss the breaktime chat and go straight onto the Bible text about Jesus healing (Mark 1:29-45). First we read the mother tongue translations and then the simplified text. Time was rushing on, and after some talk about disciples (and how they differed from students) and some illustrating of the concept of leprosy (which should have been done earlier), we ploughed on. In future I want to make sure there is time for discussion rather than me simply explaining and elaborating on the passage.
The second lesson of the day was amazingly different. This time nine of us began in the kitchen with coffee, biscuits and chat: a lovely ice breaker. On taking our places in the classroom the learners and I went on to look at a couple of questions about prepositions (“Portugal is in Lisbon??”) Then we continued the lesson much the same as the previous one except that this time I have to help one Farsi speaking woman to form some of her letters.
This was the class that missed out on the Bible text last week. I was determined this wouldn’t happen today. So although I still didn’t have the time I wanted, I managed to read the simplified passage myself with a couple of stops and elaborations along the way.
Result of the day? One shattered but delighted teacher, one encouraged helper and 22 happy learners (23 if you count me and the lessons I learned from the debriefing my friend gave). Results for eternity? Who knows??

A picture paints …

October 29, 2014
The lesson started brilliantly with Alan (our helper) introducing himself and asking the class members about themselves. They responded really well to good questioning. It meant they were comfortable and wanting to try out their English in a “natural” conversational setting. Top marks to everyone.
I prepare almost as much material for this class as for my all day classes combined. That is amazing, as I teach 15 hours a week for one of my employers (and I love that work). I am careful to make sure that my material reflects the ethnic backgrounds, ages and genders of the learners as far as possible. The has to clearly illustrate the relevant language concept and has to be of good enough quality for classroom use. Sometimes I will wade through over a hundred pictures to get the one I want. When an illustration works, it really is worth a thousand words. Learners get the great satisfaction of working out stuff for themselves, and the job of teaching and learning is made much easier. So you can imagine my satisfaction at seeing preparation rewarded with great learning.
Today I wanted us to end up looking at Jesus healing the paralysed man. So the language leading up to this was the language of health and healing. We looked at phrasal verbs and short phrases to do with clinics, hospitals, opticians and dentists. Next time I think I will ask for them to make “sentence pairs” linking our language items. So, “He came to see the new baby” and “ He went up to the fourth floor” would go together nicely. All of the phrases came out of my simplification of the passage Mark 2:1-14. So when we did our pronunciation and sentence work we were “good to go”. And so we did. Today we had a woman who spoke Telugu so I had to go online and get hold of the passage in her language and cut and paste it into a worksheet (amazing stuff).
In the second class I found that two of the learners struggled to read in their own languages (French and Portuguese). One of them was finding even this difficult. It made me think I need to get “Easy to Read” Bible versions in their languages.
It was absolutely brilliant to be able to bring together what we had learned in past lessons. I loved painting a coherent picture of the wonderful person of Jesus Christ, the loving and powerful healer who is God’s special king with power to forgive, and who had been announced by his herald, John.
I feel more preparation coming on. I want to make a small newsletter type publication in easy English giving news from the community, the learners and their countries as well as Bible material. Where will the time for this come from? Some things are certain. It mustn’t stolen from my family or my employer. Note to self: the God of the Bible is the maker and Lord of time.

Decisions, Decisions

November 1, 2014
It’s great to feel that there can be real coherence in these lessons. We really are making links and seeing themes. And what great themes they are: “God’s kingdom is near, and his king has come to show his authority, power and love.” That’s what we have been teaching so far. It’s wonderful to have this opportunity. Today we were up to Mark 2:13-28 where that king is in conflict with the religious authorities. By accepting a real outsider (Levi), and the actions of his disciples, Jesus places himself beyond the pale.
Last night I got to work on the text of the lesson which is actually the main driver of our language work My first struggle was “How long should I make our passage?”. Then came, “What are its main points, words and concepts?” “What usable everyday language can we squeeze from it”, came next. Following on from this we need to have an “everyday theme” for the lesson. Today it was the language of dinner parties. After settling on the theme there is more language selection to be done. “Which ‘Bible words’ are clear enough for us to use?” I don’t want “sinner” It’s got too wide a range of meanings and begs too many questions. After looking at “wrong un”, “bad people” and “criminal” I go for “wrongdoer”. Of course the ideas of “offender”, “transgression” and “pollution” are missing (but we’ll get there eventually. Rome wasn’t built in a day).
The first part of the lessons were spent asking learners about various dinner parties they had been too. I volunteer “Eid” before anybody else does. This results in a discussion about Eid ul Adha and Eid ul Fitr. Then we work our way through a Powerpoint and end up with paired work in which learners help each other to make and write sentences. These are based on the phrases we learnt earlier. This works really well. One Bengali lady has perfect sentences. I’ll have to make sure she extends them and make complex ones next time. There are two words I want to look at in isolation today. They are “wrongdoer” and “forgive”. Neither of them fit naturally within the scope of “party language”. That’s why I ask the learners up to the board to write “wrongdoer” in their own languages. We get there after some mildly heated discussion between them (really productive).
Today there were only (only!??) six in the first class and five in the second. If that continues I will combine them and make the session a little longer. But I was glad to have a text and a notification of absence from two learners. I will have to text the others and say if they aren’t regular I will have to give their places away. It is important to make sure we are all on the same page as far as valuing the class is concerned. I pray these will be the most valuable classes the learners have ever had. Will you pray with me?

It’s Great to Relate

8 Nov 2014
I thought of marking today’s lesson down as a “fail”. But I don’t think I can. My lack of preparation this week meant that although the language teaching went well, there was other stuff missing.
There were seventeen learners between the two classes today, with one text to say another was at a funeral. We started our lessons by putting the menu on the board. The learners then all wrote their names down on a paper so that I could write notes about their English as we went along. We briefly talked to each other about our week and then I take one of the more grammatically mistake-ridden sentences and wrote it onto the board for us to edit. No embarrassment there. The speaker just wanted to see his sentence put right.
Today our main theme was “plans”. I chose this because it seemed to arise from the passage we were up to in Mark’s Gospel (3:1-19). I thought it was obvious. For a start, Jesus’ enemies went out and planned his destruction. Then you might say Jesus was planning for the time of his departure by calling and equipping 12 men. Well, I think it works. We wrote down several words connected with planning and used these to form short phrases. Then inevitably we asked about each others plans for the day and got lots of language work from that (future, past and present as well as prepositions of time). I was delighted with the spoken and written work and made that clear to the class. They produced some good spoken work which could be understood by native English speakers.
The coffee break was very successful in promoting the chattiness and interaction that I was looking for. However, panic set in as the realisation that we wouldn’t have time for our look at the Bible dawned on me. As I didn’t want to do a pathetic little reading just to tick that box, I left it (again). I was sorely tempted but instead I just showed them the title of our reading sheet, “The Pharisees’ plan”. I said that this was what we had been heading towards but that we would cover it next week.
I am so glad to be a local lad. It brings so many little interactions. At the end of one lesson a learner said she would see me on Tuesday when I teach her son. Another came to me with immigration correspondence from the Home Office which she found confusing. It took just a couple of minutes to reassure her of what she needed to do. I will be teaching one of the other class members on Tuesday in my “day job”. It’s great to relate. It meant that over the past couple of weeks I have bumped into five or six of the class members in the street, shop and station. It doesn’t look like much but I’m sure that God often uses such small interactions to achieve good purposes. Pray that he will.

Warts and All

22 Nov 2014
This the second time Alan has come across to help at class. That means he gets to see it close-up, warts and all. Today I want to talk about the warts.
Are we biting off more than we can chew on this one. God often wants believers to do this. Why? So that when anything good is achieved it is more obvious that it was done by him. On the other hand, he wants us to use our brains, count the cost, and to do things well.

So what does counting the cost mean in this case? It means looking for trouble. The first potential for trouble is in choosing the text which drives the lesson. If it’s too long the reading becomes difficult, confusing and turgid. But if it’s too short we will take forever getting through the Gospel of Mark. I want to get from beginning to end in about thirty weeks (one academic year). That means one chapter every two weeks. Is that right? I don’t know. Will we have failed those learners who don’t stay the course because of changed work, family, housing or health needs? A lot can happen in thirty weeks!

Then there is the question of choosing the “right” language. Just as we have British English (right) and American English (wrong), so there is Brazilian Portuguese and African Portuguese and Portuguese Portuguese etc. We found one of the learners thought that her “Portuguese” text was not right. That reminds me – one week a Romanian looked down her nose at the letters indicating foonotes and snorted (playfully) this is not real Romanian (footnotes all subsequently scrapped). Once we have the languages right I have to choose from alternative translations. I just hope (and pray) that I am not giving the equivalent of the King James Version to any learner. This means I am reduced to looking for the initials NIV in various combinations or spotting the year two thousand and something in the version title to make my choice. This is not a sensible way to make such an important decision.

Another possible pitfall with the text is in its printing. I’ve had to source about 8 different translations in languages with five different scripts from four different websites. The fun and games occur when the verse numbers are unrecognisable. This week because of my carelessness I messed up on printing the passage in Lithuanian. This sort of slip happens very rarely (I think).

Okay we have sorted the text. But is it really readable for the individual learner. One or two of them are not fluent in reading their own language because of lack of schooling. Today Alan sat with one of these to support her reading in French (will we need a simplified French version?) How amazing, wonderful, stressful, exciting and humbling to be in such a mess. What a tremendous privilege it is.

If you pray for this work, then do ask God to bless us with wisdom and help.

I’m so happy!!

14 Dec 2014
The only thing that could make me happier would be if God gave faith to even one of our class. That sounds a bit shallow. God doesn’t save people to make me happy. The saving of people is a far more serious than that. Anyhow. I am really happy. Happy that we have reached the end of term; happy that the class is still running and happy that we have had two really enthusiastic helpers in during this time. So today was party time.

We combined the two classes and so had a total of 14 students today. When we eventually started, we reviewed some of the past term’s work. Because each lesson’s aims are written out on a flip chart we could remind ourselves of their elements. Best of all, we got to recall the episodes from Mark’s Gospel which we have read. I was excited that there were several ideas that had obviously stuck. Somebody referred to Jesus being “God’s king”. This is a phrase I am confident they got from a lesson. Others recalled that the Pharisees “planned” to “destroy” Jesus. One piped up with the disciples’ wonderful question “Who is this man…?” These were just some of the opportunities to take things further.

One learner remembered the “jealousy” of the Pharisees. From this we had an extended discussion about whether jealousy was always bad. We ended up agreeing that it could be a good thing in the case of a husband or wife (and that God describes himself as jealous). This meant I could point out that God “treasures” his people; the people who own up to him that they are in the wrong and that they trust Jesus to put them right. I said that he cares for all people but that his treasured people are the ones who trust him in this way. Of course I have made that sound much clearer here. But still, I did say something approximating to this in the lesson. Other subjects that came up were Santa Claus and St Nicolas, the non-dating of Christmas and the writing of the Bible.

Lesson done. It was now party time. We showed photos of our families and homelands and chatted about them while the “eats” were laid out. Beautiful. On the same table we had Indian, Bengali, Lithuanian and Romanian foods as well as Monster Munch crisps. What a great way to finish the term. At the very end of the lesson the last two remaining after washing up were a young Polish woman and a retired Indian man. I just found it wonderful that she rushed towards him calling him back and gave him a hug to say goodbye. Such small golden moments remind me that this is not a lecture room and I am not a lecturer. I hope I am a witness. A witness who tells people the Gospel of Jesus and a witness who hopes to see God at work in the lives of these dear people.

An Invitation to what?

16 Dec 2014
“Teacher I want to say something”. Uh-oh what’s going on here? I have just given out today’s leaflet with the Bible passage from Mark’s Gospel. Immediately she, a Lithuanian grandmother, responded by saying “I am very, very, very happy to get this”. Wow! It gets better – she said she sent the last one to her relative in the USA. Amazing!!

We believe that personal relationships are really important when ordinary Christians like us share the gospel. We are not all evangelists (they have a different role and can come at things “cold”). But for me it is important that we common-or-garden Christians relate to people well. So, I am really encouraged when one of the class asks me for help with her immigration letters or another digs out a broadband advert from her handbag and asks about it. I am as pleased as Punch when I bump into a couple of others on the road in the week or when I teach the child of one them. I pray that God will make these interactions meaningful and worthwhile (even if they are only small steps along the way to conversion).

Here we are running classes to which Muslims, Hindus, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics regularly come and engage with Mark’s gospel week by week. We are free to do a hundred and one things together. We could even interview a Christian and hear about his or her life. We could look at the progress of the Christian Church in their lands or God’s common grace in their cultures. Why would we want to invite them to a Church praise meeting? Why? If one of them were a believer in Jesus I would invite them like a shot. If there were a meeting that was specifically for them, again I would quickly invite them. But I would be much quicker to invite them to my home or a cafe where they could engage with me and other believers. What’s the point of turning people into churchgoers. I don’t see the apostles Paul or John inviting people to church. I see them going to where the people are: in their synagogues and in their marketplaces, and places for prayer and in their Speakers’ Corners. I even hear of them witnessing in prison and in palaces. But in Church worship services? Not at all.

Next week we will eat food from Lithuania, Romania, Bangladesh, India, Portugal and other places (I hope). We will also share, and talk about photos of our families and homelands. Which is preferable? For them to hear the “syllables” that make up our preaching and to misunderstand the grammar and mishear the words, or to address them directly and personally? For me it’s a no brainer. Do pray that over time we will clearly make use of this great opportunity. Pray that we will clearly present it and that we will commend it too. Pray that God will bless that those he has put in front of us.

How many is enough?

18 Jan 2015
Today’s class was the first of the new year and at first it promised to be a damp squib. Only two students were there at nine-thirty and they were followed by just two others a little later. But hey – it was a cold, wet Saturday morning in January. So who’s counting? Me! If the numbers are this low I have decisions to make, classes to merge, and advertising to do (quickly). All of this to be thought of while remembering that I believe it is God who is in control of numbers and circumstances, not me. Anyhow, it turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile lesson. All we did was introduce the term’s work and the assessments we are planning for next week.

In the introduction we browsed a gallery of pictures on the BBC website. The young Polish woman stopped us at a photo of Parisians showing their support of free speech in the light of the recent (Charlie Hebdo) terrorist shootings. She asked me what I made of the issue. Gulp! This led to a lengthy and entirely friendly discussion during which I said that freedom of speech was so important that it trumped any desire “not to be offended”. I said that even if the cartoons had been insulting to Jesus I would say the publishers should be free to publish. Why? Well there are many reasons. I certainly agreed with her that the cartoonists in question were “bad minded” but I felt (as did she) that it was God’s place to deal with that. I asked for a Bible to be brought to me. Then I went on to tell the story of William Tyndale and how he illegally translated and published this book and was pursued around Europe, caught and burned at the stake for doing so. If I want Christians have the freedom to publish a book that offends so many (the Bible), then the same freedom must surely belong to others. Great discussion. Great English practice.

The second class was an entirely different matter. Six started the lesson. We set off with some work on collocations (words that go together in fixed expressions). We corrected “merry birthday”, “chips and fish” and a “quick train”. We will be doing a lot of this work this term. This made for a lively and fun introduction. And it needed to be as we had a latecomer arrive with half the lesson gone. He was a Bengali with very little English. With him was his wife who was probably born here and speaks great English. Because we were not actually reading the Bible this week I wanted to make sure that there was some reference to it so that it would not come out of left field next week. I simply asked one of the other Bengali learners to get his worksheet with the text of Mark’s gospel and show it to our new couple. Job done. I’m looking forward to next week already.

Telling stories

7 Feb 2015
So our ESOL lessons are just stories? You mean we just make them up? That’s about it. People love stories. Not just children but adults too. I think God has just made us that way. That’s probably why most of the Bible is given in narrative form. We follow, make sense of and learn from stories. That’s why I am a believer that a good teacher is essentially a story teller who has many different ways of helping learners to learn by leading (or accompanying) them through a process that is “storylike” in nature.
So today’s lesson had a starting point. It made progress along a route and had an end in view. Throughout there was some coherence (honestly) and it should have been appropriately aimed and well-paced. That’s about it. So forget about all of the equipment or books we might wish we had. Really we are narrators helping to make sense of what is unfamiliar (I think that even goes for Maths and Science let alone History). Our greatest resources are actually our own lives and those of our students. These lives are packed with colour, experience and reflection all waiting to be exploited. No question! This is an approach which gives tons of fulfillment as well as sweat and stress. I wouldn’t want to dispense with other resources (like books, pens, computers etc). But they are just helps. That’s all.
The lesson started with an icebreaker. We used the mobile app “Google voice search” to test our pronunciation skills. We drilled the phrase “What’s the weather in…” and then added our countries of birth to it. So we found that while in Poland it’s minus 2 degrees C, in Ahmedabad it’s 30. Wonderful. Everybody was successful as the app recognised what they were saying and made verbal responses. You could say it was a stand-alone short story. Along with our “phrases” work it played it’s part in achieving the “happily ever after” of better pronunciation and fluency.
The time rushed on and so our vocabulary work was shortened. This section of the lesson always prepares us for the passage we are to read from Mark’s Gospel. Today the words were “wondered, taught, questioned, surprised, carpenter and home town” We were looking at Jesus receiving no honour in his hometown. I am still beggared that it is so possible to work towards the text in this way and that it is so well received. (Oh me of little faith).
At the end of the lesson we voted to give ourselves more time in the future. One and a half hours is not enough for this class of twelve. We hope to extend future weeks by half an hour for those who want to stay on for coffee and chat. Next week our Polish student will take over this session and tell us about Poland. I’m looking forward to Polish, pictures, drinks, sweets and who knows what else. Whatever happens – she will be the storyteller.

Iron sharpens Iron

28 Feb 2015
God hasn’t designed the Christian life to be lived alone. We need others. He gives them to strengthen our faith, to correct us and to pick us up when we are down. I am always grateful for this kind of “fellowship” in what would otherwise be a solitary and lonely work. Look out for such people yourself (be such a person too).

Today I had the privilege of having Alan as a helper. Whenever he comes we eat a most unhealthy cooked breakfast at a local cafe before the lesson. During those times we chat about family, church, faith, chess and life. He is one of the means by which God keeps me sane in my manic existence.
Item number one on his agenda was today’s lesson aims. What an encouragement. Somebody actually thought and said that this morning’s happenings were that important. So we went on to read and talk about Jesus and the Canaanite woman (Mark 7).

We polished off breakfast and cycled to church for class. When we arrive a woman is waiting. I’ve not seen her before but she asks about the class and comes in. Oh no! I like to spend these minutes on setting up. But she is new and needs “entertaining”. Thankfully Alan is adept at making coffee and chatting. What a help!

The lesson began with work on prepositions. The focus being on spoken rather than written work. This work follows the ESOL formula of teaching the language needed for the task. So obviously prepositions would be an important part of our reading later.

It was great to see Alan so quick off the mark to help various students during the spoken parts of the lesson. He also brought lots of other stuff to the table, gently but confidently correcting, suggesting and drawing out various points in the lesson.

The students were really engaged with the text despite its difficulties. They wanted to read both in their mother tongue and in English. I just pray that God will use this enthusiasm and have mercy on them through it.

By the end of the lesson I was exhausted (not too exhausted to talk though). But then came the bonus of a chance to chill out and debrief. Here was a chance to hear somebody else’s take on the lesson. It was also an opportunity for me to share something of my excitement at what had just happened. The idea that somebody else could be so excited and lifted by what excited and lifted me only added to my … excitement and liftedness. We swapped notes and prayed that God would use this small work done today with eight adults from India, Bangladesh, Senegal, Lithuania and Iran. So far he has saved nobody at all through this means. But today was a reminder that I have a brother (well – several brothers and sisters) who pray that I will be a good servant and that God will be merciful to all of our students.

Joining up the dots

15 Mar 2015
Today we looked at Peter “joining up the dots” of what he had witnessed as he followed Jesus. He actually said that a living breathing human being (Jesus) was God’s Chosen King. How to express the enormity of that to our eleven learners today? We began by retracing some of our previous learning and saw that the question of Jesus’ identity had come up again and again. Only a couple of weeks ago we saw that some thought of him as “only a carpenter”. On another occasion we saw that Herod and others wondered who he was. Then further back there was the question “Who is this man…” asked by the disciples in the storm. It’s so obvious that Mark wants us to know that the question of Jesus’ identity is the question.

Because this passage doesn’t refer to Jesus as the Son of God nor did I. That comes later. For the moment he is “God’s Chosen King” who comes with the power and wisdom of God. It’s wonderful to see Mark paint these truths in such bold strokes as Jesus heals the sick, casts out demons and raises the dead. Which prophet did what he did? He is more than a prophet. The question is “How much more?” That’s what I want these students to “get” by God’s mercy. It is really hard for them to express their understanding in these lessons because English is their second language. That is why we place a premium on introducing the keywords of the text and talking around them.

This week I got most of the simplified text from a friend whose ideas inspire and help me. His use of the words “spokesman, clearly, secret, famous and rescue.” in his simplification of the passage helped me to tell it as an understandable story. The powerpoint of these words went down well too and led to lots of talk.

Eventually we shared out today’s leaflets. Each found the appropriate translation with the simplified English and read silently in their mother tongues. Then they read the simple English version. I wrote down some of their errors and pointed them important ones out (there were loads). This exercise is enough to make anyone despair of getting anywhere. I just hope I am not kidding myself about how much they are getting. Still, they keep coming back and they remember details of what we have done previously. They also make some great connections. This is enough to keep me going. I don’t know how they square all of this with their Islam or Hinduism. But God is merciful.

I pray that they will connect all of the events, teaching and miracles of Jesus. I ask that God will open their eyes to see that it is all good news. It’s not just a cleverly constructed narrative that hangs together nicely. No. It is the story of how God saves, transforms and gives eternal life to people who were far from him.
Pray with me

Counting the cost

15 Mar 2105
Today was different. Firstly, it was the first time since we started a year ago that we have had no Europeans in the class. Secondly, I looked around and saw there were more men in the class than women. So today there were eight men and three women. What’s happening there? Well it seems as good a time as any to do some figures.
In this class we have had cleaners, builders and sign writers and a trainee footballer as well as homemakers, pensioners, refugees, a software developer, a blind man and another with a hearing impairment. Nearly all of them live in private rented accommodation and live within walking distance of the Church building. Again and again it is surprising, humbling and great fun as well as thought-provoking to be involved in a small but significant way in the lives of these people. There have been over forty in the last twelve months. Attendance has varied between six and twenty. But most weeks now there are about a dozen. We have spent that time working slowly (snail’s pace through Mark’s Gospel) and we are only now on chapter 7. Some have left us and some joined us during that time.

The languages spoken by students have included Italian, French, Portuguese, Farsi, Thai, Malayalam, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Telegu, Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, Romanian and Gujarati. The religions represented have been Islam, Hinduism, Orthodox, Roman Catholicism, Buddhism and Evangelical Christian. Some have been here twenty years and others for just a few months.

The outlay has been minimal in terms of money. I would guess the church and I have actually spent less than two hundred pounds. There have been two helpers who have been in several times.

I had almost forgotten other costs. I guess I have spent the same number of hours on preparation and debriefing as I have spent on the teaching itself. Then there are the hidden costs of my own children who have had prime time Saturdays spent apart from their dad (I must do something about that one – God never did mean for us to rob Peter to pay Paul).

Numerous texts and phone calls reporting absences, expressing thanks, giving information and making requests. Friends and others reading 36 blog or facebook entries detailing the work of the class. We also had a wonderful (must be repeated) International Evening .

The biggest figure that weighs on my mind though is the figure zero. That is the number of people God has saved through this work. I know. I should be patient. And I know I may simply be a link in the chain. But I do want to praise him for seeing him at work in the lives of others. I want more than the inestimable enjoyment of helping and serving others. I want more than the enjoyment and adrenalin rush of teaching. I want to see people saved and Jesus glorified. It would be great but costly to be part of that.
Pray on

A wondrous unravelling

21 Mar 2015
There was nothing typical about today’s lesson. Nothing at all. We began in the land of hilarious mispronunciation and ended up on the trail of a runaway conversation.
The reading text on Jesus’ transfiguration (Mark 8) was changed late in the week because of some collaborative work with a friend. He also suggested that it would be relevant to make some reference to yesterday’s solar eclipse. I am such an impressionable chap that I decided to go with this during the first part of the lesson.

We came in and set out the furniture and shared what we had done during the week. Our Iranian mentioned that it was the Persian New Year yesterday. That led to lots of talk about different new years, the moon, the sun and how we calculate calendars. Really helpful. In came a new learner, a middle aged Bengali man. He came in and sat down only to change seats promptly to get nearer to me. He wears a hearing aid. This meant I had to make sure that my mouth was clearly visible to him during as much of the lesson as possible.

We started going through the flipchart containing previous lessons when some noticed a hesitation from me and then laughed. They realised that I had remembered the last page of the pad. On it I record the scores gained for pronunciation of the word “the”. They knew there would be laughs as they tried to “up” their marks. So after lots of blowing, hissing and pushing out of tongues we scored and corrected this really difficult sound (th).
Today we learned some chunks of language (collocations) related to light. I knew where I was going with this one. I knew that eventually we would be talking about the sun, the moon and the eclipse. This part went really well with many suggestions springing up.

It was exciting to see a video of yesterday’s eclipse. All sat in rapt attention as it played. Then we talked about the strength of the sun. This was an ideal chance to speak about worship (and some of God’s warnings). This is how we got on to Sunday, Monday and the other days of the week. This led one Bengali woman to ask about Christian worship on Sunday. It was now that the lesson began to wondrously unravel. We covered everything from the date and celebration of Christmas to why Muslims don’t celebrate Mohammad’s birthday. Along the way some were surprised to hear that the Bible doesn’t give any dates for Jesus’ birth and that Christmas and Easter are not obligatory (always nice to clear away misconceptions). The fasting of Jesus came up because one learner had a friend who observed Lent by abstaining from computer use.

It’s hard to keep these kinds of conversations tidy but they are useful. Nevertheless, as my plan unravelled I could see we were not able to give adequate time to the transfiguration of Jesus. That will come next week… hopefully.

A shocking prediction

2 May 2015
Vignettes are small pictures or essays. They may be great for telling at parties but the Bible is not to be our sourcebook of vignettes. No! It is one big story. That is why I am doggedly (hopefully gladly) working through the story of Jesus as Mark tells it. I want our class to hear that account with all of the meanings, shades and emphases that Mark wants us to get.

Today we looked at Jesus’ announcement to his disciples that he would die. I chose this because I didn’t want to us to reach the final conflict in Jerusalem without seeing that it had been foretold.

Before looking at this terrible prediction we had to introduce the main ideas in the story. This is where my lack of preparation first reared its ugly head today. There were too many difficult words and constructions that I “found myself” using. I introduced the word “shocked” as our language focus (because it was a truly shocking prediction). The students were asked to tell their own stories of shock and surprise (especially unpleasant ones). I looked up at the clock and although we were enjoying ourselves our time was running away. I had to ditch the coffee and biscuits session so we could get on with our reading section. More problems – this time with the leaflets I had prepared. I had made the Bengali and Gujarati texts a little too small and there were a few other glitches.
Then something slowly and painfully dawned on me . It was the learners lack of understanding of the word “shocked”. I went around the class asking how many had heard the words “shock” (1), “scared” (3), “upset” (3), “fear” (3) frightened (1) “surprised” (6). Still, all was not lost. We read through the mother tongue texts and then practised one line of reading each from the simplified summary. This time I stopped at the end of each line and asked and fielded questions. This helped in terms of aiding understanding but it involved introducing new ideas in what should have been a reading session (not a good idea).

During the reading one of the men pointed out that the Quran teaches that God received Jesus into heaven before his enemies could kill him. I listened and wanted to hear all that he had to say. But I was determined not to argue this one through. Indeed I don’t want to argue anything through (I am sure that there is a place for argument – but not here).No. I simply want to point out what the Bible says as clearly and persuasively as I am able. We must listen respectfully to each other but our lesson is governed by the text we are reading. In this case – Mark’s Gospel.

There is a strange keenness to engage with our text. I just pray that God will use that keenness and be merciful to all of us. I pray too that I will be more ready next time to make use of these wonderful opportunities.

Vessels of Clay

9 May 2015
“Warts and all” That’s how Oliver Cromwell told them to paint him. Well I’m no Oliver Cromwell and I couldn’t bear to have all my warts exposed. But I can think of two reasons for producing a less than flattering newsletter this week. Firstly, some have said good things about me that I don’t deserve (you know who you are). Secondly the occasional bubble pricking can lead to more a realistic view and to more realistic prayer.

This week I finished producing the leaflets half an hour before going out. This, despite the fact that the simplified text had been given to me five days earlier. That text of Bartimaeus and the Triumphal Entry was great but it wasn’t perfect and I should have looked at it more closely and edited it further. Not good. I was the one using the text and I know my learners better than the friend who composed it, so although I was immensely thankful and impressed, I should have gone through it again. That’s what God wants – isn’t it?

I am really grateful for today’s helper, Alan, because he helps me to think that this work is worth doing. I thank God for him (and for other friends who show interest). Just by “being there” Alan makes me raise my game. It could be said “Why do you need that? Don’t you feel that God is with you and that you are accountable to him?” Well, I can see and hear Alan and I believe he is one means that God uses to keep me from my lazy tendencies. When I have a helper in class it gives me an audience (!!?!) but it also means that I have the chance to hear from a critic. Thank God for friendly critics! Pity those who have none.

Today’s reading session from Mark’s Gospel went well enough with all 10 learners contributing but I felt that I needed to have far more of an “agenda” as far as “going somewhere” with the text was concerned (Where did Mark want me to go?) Yes I had read and heard it several times during the week. But I needed to be able to explain its meaning and significance in as few words as possible. This would have helped greatly in launching our discussion and keeping it on track. As it was, it got a little messy and meandered around the place.

One great thing about today. One of the learners from India delivered a really interesting talk about his country of origin. We also got the chance to see some photos, ask some questions and sample some Indian cuisine.

One thing I will say about helpers is that they help me to remember that it’s “Not about me”. My wife helps in this as do those friends who have given their time and skills and energy. God wants honour for his Christ not for his servants. Pray that he will have that honour in this little work.

Joined up thinking

23 May 2015
These lessons are improving all the time (did I really say that?). Their different elements seem to be meshing together much more coherently. This is helped enormously by having a weekly theme. This week’s theme was “rejection”. The class began by talking about things they had rejected or taken back to the shops. As they talk in pairs I quietly take down one of the sentences and write its initial letters onto the board. From those initial letters they managed to work out Vinu’s sentence: “I bought a shirt from Primark, but it was too small”. It was amazing that they got to this with hints and helps in just over 4 minutes. Following this they had to come up with edited versions of their own. We find this a really fun, exciting and fulfilling exercise.
As usual, I knew where I intended to go with our theme but the nine class members here today didn’t (that just adds to the interest and engagement). We began with a Powerpoint quiz of various synonyms of “rejection”. They included “kicked out”, “ignored”, “thrown away” and “dumped”. These can be really ugly words (which made them really suitable for today’s lesson). The class offered various sentences using those words and thus fleshed out the concept of “rejection”.

Our next activity was a spelling exercise in which our learners had to figure out the correct spelling of various “rejection” words. Those who finished early got a wordsearch with the same words on them. This repetitive use of the words is meant to help fix the words, their spellings and their meanings in their minds. Next it’s tea break in the kitchen and back to work (wow- that was quick!).

Why such emphasis on “rejection”. Well that was in this week’s text as Jesus tells the parable of the wicked tenants who rejected their landlord and his son. He also speaks of himself as a cornerstone which had been rejected. It was hardly surprising that our simplified English text emphasised the conflict and rejection of that passage (Mark 11:27-12:12). The brilliant commentary on Mark (Dig Deeper into the Gospels – IVP) also did really well to bring out the enormity of Jesus’ rejection. So “rejection” it is.

Towards the end of our lesson I was overwhelmed to hear class members intelligently use words and thoughts we had studied earlier. They also joined up several ideas from previous weeks. Some remembered that Jesus’ words had “upset” the rich young ruler who then walked away. Others remembered that last week Jesus came looking for fruit from the fig tree. We compared this with the landowner looking for fruit from the vineyard. It worked. This really makes me glad. But I must remember that the chief priests and elders understood the story too – they just didn’t “get it” because they were without faith. Will God turn the surface understanding into true faith. Pray that he will give the faith that glorifies him to these dear people.

Synergy

6 June 2015

It’s great to see synergy. That’s when things work together to give you more than you had a right to expect. I think that’s what happened today. It started two weeks ago with my mate Dave and his offering of a simplified text. It was the story of Jesus being questioned about taxes and husbands (Mark 12). I took his work and pulled it apart (a bit) and after loads of editing I ended up with something I was half happy with.

What was really great about Dave’s help was his suggestion that I build on the theme of “acting” that comes up in the passage. Being an impressionable fellow, that’s just what I did. And it worked! The whole lesson became centred around acting (I even got a chance to stand on a table and “do a bit of Shakespeare”). Next up came my Picasso moment where I drew a simple shield-like figure on the board and asked for some guesses. I added some eyeholes and pieces of string and “hey presto” we had a couple of those Greek-type theatre masks. We followed this up by asking for examples of people who wear masks (doctors, builders, soldiers, clowns, cleaners, dentists, robbers … the list goes on).

As usual, we played around with words related to our “theme word”. In this case the words were actor, action, actress and act. I then asked for actors’ names (somebody came up with Mr Bean – no he’s not an actor). They continued by sourcing actors from Bulgaria, Bangladesh and India, and fitting them into sentences. Then we went on to synonyms and other related words so that we were filling in the meaning of the word “act”. I made the suggestions “pretend, fake, joking, playing and lying” while others came up with “false and fraud”. It was at this point that the class, armed with thoughts and words had to discuss in pairs a time when they had been deceived by somebody’s acting.

It was now almost time for our Bible reading and discussion. Just a little more phrasal work to prepare for it and we were ready. Great. For once I didn’t mind the silence while they read. When they had finished reading their translations of Mark 12 they each read a couplet of sentences from our Easy-English text aloud. We then asked and answered questions on the text. It was good to hear some of the answers arose from the actual Bible rather than the simplification. We saw how these two-faced leaders really hated Jesus and wanted to kill him. How amazing! We saw him deal with questions designed to get him in trouble and to make him look stupid. He dealt with them and they were astonished. I thought it would be good to end by saying that he sees our errors and lies. When he does this some people reject whereas others believe him. Pray that God will give our folk the gift of faith to believe.

And now the end has come

September 2, 2015
An end to one chapter in the life of our family as we move on to pastures new. We don’t know just where God wants us to make our new spiritual home. We say goodbye to old friends at Hope and pray for a church that will love and care for us as much as they did. I was so glad that we were able to finish Mark’s Gospel with the lovely bunch of learners in August. Life is not about English Teaching (it’s about Jesus) – but I pray now that God will make me useful in some way in the future in telling others about him and helping them by teaching them English. You might pray too.

Getting to know you

13 Jun 2015
A constant struggle for teachers is to make lessons that are interesting and relevant. It’s no good giving a brilliantly clear lesson if you haven’t got the interest of your listeners and maintained it. So how to do this? By trying to understand hearers and their concerns. That is why I share so much of myself with them. I share so that they will share themselves with me. This helps me to gauge how to help. My model is Jesus (surprise surprise). He spoke appropriately to a whole range people who heard him gladly because he kept it “real”.

Today we were looking at a conversation between Jesus and a lawyer (Mark 12). This lawyer asked a question and Jesus’ response was amazing. It revealed that the man was onside and the rest of them were lawbreakers. How brilliant was that? Jesus knew his hearers and knew what they needed (including the crowd who needed to be warned). He had a keen eye and a keen ear. That’s what I want to develop in my teaching.

Five of today’s class were Muslims, two were Hindus, one was a Roman Catholic and one an Evangelical Christian. I definitely wanted to avoid all of the “I’m Chelsea. You’re Arsenal. What’s there to say?” type posturing that we could easily get into. That means I need to know more about them and their faith so I can address them intelligently. That’s why I listen so much (without arguing).

I was particularly interested in the Mark passage because it reflects a loveless religion practised by loveless leaders. They go through a form of religion but are utterly without love. So what’s new? Obviously, my Muslim, Hindu and Roman Catholic hearers today could say “Amen” (??!!?) to all of that. But Jesus went a step further and proved that the lawyers were without the love that God demands and they were blind to that fact. How could I make sure that we couldn’t smugly wriggle out of this challenge. Thankfully, our Bulgarian friend questioned whether it was possible to practise a religion without having faith. One of the Muslims answered “habit!”. Brilliant! I followed up with “the desire for praise”. And so we all agreed there are loads of reasons why we might just go through the motions. Result!

To get to know your learners you have to give them opportunities to speak. This is hard when you are like me and you talk too much. But I do manage it somehow. During the lesson we had Boryana give a fifteen-minute presentation on her country of birth, Bulgaria. We’ve also had talks on India and the UK in the past. It was great to hear her interesting talk and to enjoy her Bulgarian sweets, tea and honey harvested by her father as we all stood in the kitchen and chatted afterwards. This chat is about shared ownership of the lesson, getting to know each other, valuing each other’s speech and practising our English. Pray that God will bless it.

Why so nervous

21 Jun 2015
I had wondered whether Ramadan (fasting month) would mean several missing students. Many get up at the unearthly hour of two or three o’clock to eat before observing the fast. But, as it turned out, we had a total of ten learners this morning. The first of them, two newcomers, came in just as I was setting up. I guessed they were the ones who had phoned earlier in the week. The Bangladeshi husband didn’t need help but his wife did. Shortly afterward, others came and joined them and we started.

Early on in the lesson the husband got up to leave. I encouraged him to remain a while to see what we do. I always do this when one person brings another along. This is because I am nervous about being seen as taking advantage and “talking religion” to those who hadn’t signed up for it. I wanted this man to stay so that he knew exactly what he and his wife would be getting (although God can give us more than we bargained for).

I sometimes think of myself as a bit of a coward (I trust it doesn’t come across that way). I just don’t want to mess up. I hope I’m doing this work for God. But I do get anxious because I think I’m in an enormously privileged position. Not everybody gets to tell about a dozen people about Jesus every Saturday morning. So I am, by turns, either nervously direct or diplomatic; sometimes trying not to be in-your-face and at other times trying to make sure my stall is well set out. But how much to say at the beginning? It’s difficult to say everything that needs to be said at the time and in the manner it needs to be said in.

One of my problems is that I try to second guess what my hearers are thinking. (Not a good idea). This can lead to defensiveness or overthinking on my part. This is what my thinking sounds like to me. “Mmm. He could be an articulate, devout man who takes his religion seriously. So he will have alternative answers for everything I say. Although my delivery is aimed at serious people there’s no way we could have a deep meaningful discussion. I just don’t have the language to do this and neither do they.” So my approach is “Let’s just see where Mark’s text takes us today.”

Today it was wonderful to see how Jesus was impressed by a poor widow while certain rich men and the disciples were impressed by the magnificent temple. It was a lovely contrast and we made a lot of it.

The end of the lesson came – too soon. The couple left very happy with her saying she would be back next week. Where did they live? Almost exactly opposite the church building. How did they come to us? Via a website and a couple of recommendations. How odd is that? Let’s hope, and pray on

The best of news – the worst of news

27 Jun 2015
Our “target language” for the day was the future “tense”. The ten of us began by chatting in pairs about what we expected to do today. I went around and listened, eventually taking down a sentence from Hiru who said “I will go shopping in Green street for food and clothes” We used this in an activity. Why the future tense? Because today’s text from Mark 13 uses it a lot. Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world. So, unsurprisingly there are loads of “wills” in the passage. We did several spoken and written exercises on the future before turning to the text itself.

Wow. Who could ever be “ready” for this passage? I introduced it by saying that I found it difficult but that if God helps us we can understand something important. I had produced a simple English version as the result of my friend’s simplification and my two “go-to” books on Mark (Dig Deeper in the Gospel, and Hendriksen’s Commentary on Mark).
It was great to hear Bory say that the passage was horrible. So she understood the gist of it. What a good start. Farz also thought it was upsetting. I had to agree with both of them. But I couldn’t leave it there. I said that this terrible news was for all of us. Too often we believe that God should be punishing “really” bad people. But I said I wanted us to think about ourselves. I looked at Abu straight in the eye and said that although he and the rest of us look friendly and respectable, only God truly knows us. There was no hint of objection as we developed this line, thinking about our greed, selfishness, hating and lies etc. I pointed out that I wouldn’t want anybody to know me too well. I would be embarrassed, scared and ashamed because although I am fairly respectable, I have done many things that displease God.

I felt the need to go into detail because of the obvious question: “Why is God angry enough to destroy Jerusalem and the world.” One learner said because nobody deserves to live in this world. I do enjoy hearing this kind of comment because I take it to be common grace. Anyhow, sowing the seed of the idea that God is displeased with us was enough for me at this point. I make no apology for God being angry with us. But I am so glad to say with all of my strength that we do have Good News. Jesus can save us from all that makes us wrong, spoiled and in danger. So it is a kind, loving, gentle God who is so angry. But it is that same God who sent his Son to rescue his people. It’s there in this text. He saves people. That’s the good news. That’s what we have been looking at over these past months. And that’s what I pray God will help them to accept.

Thinking aloud

4 Jul 2015
The thought life of a teacher can be a real puzzle. It is as though we inhabit a parallel universe during the lesson. Sometimes I find that time either seems to race away to nowhere or that it stubbornly stands still. It is as though a million thoughts fly in and out of my mind – some God related, some lesson related, some people related and some utterly irrelevant. My journey of thoughtfulness began today as one of the Bangladeshi ladies pointed out that we can see her front door through our open doors. I think, “amazing – from Bangladesh to there. God has given her a reason to come here today – to study English!”

During the first part of the lesson we talked in pairs about surprising gifts. There were some really good conversations but my job was to float above them all and to think about student participation. I spot Hiru quietly sitting between a pair of men and a pair of women. My thought? “How can I get her learning, engaged, interested and developing in confidence too?”. In one conversation one Bangladeshi lady said “My husband bought a lovely bracelet for me on Valentine’s Day”. We did lots of grammar work on this. But I got distracted at the incongruity of half a dozen men repeating the sentence. I couldn’t help myself – I said that the Bible teaches husband and wife (or singles) – not husband and husband etc. So the men are directed to say what their wives or friends had given them. Oh the Labyrinthine ways of my mind – they occasionally surprise even me.

Although all of the work is either relevant or important, it has run on. So some quick calculations and trade offs are done in my head and I justify overrunning because the learners will understand the passage better. Eventually we begin reading the passage with 20 minutes of the lesson remaining. Not good! Still, I think, it’s only 11 verses this week. The text is in their own mother tongues, but they seem to read painfully slowly (or does the silence just make it seem that way to me). Here we go into that other universe. I almost hear one of my friends questioning whether Mark really wanted us to pick up on Jesus noticing the lady with two copper coins and this woman who gives a year’s wages worth of ointment. I think “Yes” (but I’m not positive). Another uninvited but welcome friend pops into my thoughts (he is the one who helped with the text). I sort of wished he could hear what we were doing with it. I also imagined justifying my shortchanging them of the truth because of the constraints of time and understanding. I really hope I am not just teaching morality. Sometimes it sounds that way to me. These folk don’t need morality – they have their own. They need a Saviour. That’s what I haltingly say is on offer here. Pray for less halting.

Keep it simple Stupid

12 Jul 2015
What’s today’s angst then? We had a really great time looking at reasons for coming to English Class. The learners had to state their reasons in six words or less. Why? So that correcting it would be manageable and so that they would go away with a small and perfect “chunk” of language that they could be confident in. So what’s the problem? Well it came later.

Today we were to study Jesus arranging a private Passover Meal with his disciples. Before we read it we introduced the word “sacrifice”. Easy enough to get this over to the Muslims in class (they make a sacrifice at Eid-al-Adha). The idea of giving something up is universal (I should think). But animal sacrifice? How to explain this? Difficulty number one: I saw what I thought was a flinch on the faces of our two Hindu learners. It reminded me that the idea of killing any animal is an abomination to Hindus (I think). And here we have God telling his people to kill a lamb as a sacrifice for their wrong. Oh dear. Change of tack time. I needed to acknowledge the ugliness of animal sacrifice (and it is ugly!). I said that the lamb had never lied, or stolen or done anything to deserve death. It really was sad and terrible. But there was something more ugly than that.

Next up, I wanted to press home the idea that our sin made us ugly and unacceptable to God – this really mattered. That’s why I spoke of myself. I said that my wrongdoing and wrong thinking makes me disgusting to God. They all got the word “disgusting”. But isn’t that a bit strong? Well, we might be used to our wrongdoing: our greed, laziness, jealousies, anger, selfishness etc. We just accept them (along with the good we do) as part of being human. But God doesn’t. There was some recognition on several faces. That’s where sacrifice comes in. It is there as a “payment” not to pay for our wrong but to temporarily turn aside the anger of God. (He is willing to take us at our word that we are sorry and to eventually provide a payment himself). I said, “See this disgusting person (me). Jesus said that he would take my place and the punishment due to me”. I was encouraged that after class, one of the Tamil learners said, “It was good that you blamed yourself”.
There were times when I felt the embarrassment that comes from simplifying truth. I know that my discourse would be embarrassing to a native English speaker. But then I was reminded that I am not speaking to native English speakers so I shouldn’t judge my language as though I was. No. You speak to who is in front of you. And you make sure they can understand you.
God give me the ability to be clear and understandable to those in front of me and to leave the rest to you.

Why so Excited?

4 July 2016

Will I ever grow up? Will I ever be satisfied? What would it take? We had a wonderful morning this morning. I was excited, nervous and talkative by turns. So what’s new? But was all this nervous energy simply because I love teaching, meeting and sharing in the lives of others? Was I only excited because I got to tell a small part of the Jesus story. Or was it because I believed God was at work? How can I know that? What would be conclusive evidence of that? Perhaps my students , or onlookers would just see a passionate middle-aged man energised and bubbling over because that is his natural character.

We started at 10:30 by ordering coffees (and a slice of lemon cake for me). Up we went to the mezzanine and the four of us sat around a table. One of the learners had walked 40 minutes to get here (40 mins?!!). The other two had walked about 50 metres (50 metres!?!). We began by interviewing each other and then introducing those we had interviewed. While this speaking exercise went on I took down some of their errors of grammar and pronunciation. We worked on these grammar points and looked at some features of connected speech. We did other run of the mill English stuff which they so obviously valued.

Now came the nerve-racking part. I needn’t have been nervous. They had signed up for the class in the knowledge that there would be a Bible element in it. But to me it still felt a little like running into a cold sea (on a cold day). Why? Because it didn’t feel natural. (What is natural?) It’s not everyday you get the chance to have adults read the Bible and engage with its meaning. They were each given a fanfold leaflet with the text of John 1:35-42 and a simplified version of it Well the first difficulty was that the Farsi translation was not up to it as far as our Iranian friend was concerned (but he did understand the English text). He happily volunteered to translate for me later. Amazing!!! Absolutely amazing! This means he will engage with the text carefully and will probably have questions too. But the best part for me came as I went off script and started to respond to a question about the disciples. The Iranian said that he had heard a story that Jesus had met Peter and Andrew and called them from their business as fishermen and that he promised to make them fishers of men. So he had heard stuff already. I was beggared.

Now for the really really best bit. I felt I had to explain why these grown men had become students. No, it wasn’t their “Gap year” enrichment activity. They would be more like the berated young soldier, the put-upon apprentice, the much-abused trainee footballer, the aching martial arts pupil. Why do they return to their mentors? Why? Why do any of them stick with it? It’s because they believe the payoff will be worth all of the humbling and the pain they will experience on their journeys. Now Jesus’ isn’t a bully. But he is highly demanding, and these followers will feel that the payoff of being with him and being discipled by him is worth all that pain and privation. As I get to know these students more I hope that they will learn that I think the same way. Better still I pray that God will cause them to count the cost and to put their faith in Jesus too.

A Great Occasion

18 July 2016

Oh I can’t believe how happy I am. I have said that often enough in the past for people to get tired of it. One minute I’m up and the next down. It doesn’t take much to get me to either place so I mustn’t be ruled by my feelings. Nevertheless, where God gives pleasure, that is great and thanks must be given. So what about this morning. Well. For a start I was late. Uh. That was chastening. I planned to be at the cafe for 10:30 when the lesson began but I had forgotten that we have rearranged it to 10 o’clock (so that I have a life on Saturdays). Anyhow I was there 20 minutes late. Just two today. But it was brilliant. Two others who would have been there texted. That was an encouragement. I am happy to get out of bed to help two men to learn English and to tell them about Jesus through that.

Today our theme was occasions. That was suggested by my friend David who also supplied the text summary for John 2:1-11. It needed only a little tweaking for language and lesson purposes. The occasion we were working towards was the Wedding at Cana and the first of Jesus’ miracles. I’m so grateful to have coherence: it means that we are not randomly finding “good bits of the Bible” and shoehorning them into the lesson. That would be just too embarrassing and wouldn’t be how I read Jesus and the disciples’ approach. Yes, sometimes they were “in your face” and came from “out of left field”. But it seems as though most often they were wise to the occasion and spoke relevantly to it. That’s what I want to be able to do.

So we started with words that go with the word “occasion”. We practised saying “big occasion”, “on this occasion”, “”special occasion” and some other collocations. We looked at why we use collocations and idioms. We saw how they are natural part of speech making it powerful and effective. So the Italian version of “It’s raining cats and dogs” is “It’s raining bowls”. Great. From this we also looked at pronunciation and meaning issues. Then came our Iranian friend’s interjection “burning the candle at both sides”- hilarious. After this we looked at today’s idiom (We’ll probably do one each week). Today it was, “Rise to the occasion”.

Finally, we reached the passage we had been working towards. I don’t see the rest of the lesson as an excuse to get to it. I don’t see what went before as dispensable. It was necessary for them to gain confidence and competence in English, and for them to more fully make sense of this account of the Wedding and its meaning.

I asked them which part of our leaflet they read first and they both responded “The English version” as they saw their mother tongue version as a “support” rather than the main thing. They said they had to read the English far more carefully because of their lack of understanding. We talked about Jesus’ response to Mary and how he put some distance between them by his language. We saw how although he was a humble servant he was not simply a “gofor” or an odd job man. Neither was he an entertainer doing clever tricks to impress others. Nevertheless, on this occasion he did serve and performed a remarkable sign that caused his friends to put their trust in him. Oh Lord please do this for the men and women who come to these wonderful lessons.

A joint enterprise

23 July 2016

This week was the most joined up of all of them as far as I could see. On Monday David sent me his simplified summary of John 2:12-25 which I used for my quiet time. We spent the Wednesday Prayer Meeting looking at the passage too. This gave me a whole lot of ideas and inspiration. It also made me feel that this is a joint enterprise – a work of the church. So on to today and the lesson which had two students (one Italian and one Iranian).

The first part was vocabulary work. Today’s theme was “confrontation” because Jesus had an important confrontation with the religious authorities at the Temple. This gave a chance to investigate synonyms of confrontation. We did that in a jointly done wordsearch. Just imagine the shades of different meanings found in the words “feud, clash, battle, controversy, squabble, quarrel, campaign and oppose” We did pronunciation work on them after I tried to elicit the words by giving clues. Following this they each chose one of the unused words on our list and googled them so they could give clues too. Really worked well. Examples poured out and I tried to make sure that they did the explaining rather than me. So we saw the feud between the Capulets and the Montagus. We thought about the Crusades and the silliness of a dispute about the so-called-holy-land. This gave the chance to say that Christians have no holy buildings, lands, clothes, water etc, and that God counts all believers in him as holy or “set apart”. Brexit or Europe came up as a matter of controversy or argument. The word squabble was illustrated as a kind of trivial but loud dispute about “nothing”. All good. What a rich language we have.

The next section of the lesson was on the passive voice. I wanted a language or grammar structure that could usefully be connected with the idea of confrontation. I think the passive and active voices are a bit lame in this respect but they were the only runners. Why choose them? Because the active voice, “You damaged the car” sets up a nice blame game and conflict, whereas “The car was damaged” deflects and obscures blame. (I said it was a bit lame). Anyhow, it worked. They got on with a short online test and we went on to talk about how and why we use the passive voice.

We got onto our passage. We had a shorter time today (just fifteen minutes) but I think they were well spent. They both took the passage seriously and intelligently and came up with ideas I hadn’t thought of (love it!!). The idea of the inappropriacy of treating the Temple like a market-place came out (nothing against markets). The thought of haggling and bargaining over an animal to be offered in worship came across as just “totally out of place”. I was so heartened to see that between the passage, the summary and their own understanding it was obvious to the students that Jesus was referring to his body when he challenged his hearers to “Destroy this temple”. All of our work leading up to this was vindicated (I think) when we could see no mere squabble but a developing feud (although even that word doesn’t quite do). WIth hindsight I think I should have looked at the greatest of confrontations. It will be seen on the day when God himself confronts us over our sin and rebellion. Pray with me that before that day these dear people will have made peace with God through Jesus.

Don’t panic!!!

Early 2017

So I manage to get all my prep done and I’m ready for the 3 mile bike ride to the cafe. After last week’s lateness, I have to be on time. Just as I’m out the door in comes a text, followed by another a second later. They say that because of sickness and for personal reasons three of the class can’t come. Oh no. Resentment starts to rise, mixed with a dose of disappointment (where did that come from?). Don’t they know what they are missing. How could they not turn up after the hours I have spent preparing? Well. If others come and they lose their place – too bad! (Am I really like that??). But despair sets in as I contemplate sitting there alone perhaps doing more prep for my dayjob. Will I ever have a class to teach? Must it always be this way? (Boy, do I have a short memory!!)
I arrive and order my mocha (and almond croissant – comfort eating). I sit down to check the texts and to fire off something or other – but at whom can I aim? There’s always the other two men who had said they would come. I compose a short text with a little spice in it and then reconsider. God doesn’t want his work to be done in this way. So a more neutral. “I’m at the cafe. Is there a problem?” and “I’m here. Are you near?” Both texts were answered in quick time. One of them with “I’m just outside” and the other, “I’ll be there in 20 minutes”.

Well of course all of my negative feelings fly out of the window as soon as first human contact is made. A thirty something year old Romanian man shakes my hand and apologises for his lateness. We sit down and he starts to tell me what he is not good at and what he needs. I stop him and say “No. Let’s introduce ourselves first.” It is from his introduction that I will determine his needs. They become apparent pretty quickly. I note down uncertainties with the simple past tense and misuse of the present continuous. Great. We are in business. Then in comes the another man: this one in his late 40’s. He looks unconfident. I advise him to get a coffee and then we sit down and I ask him to introduce himself. But he has very little English indeed. Wow an almost absolute beginner. This could be fun.

One of the most important jobs of a teacher is to help the learner to negotiate the gap between their actual level and where they need to be. This is where learners are most vulnerable. It is a zone of frustration, anger, impatience, despair and hopelessness.
That’s not putting it too strongly. It’s the kind of zone where people say “I’ll never learn..”. It’s my favourite zone for operating in. My watchword for those in it is “Patience”. But at the moment my only means of encouragement was animated smiles, thumbs up, and the word “good”. It worked. We even managed a few laughs as I forbade all communication in Romanian.
The lesson ran wonderfully overtime (inevitably and despite my intention to be strict). Maybe I’ll learn to be patient and wait on God. Maybe I’ll remember how kind and patient he is with me. And maybe I will just remember that his plans are far greater than mine could ever be. I’ve just got to stick with the programme whatever it is – even when it is rolled out step by excruciating step. Pray for patience.

It's all in the mix

Early 2017

I am nothing less than grateful for another chance to introduce people to Jesus through English. But it is as a weak individual that I do this. I had too many ridiculously indulgent wasteful late nights (mornings) this week. Then last night I had to stay up until after two thirty to finish off my preparation for today. I enjoyed it but I was painfully aware that I should have been tucked up in bed.

So what went into today’s mix? Firstly, I was so happy that an elder at church had come up with some brilliant suggestions for our summer themes from John’s gospel. Today’s was “recommendations”. Love it. Philip recommends Jesus to Nathanael and Jesus commends Nathanael’s attitude. For the next part of the mix I had been reading commentaries (Faucett and Brown, and JC Ryle) on John 1 earlier in the week. These were to get me in the zone and to understand what God was saying through John in this passage. The last ingredients were some grammar webpages on how to use the words “recommend”, “advise” and “suggest”.

So I had my theme and my grammar structure. Now it was time for the worksheets and activities. I made an interactive online quiz (kahoots.it) which always proves to be exciting and engaging. Then onto one of my many online accounts (quickworksheets.net) to make a wordsearch from the vocabulary I wanted to use in the lesson. The final website was to make a comic strip (storyboardthat.com) about recommendations. Talk about hot off the press. One of the last tasks was to make a “recommendations” worksheets. Finally, I was off to find Italian and Farsi translations of our passage (Biblegateway.com). Then there was the printing of the materials before I went to bed.

The lesson was nothing if not enjoyable. I am never quite sure if this work is meant to be enjoyable. But I was assured by a couple of friends at church that “enjoyment is allowed”!! I suppose I have a sneaking suspicion that if it ain’t hurtin’ then it ain’t workin’ (whatever “working” means). We started by talking about our film recommendations. Then they used the opportunity to film me pronouncing some of the corrections I had noted. And so we went on to use most of the resources I had produced last “night”.

So we reached the part that for me is always electric. What will God do here? (if anything). They read their translations of John 1:43-51 and we read out the summary which would help our “discussion”. It was good to talk about Philip’s recommendation and Nathanael’s inital “I’m not impressed” reaction. Then to see this change because of Nathanael’s encounter with Jesus was wonderful. I was truly flabbergasted when one learner said that Jesus shocked Nathanael because he showed he could see “beyond sense”. I love it when students come out with language that unexpectedly shows such appreciation of truth. We finished off by talking about how books can paint characters really well but that to me and to Christians, Jesus is more than a well painted character. Our Farsi speaker said that for him the Bible “lives and breathes”. I hardly knew what to make of this. So I just said “Wow!” (Pretty pathetic really). But then that says something about my weakness of faith and God’s ability to shake me up and bear with me. If God spares me I will probe those words more next week.

Pray with me that these sessions will have eternal significance and that they will honour Jesus and bless the students (and me)

And now for something completely different

4 February 2017

Wow! Is it that long? Yes it is. It has been 6 long months since I last taught a Saturday English Class. I’ve had loads of impatience, disappointment and frustration, and the painful awareness that God does not need me. He wants his people to tell the good news of Jesus but we had better not think that he depends on us or our projects. I have spent hours sitting in Leytonstone Cafes (doing preparation work for my day job) and having several conversations with interested people (to no apparent avail). What was that about? You’re trying to give away free lessons in an area of East London with loads of immigrants and you get no takers. Then last week I gave some leaflets to a pastor of a very local Romanian Church and suddenly got three enquiries. And so we began class today.

The clock told me it was going to be a close run thing. So I asked at the cab office for the fare for what was precisely a two mile journey. I would have reluctantly parted with a hard earned fiver but was told it was six or seven pounds. I would only pay that if I knew I was otherwise sure to be late. But the buses might just get me there on time. So off I went bussing and jogging into Costa Coffee and apologies given. By then I had texted to say we would start 5 minutes late.

I had set out feeling as though I was cheating. How? Well, most of the people I had taught in the past came from non-Christian backgrounds and that’s the way I like it. It means I am never safe and comfortable. It means I often have sensitivities to negotiate. This means I get the chance to show cowardice or courage. Such tension is creative. But a class of people already sympathetic to Christianity poses other problems (good). Today we had two middle aged Romanian women and a teenager. The women had very basic English whereas the teenage daughter of one of them was well ahead.

We began with introductions and a fun exercise decoding some sentences from initial letters. We went on to do pronunciation work, and then a short test on the present simple. Following all this we had a grammar spot on how we form this tense and when we use it. I got to fine them a penny everytime one of them lapsed into Romanian. We did this for fun and decided that any money would go into the charity box by the cafe till. The teenager really got into it and would have dominated. But I reminded her that we older people learn more slowly than youngsters and need time and encouragement. It is very easy to discourage us with impatience. She played ball and despite her energy she occasionally successfully “sat on her hands”, letting others answer.

We ended the session with a look at Mark’s Gospel where John the Baptist is introduced as a messenger. Their understanding had lots of gaps because of a lack of vocabulary. But that’s my challenge. Then something new. It was the first time in any of my classes over the last ten years that somebody has asked to pray at the end of the lesson. They did so in Romanian and I asked for a rough translation afterward. It was great. Still, I am cautious because how will that seem when we have non-Christians in the class. That’s a bridge I hope to cross later. Until then – I am delighted, nervous and hopeful.

Aim High

11 February 2017

I’ve been here before. I can go up and down like a yo-yo. Today I am up as I think of this morning’s class. But I am very conscious that there are tons of teachers who feel great when they have a good lesson. Many think that is nothing to do with God at all. Why is that not good enough for me? Well, I have this odd “requirement” that I need to know that God is pleased with what I am doing (weren’t we made that way?). But that’s a big ask. He doesn’t just go ahead and say. So perhaps I need a checklist to help me evaluate (I’m sure that won’t really help). Let’s see how far this goes. Well, I prepared loads – and I don’t think I stole the time from my family or other responsibilities to do it. Then there’s my motive – I want to help others to understand more of who Jesus is and what he came to do – at least I hope that’s my motive and I think that’s good. I also want this work to be a shared work which my church supports – no gloryboy, lone ranger syndrome here then (I hope). Finally, I have asked God to be with me and help me to honour him – I’ll probably find I was woefully deficient in the asking. But then, when aren’t I?

I think I am on the starting line then as far as doing the work properly. But I still have to account for my pleasedness. (Do I?) Was it the fact that I was on time and that there were three learners when there could have been none (God is good even when there are none)? Was it the fact that they were eager to participate and to laugh and to see past their frustrations and vulnerabilities? Was it the fact that the introduction went well or that the materials were a big help in introducing our text for the day? Or was it because we were in public as I briefly opened in prayer and the name of Jesus was heard by others? (Careful, God doesn’t deal in syllables but in messages). But tick all of the above.

So to the nuts and bolts of the lesson. We had loads of pictures of the verbs which appeared in the simplified account of Jesus calling the first disciples and going on to cast out the demon in the Capernaum synagogue. I had to really simplify. No I mean really. So we worked in the simple present tense in three to five word sentences. After matching some pairs of verb picture cards and working on very short sentences we were ready to look more carefully at this week’s text. I thought that their English reading was really good (although I had failed to pre-teach a couple of needed words). Following this they read the text in Romanian and we went on to check where the simplified text referred to the Bible passage. The biggest minus? I don’t think that the “takeaway” point was adequately framed. I will have to work on that next time. It is takeaway points or applications that should help us to see the text as more than just a story. I know they did enjoy the lesson and they were serious enough to come out in the cold on a Saturday morning. But we are hoping for more. We are hoping that God will be pleased with the weak but willing efforts of his children and will do great things beyond our imagination. Pray that he will.

Surprise and Joy

19 February 2017

Motherhood and the making of apple pies. I sometimes wonder whether these are the only jobs more enjoyable than mine. I get to teach willing learners. Two of them were at the cafe before me this morning and two followed on. So we had three middle-aged Romanians; one an Uber driver, one a nanny and the other a mother. The bubbly irrepressible teenage daughter of one of them joined us. What chemistry!
We began by recapping last week’s lesson about Jesus inviting four men to follow him. Some slow but good recall there. We then launched into today’s lesson. I said we were learning the past simple tense. Some puzzled looks led to me looking at the clock momentarily and then for an extended time. From this, we distinguished between “I looked at the clock” and “I was looking at the clock”. And so we spread the photo cards on the small round wooden table we were seated around and played pairs. This was tricky as they started by looking for identical pictures rather than for similar ones. Eventually, we identified the words “leprosy”, begged”, “came” and “fever” among others. This was all for the purpose of introducing the grammar structures that would appear later in our Bible reading on Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law and a leper.
Our next language point was to identify the “ed” ending on regular verbs for the simple past. We saw the three ways in which we pronounce that “ed” ending (ever thought of that). There’s “started” (“id”), “played” (“d”) and “finished” (“t”). We had lots of fun with these.
Then out came the word cards for making two or three-word sentences. They matched and swapped these around to make as many different expressions as they could. Then something totally unexpected happened. Amazing. Our Uberman formed the sentence “Jesus begged”. Out of a sense of “honour” I thought I should change that to make, “The man begged”. But a split-second later I thought, “No. Let’s run with this”. So I identified two occasions on which Jesus did beg. One was in the Garden of Gethsemane when he asked the Father to let the trial bypass him if it were possible. I also said that he begged Jerusalem to turn back to the Lord. Odd words, and smiles of awareness around the table told me we were on familiar ground. What a lovely bonus.Then came another of their sentences: “Jesus had a fever”. Well, what did he have, again, in the Garden when he prayed so passionately and sweated so violently? Finally, our quietest student came up with, “The woman helped Jesus”. That was easy. Our Miss Irrepressible recognised my example of the Samaritan woman at the well who helped Jesus by giving him a drink. Miss Irrepressible triumphantly noted that the woman had had five husbands. We also came up with Joseph of Arimathea (ed. Whoops. Simon of Cyrene) helping to carry the cross. What was the point of all of this? That Jesus could be seen as truly human. He was a real man with real needs and vulnerabilities. It is so important to remember that God the Son became a man. That is awesome. Far more awesome than if he had just pretended to be human by hiding himself inside a human shell.
Oh, how I love to be surprised by learning something afresh. This really keeps me alive as a teacher. It humbles me, gives me joy and sparks my interest all at the same time I hope this always happens. I pray that God will give my learners the same surprises and more of their own.

Why ask for More?

25 February 2017

I used to teach Saturday morning English to around a dozen learners from Europe, Asia and Africa in a church hall in east London. I loved it. None of them had a faith in Jesus. Today I taught just two, both of whom were believers. I loved it not one iota less. When I teach it is as though I am in an alternative universe. Numbers definitely don’t count if we are around a coffee table and time doesn’t matter either (until five minutes before the end of the lesson). Afterwards, a mixture of selfish pride and a desire to honour Jesus (that’s a mix that has to go) makes me wish for more.

I was early today and I had got all of my preparation well and truly done. So it was an unsweaty twenty minute cycle ride across Wanstead Flats to what seems to be the Cafe capital of London. I ordered my flat white and went up the stairs to the Mezzanine of this Turkish patisserie. This week our favourite corner by the window was free and the only noise we could hear was the distantish sound of chatter from the floor below. We started with introductions which can all too easily become my escape route from the lesson plan. This time we ended up with the stories of our travels in the morning with the language, “I came by bike/car/bus from wherever”. Whoops. I spotted the name “Loughton” in our collection of places and so we were off identifying other “tons” (Southampton, Wolverhampton etc) and seeing them as “towns”. We progressed onto the placename endings “ham”, “ford” and “mouth”, and I introduced them to the river connections involved therein. They were fascinated (so was I).
Eventually, we go back on track by formally opening the lesson and asking God to bless our time together. I placed a print of a Renoir for them to examine and to suggest connected vocabulary. There was method behind this. I aim to introduce a piece of artwork each week. There will be a link with the theme of our Bible section from Mark’s Gospel. I never reveal my hand all at once though. The scene was a crowded square of some sort outside a cafe. From this we got the words “noisy, crowded, happy, friendly” among others. We added the words “house, square, garden and cafe”. This was great for composing short sentences. We did yet another matching cards activity (with words like “hole”, “lowered” and “healed”. Then we made short sentences based on all of today’s vocabulary. I felt great. There had been no talk of Jesus up to this point – just language that you would find in any common-or-garden ESOL class. But to me it was just so obvious that it would be a great help in understanding our extreme English paraphrase of Jesus healing the paralysed man.Things were going well.
The account of the healing wasn’t new to them or me so I am sure I should have brought out something of the intensity of the conflict developing between Jesus and his opponents. How to make sure that the text is understandable but that it is not robbed of its power. That’s the thing. This is God’s Word we are dealing with. It’s more than a great text. It’s the means by which he talks to us. Pray that he will take the language, the preparation and the willingness, and that he will bring honour to Jesus through it all. Pray that he will give me the chance to teach those who have never heard.

Incidentally

4 March 2017

What a lovely start. The cafe proprietor asks me how the classes are going as I order my cappuccino. We get to talking and I ask about coffee and tea in his country (which I had assumed to be Turkey). Good job I didn’t let on as he is actually from Algeria. After a little more chat I trot upstairs where I see Uberman on his smartphone. He’s watching a video on the 40th anniversary of a devastating earthquake in Romania. We talk about it and I (not heartlessly) get some language from it while expressing surprise and sympathy.
We are soon joined by our two regular women who thank the proprietor who had just pushed an extra table across the floor to accommodate us. Whoops. Our older woman, a grandmother, thanked him warmly, calling him “boy.” I thanked him too, deliberately referring to him as “sir”. Language point number one: how to negotiate two very different cultures in a language not your own. Of course, we call our own children boys and girls however old they are. We might even say we are going out with the boys (even if they are pensioners). But we might also put somebody down or assume superiority by calling them a boy. Anyhow, no harm done and a little lesson on “register” and tone in language.

I still just love it that it is the Bible material that wags this tail in these lessons. I don’t have to cleverly slip texts in. What freedom. So today we were looking at Jesus healing the man with the withered arm. We identified the main characters as Jesus, the elders and the man. Several games later I was happy that the nervous mother of our absent Miss Irrepressible was not under her shadow today. She really lacks confidence and it shows it. She is an expert in saying that she is a “no good student”. So it was great to be able to genuinely and specifically encourage her achievements (few things worse than patronising praise). Her almost tearful eye was a reminder to me that bringing up teenagers is difficult in any culture. This is compounded when the youngster concerned is proficient in English and you are not. So after offering a little sympathy and a little advice grounded in some of the difficulties I’ve had we continued.
At last we came to the takeaway point. I still hadn’t worked on it as hard as I should. I am going to need help from one of the elders at church on this. We lamely looked at the ugliness of the episode as there were these leaders who had no love for the poor man and indeed were angered rather than happy at his healing. We contrasted this with the faith of the man who did all that he had been told by Jesus because he trusted him. So the takeaway: just as we are pleased when we have the trust of others so God loves it when we put our trust in him. God spare me from mere moralising or even worse, righteous rhetoric when he actually has serious stuff to say to us.
Just after we had said our goodbyes two young women on an adjacent table rose to leave and smiled. I have seen them each of the weeks we have been here. I was pleased to know that they would have heard something of our lesson. Anyhow they shared that they were having mum time while their children were at the mosque. Just a little exchange. Who knows to where it might go.

As good as it gets

12 March 2017

Is it even legal to be this happy? I’m so happy I could dance and sing where I stand. But is that because I’m doing pleasurable and rewarding work? Or is it because I am laughably trying to serve God with my talents?
This morning the cafe proprietor inquired, “Cappuccino?” as though it was my regular. We are so at home here. I sank into the comfortable leather armchair and greeted the one class member sat around our table. She said her sister would be along soon. We occupy ourselves in the meantime with some work on the verb “check” that emerged from an attempt by her. We had got as far as “check my wallet” and a few other “checks” when our Uber Driver Learner turned up. Great. He said that he was late because he had finished work at three-thirty, slept through and arrived a few minutes late for our ten o’clock start. Our Grandmother, who made a half hour journey, prays in Romanian and we start the lesson proper. Then Mrs Lackingconfidence and her daughter who had also made a long journey arrived. I am so grateful for their committedness, but I do pray for some Leytonstone locals too.
As always when there is no clock I just start and hope for the best knowing that we will get through tons of stuff even if we don’t do it in the most efficient manner. All I want is that we work towards our appointment with the Parable of the Sower with at least twenty minutes to spend on it.
Well the lesson goes like a dream. The vocab takes longer than I imagined (as usual) because I enjoy it so much and the learners find it challenging. This stage of the lesson is a must if we are to understand the text of the parable. So we go on. We play a highly competitive pairing game. Gradually they all manage to get most of the chosen words (planted, path, walked, died, weeds, grew, fell and story). I ask Uberman to drop out of the last round and to use it as a spelling test. That was challenging as he only got two words right. In the meantime, the two ladies were neck and neck at seven-word cards each. I was delighted that Mrs Lackingconfidence did so well (it almost made me cry). We all willed her on (how do you write that into a lesson plan or teaching method??)
So we finally get on to reading our text. They read it in Romanian (I can’t wait for the day when I have to get a Polish, Urdu or some other translation too). Then we get to the simplified English summary. Our top learner, Uberman, read on further than I had planned but we let him go on so that the others would be exposed to the language one more time. Finally, all four of us read a couple of lines each. For me the result was stunning. Uberman did well, as expected, but the other two read with a good degree of fluency and with some understanding. (almost more tears). Everybody recognised how well they had done. Wow. What did I do to get to be a part of all of this? (I just turned up). Even our takeaway point was better this week. We spoke of how Jesus warned his listeners to listen carefully to God’s Word. We thought of how important it was for us to do exactly the same. His words are life indeed. Pray that lives here will be transformed by it.

What's next?

18 March 2017

All present and correct this week. That’s three class members (plus a daughter). Before the lesson proper, I suggested starting a “Whatsapp” group as a learning aid. Everybody was just as keen as I and so within three minutes we were up and running. This development was to be a great help during the lesson.

We think God is answering our prayers as far as progress in learning English is concerned. But what about the other great desire. We want some learners who haven’t heard the good news of Jesus before. I raised this at our church business meeting on Wednesday for thoughts, suggestions and prayer. Our area is as amazingly linguistically diverse as any. So why aren’t we making headway here?

We begin with some pronunciation work as the very important unvoiced “th” sound was not being pronounced correctly. So we perform some moderately successful drilling of the sound and progress to me making a “selfie” video. It was only six seconds of me producing the sound several times with the focus being on the movements of my lips, teeth and tongue (Great). Instant success. It was on everybody’s phone within 10 seconds and they were playing it and practising.

Next, our cards were on the table for some work on phrasal verbs as we looked at “get in”, “get on” etc.Some incorrect formation of present tense verbs triggered our next use of Whatsapp (as if I needed an excuse). This seemed a lot of work for the single phrase coming later: “Jesus got into a boat”. Nevertheless, it went really well. While they continued to speak I wrote out a verb table, took a photo of it and sent it to the group so they could practise at home (or on the bus or anywhere). By the end of the lesson we had also put up a link to some webpages and another short pronunciation video. Awesome. The real trick is not to allow this technological tail to wag the main body of the lesson.

The Mark’s Gospel part of the lesson this week was a little different. While they read their Romanian text of Jesus stilling the storm I did the same. My purpose – to pick out any Romanian words that were vaguely similar to English words via their Latin roots. So I came up with travel, sea, Lord and a couple of others. We discussed these and corrected me where I was laughably wrong. Nice to put yourself in the position of somebody who understands little of another language.

We then went through our simplified English Bible text. This week I had arrived at class equipped with a “takeaway” conclusion suggested by our main Bible teacher at church so I felt a little more confident. The takeaway was, “Sometimes life is a storm. It can feel out of control. We might be lost in it. But not if we trust Jesus.” I wanted to stress that Jesus doesn’t promise to take us out of trouble. The life of a believer can be full of trouble but Jesus is with him in it. I used Stephen the martyr as an example of someone who was confident of Jesus’ help even in the worst of times. Miss I’mquieternow (we’ve changed her name) couldn’t help herself and chimed in that Stephen prayed for the people who stoned him. Excellent. I really want interaction in these classes. I don’t want to get the feeling that I am in control of what God might have to say. Pray that I will get that right. Pray that we will hear him speak.

That bad? Really?

25 March 2017

I had just finished negotiating with my dodgy printer to produce the stuff for this morning’s lesson when the phone rang. On the other end was a halting and unknown but unmistakably Spanish voice asking about the class. She was already in the cafe (and holding me up from leaving home). Was she two or one? That’s to say I’d had two Spanish inquiries earlier in the week. But I wasn’t sure whether they were the same person or not (it’s complicated). Having reassured her that we will start at 10 o’clock I set off.

I joined the queue for coffee and scanned the already busy cafe for the suspect – a young Spanish female. I thought I spotted her so I phoned and took a moment or two to get her to turn around. Result. Along with two other learners in the queue, I ordered my beverage and went upstairs.

What followed was humbling, exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. We all introduced ourselves (with my usual joke about being 34 and a bit years old – it never wears thin and always breaks the ice). And so we found we now had a Columbian carer and a Spanish-Argentinian au pair in the class. One of them has a church background and the other came out of nowhere. She is still a mystery although I think she was probably referred to us through an email I sent out earlier in the week.

It does get tiring spending so much work on vocabulary. But, as always, this has to go well if the lesson is to hang together. But how to vary it so that it’s not the same-old-same-old and yet to keep it essentially predictably the same. Today we did this by sort of auctioning the picture cards. Learners could win each auction by making the best pronunciation of the word we were looking at. This means tons of unwitting modeling and listening and as well as pronouncing and correcting. All good stuff.

The lesson got its coherence out of work done in the week by “my mate Dave” (aka the main teaching elder at our church). Firstly, I was profoundly affected by our chat after the prayer meeting when he highlighted how the region of the Gerasenes was a “Dead place”. It was outside Israel proper and full of darkness, death and evil spirits. It was a place where Jesus the light unexpectedly ventured and then showed up the people there as the “living dead”. I played (if that’s the right word) with this thought during the week and concluded loads. It led to devastating thoughts. It means that the world away from Israel’s God really is as hopelessly dead as it’s possible to be. It is grovellingly dead. That means that tribal loyalties are rubbish. I have to think of Jamaica as just as full of corrupt deadness as Romania, Spain or Britain (no sense in talking about heritage in these places – just scratch the surface of the cultures and look). Of course there is common grace, beauty and sadly shattered image-bearing but people are hopeless without Christ.

Unfortunately, just as we got to the text and read it in mother tongues the Spanish speakers had to go. No problem – they both were effusively grateful (one texted straight afterward, giving thanks for the class. Those remaining read the text and contributed greatly to our understanding of it. So today we had a lovely answer to our prayer for someone who is not on the same faith page as us. Thank God with us and pray for us.

How wonderful is Jesus?

3 April 2017

The mobile vibrated away in front of me as I finished the last bits of preparation for today’s class. To answer or not to answer? That is the question. Well, I knew I had time so I answered it. A Pakistani voice on the other end enquiring about the class. I give details and set off with time on my hands and no sense of panic about punctuality. Wonderful.

It’s great to arrive and see my Romanian 30 something-year-old man sitting in the corner clutching his coffee and sporting a faceful of stubble. He looks really awake for one who has worked all night. We are joined and greeted by our resident mother (another Romanian). She settles into one of the leather chairs and we begin with me asking God to help the three of us.

Our first activity is the making of a “word cloud” of vocabulary associated with “daughter”. Pretty pink, blue, red and green marker pens scatter the words neatly onto our flip chart as soon as they are suggested. We practise saying them and I end up reading them onto our WhatsApp group as audio recordings.

Our first potential controversy is negotiated as I speak of the vulnerability of daughters and the special needs of protection they have. It’s obvious I don’t tick enough of those Equality Agenda boxes – but my class is happy enough. I know that today’s look at Mark’s Gospel will see us looking at two daughters; both of whom have great needs. Thankfully one of them has a desperate father batting for her. The other is an outsider and has no one. We continue with some verb work and then play some word bingo using the words that will feature in today’s text.

They get on with reading their Romanian text as usual. We work towards reading the English simplification and discussing it. We talk about the importance of touch and how this woman touched Jesus and how he touched the dead girl. Today’s simplified text, supplied via facebook by one of our Elders was so helpful. I am especially happy with the concluding thoughts it presents. It’s great to know that though I am the lead man in the class, the church is actually behind this small work.

These readings are such intimate occasions where we see Mark weave a narrative in which the beauty of Jesus, and the neediness of human beings are strikingly clear. To hear Jesus affectionately call this woman “daughter” was moving. To think of her exclusion from the normal life of her community was distressing. But we end up learning and feeling that none is too spoiled or unimportant for Jesus to help. We were aware of the listening ears of a couple who were otherwise into their coffee and newspapers on a nearby table. Others snatched an inquiring look at us. Great.

Two post scripts – being a regular in the cafe means that you get to know others who use it. After class I spoke with a father and son. I last spoke six months ago when the son was beginning his teaching career. Six months in he is just as enthusiastic and his dad is just as proud. Then at half seven after a full day’s teaching and marking I heard a couple of young women talking about the English needs of one of them. That led to a long conversation and the offer of me starting a Conversation Club. They were as enthusiastic as me about the possibilities. We’ll have to see where that one goes. Pray that we will have gospel opps.

Rejected

8 April 2017

Teachers charge good money for after school lessons. But I get mine for free. Awesome. Because I teach these English Classes and need help, David (a real Bible Teacher) supplies me with a suggested English text each week. Wow. Something fresh and personal dutifullly and willingly given and received. I get to adapt it and pass it on to my class, and they get to think about it for the rest of the week. Today we were looking at Jesus being rejected by his hometown. We focused on the fact that he could perform only a few miracles there but his disciples did loads in the surrounding region. Ooooh. Who wants to see a Messi dribble or a Great British Bakeoff when you can hear this?

Just the three of us again today. But this was no real test of faith. I am now well used to looking pathetic if I compare myself to others. Yesterday I was at a Christian Teaching English Conference. Some churches have two or three classes of 20 learners and a staff of volunteers along with classrooms, resources and equipment. I am wistful but genuinely not jealous. My pride says “Look at me”. The better me says “Thank you Jesus.” What a competition!! There were 120 attenders at the conference and I came away with a sackful of ideas and motivations to put to the test. I know that God uses the weak and the small but I know I mustn”t become inversely snobbish and think that small is superior. Whatever God gives you is great. And he has given three faithful, grateful class members who drink in all that I can give them.

Today our class lasted two and a half hours. We began really low tech with me sketching out pictures of nine words for us to guess, define and use. As usual these words were grist to the mill for our look at Mark’s Gospel. So our words included town, listen, listener, mind, ears, little and heart. This gave me the chance to wander all over the place from regions in Romania to “er” as a suffix for driver, teacher etc. Along the way we thought of bigamy and polygamy and the unwisdom of Abraham, David and others as well as the illegality of multiple wives in the UK).

We eventually got on to the meat of the lesson. Today we tried something different. They had to read the Romanian text and tell me as much as they could in English. This was stretching and revealing. Must try it again. They went on to read the simplified English. I noted down various pronunciation errors for us to look at. Cris nodded in approval at this process.

The text was so exciting. It’s like there is always something new to be discovered in it. I love it.I just hope it’s not wasted on me. It’s one thing to be taken by the attractiveness of the text. It’s another to be arrested and owned by it. That’s what we want. So we saw that Jesus left his home town because of their lack of faith just as he left the region of the Gerasenes when they faithlessly begged him to go. It also beggared belief to think that there was an occasion when the almighty Jesus could do little. Even more suprising then that his disciples did more, because their hearers listened with faith. Reading Mark can be like going on a rollercoaster. But Mark isn’t Thorpe Park. Pray that our amazement will be more than the cheap thrills of watching Messi or the.Bakeoff.

It's about people

1 May 2017

At the moment I’m giving thanks for just about everything about my job as a teacher (except the paperwork). I have work that I would pay to do. I love the language; the producing of materials; the using of technology; the planning of curriculum; the success of learners and the challenge of appropriately relating my faith (where possible). But I am particularly thankful for the chance to relate to so many people from so many different nations and backgrounds. So today is about people and what they bring to my table.

People bring the unexpected because they bring lives full of experiences which I don’t have. There is no such thing as a boring life (only boringly told stories of a life lived). When I got in this morning the first story was from Mrs Growinginconfidence. She told us about her life in Romania, where she had worked as a young woman in an orphanage financed by Swiss Christians and run by her church. She lived onsite and was part of a team caring for 16 infants abandoned after Ceaucescu’s fall. Why make such a fuss of her and her story? Because she believes she can’t speak any English. Wow!! Then there was Mrs I’mtheauntyoftheclass. She was amazing. She told of how she had worked for a church that had assisted Gypsies (her word not mine) in a crime-ridden area of Romania. The church gave them a place to wash and eat and some sort of training and teaching. She said one of them studied at NASA. Again, her English is very limited, but not so limited that she couldn’t get this across. Both of these ladies would struggle to ask for an Oyster card to be topped up. But give them the time and the coaxing and they realise that they have far more than they think.

As our lesson progressed, an Indian man came across and asked for my phone number and name. He realised we were having a lesson and wanted information for himself and a friend. I happily gave it but took a moment to recover my train of thought. Wow. An inquiry. That’s great.

Another person added to my day after the class. It was a young Italian woman who seated herself on a table close by. I got on with my writing and huffed and puffed about striking up a conversation with her. I had the intention of asking advice about promoting another class. But I was aware of how weird it would seem to have a middle-aged man talking to a complete stranger. Nevertheless, I overcame my shyness (Ed. Shyness??) and spoke to her just as she had put her coat on. We chatted briefly and she said that she was interested and wanted a card. I had none so she entered my website on her phone. She said she was in a hurry but that she would let others know and would contact me through the site.

My final personal encouragement came late in the afternoon as I settled down in the cafe to blog. In came My Mate Dave. He didn’t detect how my spirit had risen ten feet on seeing his friendly face. He had supplied the text and the “takeaway” for today’s lesson on the reaction of Herod to the execution of John. I now had the chance to spill out a whole lot of encouragements, hopes and thoughts on him and to take in his wisdom and observations for the future.

God can make everyone a gainer in this work. Pray that he will do just that.

Danger - Electricity at work

6 May 2017

I got a surprise voicemail last night from Mrs B, a fellow church member. She said she would like to come along to class today. Lovely. With a class this small I don’t actually need much help on the day itself. But I do need the interest, encouragement and prayers of others. So I was delighted to see her and did make full use of her. She is a lively highly motivated, energetic, godly 80-something year old Jamaican with plenty of life experiences and no crustiness to boot.

Just two learners today. We started off talking about the week we had just experienced. Mrs B told us that she had been, “Here, there and everywhere”. What a lovely phrase to be able to pick up on and use for teaching purposes. It was especially good for Uberman to be able to use it to describe his journeying around London. So without even trying, Mrs B makes her first contribution to the lesson. Amazing.

I try not to think too much of myself in the lessons. But it is sometimes difficult not to think, “This is going really well (or badly)”. Indeed, being reflective and responsive is just part of being “alive” to possibilities. How boring, laboured and ineffective lessons would be if there were not constant interaction and feedback between teacher and learner (and between learner and learner). As a teacher I find nothing more deadly and dispiriting than those moments when a class is unresponsive. I don’t want the deferred gratification of hearing afterwards that hidden behind those “zombie-like faces” was real enjoyment and understanding. I need to see eyes that light up with excitement or faces that frown in puzzlement and confusion. I need to hear misunderstandings pour out in the form of wrong answers and errors. I need to see strain on the faces of learners who are showing effort. Which teacher is not immediately motivated on seeing the penny drop for one learner or another. These kinds of learner reaction mean that I can know and teach people who are in front of me rather than some generic learner who exists nowhere but on a lesson plan.

It has been said that “no battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy”. It is this “contact” that calls for responsiveness and resourcefulness on the part of a teacher. There are many obstacles that become enemies in the classroom. There is the shyness or nervousness of the learner. Then there is their self-doubt or the painful awareness that they are not where they want to be in terms of progress. Part of the pleasure of teaching is reassuring, cajoling, helping and accompanying learners over and past these obstacles.

It is all of these uncertainies and unpredictabilities that make for a dynamic lesson. At times this will be full of excitement and expectancy; at others there will be quiet, calm purposeful activity. Of course it’s not always like that. Sometimes we wade through a marsh of incomprehension or realise that there really has been too much teacher talk time (where you realise that you really don’t like the sound of your own voice – though you began by thinking that you did).

I know that Mrs B went away from today’s lesson with a degree of excitement. I am so glad that her first thought will be at how good God had been during our lesson. Her take away will be that God is not just incomparably better than us but that any good that we have has been given by him. Do pray that my neediness will not distract from God’s glory.

Why worry?

22 July 2017

If only it was always that simple. A young Czech woman met me at the library where I teach in the week. I told her about our Saturday class. She was really keen to come but I was just as keen for her not to promise that she would. Sometimes those promises evaporate in the busyness of the week. Anyhow promise she did.

This morning I got three texts to say that learners would be turning up and then one more saying that Miss Czech had overslept. I told her “No problem. Turn up when you can”. And so she did. It turned out that Uberman had finished his shift at 3am and she had finished hers in a printshop at the same time. And here they were at 10am on a Saturday morning. Awesome.

I opened with a simple prayer. I sometimes wonder about praying aloud (or even inaudibly) in front of others. What is the point? I could have prayed in the five minutes before everybody came. This is not a service of worship (in one sense). So why pray? Am I just shoving my religion ostentatiously but quietly down my learners’ throats? Well I know this isn’t the case for believing students but today I had one about whom I knew nothing. So I guess although I spoke to God my words were “tamed” and made less intimate out of a desire to be understandable to the uninitiated. I didn’t want her thinking I was the “religious” nutcase that I am.

Our lesson proceeded well, the first part of it focusing on the language needed for our text in Mark’s Gospel where Jesus shows compassion in healing. Mark also hints that there is a greater healing that is needed (why didn’t I think of that during the lesson). I did my best (unnecessarily to assure Miss Czech that the class, though of mixed ability, was good for her). Okay to be honest I would probably do the same if we were a much larger class. When will I ever stop being so needy and defensive? She was happy anyway. She knew what she wanted and I should have respected that and realised that she would have enough patience to watch and wait for her good things.

We are working a lot more with “language chunks” these days. I think it makes for more natural English. We use so many of them. Collocations, ” a nice… time/day/man”; phrasal verbs, “go away/ go down/go into”; and idioms, “hungry for… success/love/praise”. Then there are compound nouns; “washing machine/driver’s license”. English is stuffed full of these “multi word expressions”. They are like the long lego bricks or the strings of code that programmers cut and paste. Ready made and confidence building.

So we get to the business end of things. I again explain to our newbie what we are doing as she looks a little uncertain. They each read Mark’s text in their mother tongues and then speak for fifteen seconds, each summarising what they can in those languages. They go on and try to explain what the text says in English and to raise any questions they have. Finally we read our simplified English text. This went really well. Miss Czech seemed to understand and appreciate the thought that there is much wrong with us that spoils us and that this goes way beyond mere words and actions.

At the lesson’s end Mrs Quietasamouse prayed in Romanian, her mother tongue. This was followed by Uberman’s interpretation. Pray that God blesses the work we did today.

Keep calm and create

30 July 2017

Creativity. Just one more reason for believing that we are made in God’s image. We were made to be creative, imaginative and reflective. No. We don’t always get a chance to show that. But when we do… wow. And things are no different in an English classroom. I am so grateful for the chance to “get creative”. It keeps us all interested, buzzing and on our toes. It might be messy at times or appear chaotic at others but it can be so productive. Part of the teacher’s job is to minimize the scope for confusion and to bring things together in such a way that everything looks part of a grand master plan. But that’s not what it looks like under the waterline. There they are paddling away like mad trying to bring coherence and purpose to what would otherwise be a sprawling mass of activities, learning objectives and interesting interjections.

Today we began by talking about our journeys to get to the cafe. I was immediately bowled over by Mother Romania who said that it had taken her an hour and a half to get from Watford to get here (25 miles). Wow. Then Mrs Quietasamouse told us she had got to sleep at 3am as she had been (devotedly) waiting up for her husband. I count it as a privilege that I have learners who value the class enough to overcome the tiredness and challenges that come with the “creative” lives of new immigrants.

We continued by reading our Whatsapp message group texts. One of the absent learners had messaged to say that she would be out “weeding” today. I had replied with two pieces of clipart; one showing a woman … weeding and the other showing a woman at a “wedding”. I captioned them with the briefest of explanations. That gave us a great chance to develop vocabulary.

Next up we looked at a large picture of an eye. Why? Because today’s text focused on the gradual giving of sight to the blind man at Bethsaida and the gradual giving of insight to Peter who acclaimed Jesus as Messiah. So the two ladies volunteered as many words as they could connected with eyes. We got loads (including optician, glasses and lens) but there were so many basic words missing (e.g. eyebrow, eyelid and blind). Their next job was to choose 9 words from the thirty we had collected and to write them onto a grid of 9 squares for a game of bingo.

Following our bingo which included loads of pronunciation work more creative juices flowed. Why not test that pronunciation by getting them to speak to the unforgiving and at times comedic “GoogleVoiceSearch” on the phone? It was brilliant. It meant that we could see multiple images illustrating all of the words they pronounced. The satisfaction gained from successfully pronouncing the words was palpable. They both got down to immediately trying it out on their own phones.

The hardest part about today’s text from Mark’s Gospel was how to approach the question of “Jesus spitting in a blind man’s eyes”. No. Nothing medicinal in the saliva. Just a plain “ordinary” dissing of a poor man so that he would be healed and the disciples would be taught. Well, thanks to some previous exegetical spadework of our teaching elder Dave we overcame our “first-thoughts” and understood something of what was happening.

The lesson ended as we read and discussed our Romanian and simplified English text, and recorded ourselves on the Whatsapp Group. We break for the summer now but we hope to get creative again in September. Do pray.

Poleaxed!!

16 September 2017

Is it boring to say the same kind of thing all the time? Well it all depends. I suppose it’s okay to say that God is kind and great and full of surprises (and we are not). Today I think that he showed me that again. I think?? Dare I go further and say “I know”? No. I don’t think so. Can we ever be absolutely sure about what God is doing? But let’s go with the thought anyhow.

Here I was with no students in the cafe. I dashed off a text to one person I had expected. Nothing doing. Then came a text saying Miss Energy had just woken up and would come rushing over as soon as possible. She also gave me a heads up saying that there was another young woman who might be at the cafe waiting for the lesson.Five minutes later and there she was. I decided to go through the old “Did-you-know-about-English-place names?” routine. It’s always interesting and worth a go. So we looked at “hams”, “mouths” and “fords” as endings. Being Italian (what’s that got to do with it) she sat there drinking it all in.

At last Miss Energy turned up all flustered and apologetic despite being told not to worry. So the three of us sat down for what would become a three hour lesson (two people ready to listen to me for three hours – now that is awesome!) I started by introducing the class as it is a new academic year and I always want to make sure that nobody is here under false pretences. I told them this class is free and that it is run by the church I go to. We went on to look at the kind and level of language we study. I then said that the last part of the lesson would be spent looking at a part of the Bible and discussing it. I have got less awkward about explaining this as the months have passed. I just believe in laying your cards on the table (it’s less trouble in the long run).

We went on and had Miss Sunny and Miss Energetic work on some spelling and pronunciation. I spot the frustration of Miss E and decide I must make sure she has a little more assurance and success (nothing succeeds like success). We pass on with a game of match the pairs in which the pictures are connected with “messages” as today’s text was on John the Baptist (Mark 1). For the last part of the lesson I was poleaxed. Why? Well I had been assuming that coming from Italy meant having a Roman Catholic background. Imagine my surprise when Miss Sunny said that this was her first time of reading the Bible. Racing through my mind was the thought “Wow! I can’t believe that there are Roman Catholics who haven’t read the Bible at all.” Then my prejudice-meter went through the roof as she said that she had originally come from North Africa. I guarantee that in a roomful of white Italians nobody would pick her out as having a Muslim background. Amazing. I will long remember her sitting in rapt attention as she looked at me, a middle-aged man who was apparently serious, about this text. They both listened embarassingly carefully as we went through the text on repentance. I could hardly believe that here were two western young women prepared to listen seriously to what was for them the strange teaching of the Bible. Praise God that he is so kind and good and full of surprises.

More please!

23 September 2017

Three young women met together to learn English (sounds like the first line of a joke). One of them asks whether she can “take one photo of a worksheet”. I pounced on this statement and all of my intentions for an orderly lesson flew out of the window. Thus the lesson unravelled in front of our eyes as I sat there “helplessly” watching it. I was relieved that there was no inspector present to observe. It was easy enough to teach that we say “one” photo” when we are focusing on number. But what she actually meant was could she take “a photo”. Explanations, drilling and examples dispensed with, we carry on.

The next unscheduled stop (it was fun – honestly) came as the result of a mispronunciation. This led us into the phonology, or the study of speech sounds. I needed to demonstrate the importance of lips, tongue, teeth, nose and lungs in producing speech. What a great opportunity to do a bit of acting. I got to take out my dentures (imaginary), press my tongue down, speak like a third rate ventriloquist (no lip movement), pinch my nose, and run out of breath. All was done in the name of teaching the importance of these parts of the body in producing speech. The point? To show how complex a matter speech production is. And to recognise how awesomely and amazingly we have been created (not forgetting that we eat, drink and breathe through that same opening, the mouth).

We eventually managed to retrieve a fragment of my lesson plan from the debris as we worked on some vocab. These words would appear later in our simplified English text. It was Jesus calling his first disciples and casting out the demon in the first chapter of Mark’s gospel.

What came next was humbling as it was breathtaking. Here were three twenty something year old women who had almost zero Bible knowledge sitting down around a table with a middle aged man (I dare not mention my age as it frightens me). What were we doing? Going through a Bible passage. Oh Lord please give us more, and give us men too. A further source of fascination was that they were confused. That was amazing. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been. But I now had to work out why. They had read the text in their first languages but were visibly bewildered by it. Had I printed out the wrong texts? Were the texts in archaic Italian and Czech (an equivalent of the King James Version)? Were we dealing with a narrative structure that takes some getting used to? Were they just bewildered that anybody could believe this stuff. Really hard to gauge. At first I opted for “They probably just don’t believe it and can’t imagine how it could possibly be relevant”. So I sought to reassure them that I knew that many people would just reject it but that I trusted Mark and his account (as words from God). I said I didn’t expect anyone to pretend to believe (even for the sake of free English lessons). No. I only wanted the chance to introduce Jesus, who is pictured in these accounts. I told them that I ask God to help me understand these bewildering stories. I also said that each week on Sunday we have a Bible teacher at church who helps us to understand (no – that wasn’t a plug or hint to come to church). Whatever – at least they understood the English version. There’s always next time. And there’s always prayer. Pray with me. Ask for lots more.

How quirky was that?

30 September 2017

What was new today? Well we had a new learner, a new table and a new method (well new to me anyway). After my opening prayer we began with a quick multiple choice test on the past simple tense. I graded this immediately with my “Zipgrade” app (showoff). With this I marked and analysed their 48 answers in ten seconds (awesome). We continued with a description of the different times we use the tense and we finished off with a game of “Past tense bingo”.

Up went our mini whiteboard for a look at phrasal verbs. Just look at the way in which the verb “turn”is used. Think of the differences (and seemingly unrelatedness) of the verbs “turn up”, “turn into”, “turn on”, “turn off”, “turn to” and “turn away”. There is so much room for confusion and fun here. We spent loads of time and energy on this but it was worth it. I just have to make sure I keep the lesson aim in view.

This week we left just twenty minutes for our look at Mark’s Gospel. It was the episode in which Jesus healed the leper. I had talked over my approach with “My mate Dave” last week. It was a wonderful discussion (although I’m still waiting on an email summary). We thought of how utterly incomprehensible and impenetrable much of the Bible is to people who are used to different literary conventions and frameworks. After all we come 2000 years after the Gospels were written and we have altogether different languages and cultures. So Dave suggested looking at what was inevitably quirky about a passage and then taking that on. It is of immediate interest and gives a chance to naturally study whatever God is saying in that small part of his Word (not forgetting there is a big picture). He also suggested another approach he has used with children and adults. Rather than assuming that they understand all that we mean when we use a Bible concept he first asks them what they make of it. The results are used as a basis for engaging and teaching in a way that deals with the people in front of you. With some trepidation I tried this. I think it worked. I will talk it through and try it again.

Rather than begin with the text I asked them what they thought of when they heard the word “unclean”. I knew where I wanted to go. But the route there would depend on what they brought to the journey. The answers were great. First we had a few synonyms and then we moved onto things that we think are disgusting. I wanted to stress this idea of “disgust”. It worked.

On to the text proper. As we read through it and looked at the narrative and its meaning I spoke of the disease of leprosy. It is a horrible and disfiguring a disease. I eventually told the three women gathered around the table that to God they were disgusting* (talk about getting personal). I think they were all ears at this point. I continued that by saying that God is disgusted by our lies, greed, stealing, jealousy, selfishness and so on. It did occur to me that this was not the whole picture and that they wouldn’t recognise themselves in this description. I added that we obviously do good things, selfless things and show amazing traits. But this was simply not good enough. The takeaway point? The same Jesus who cleansed the unclean can do this for us. Pray that he will.

* (need I say “me too”)

An open goal

6 October 2017

A funeral meant there would be no class this Saturday. But I didn’t want to cancel for the week. I wanted to ensure continuity. Was it because of fear? I didn’t want to lose students. So what did I do? I held the class on Friday afternoon in a library. A wise move or a fear-filled one? Who knows? But what an afternoon it was.

I expected an Ecuadorian who had met me at the library earlier in the week. I also expected two Italians. It was a balmy autumn afternoon so one of the Italians was waiting on the concourse outside the library sitting there eating lunch. I told her (let’s call her Ms Sorrisi, which means “Smiles”) that the class would start in a couple of minutes. She was eager and came up pretty immediately.

To be frank I hadn’t prepared today, unless you count 33 years of teaching (the last 9 in ESOL) as preparation. I attempted something last minute but it was half-hearted as I had just finished a two and a half hour class at the same library. It actually takes me hours to prepare properly. But I knew I could wing it and give a tolerably good lesson (I do mess up often but my learners rarely know it – showoff).

We sat down and I asked Ms Silenzioso (yes that does mean she’s ultra quiet) to tell us about her family. I took down a few notes and it became apparent that she could express herself understandably. But that she was inaccurate using the simple past tense. Excellento! The errors of my students keeping me in a job. We compared the simple past with the present perfect simple. We had loads of practise and laughs at this, with them scribbling down notes as appropriate.

What followed was wonderful. Instead of doing the Bible reading I decided that they should hear something of my faith. Why? Because I wanted to make sure that those who missed the class today would still be in step with our reading. And – it seemed like a good idea at the time. So, as per instruction, they asked me when I started “to believe”. What an open goal! A chance to speak about how, as a young child, I had had some belief in God but that I only came to believe that I needed God to put me right when I was fifteen. I spoke of the gifts that I have been given since then – a loving wife, children, church and work that I love to do. The next question was about why I do the work I do. That was another “back of the net” moment (sorry non-football fans). I spoke of my own love of learning about anything (well -almost anything). This segued very nicely into the pleasure I get from seeing others gradually learn stuff as the penny drops.Then we got onto the idea that Jesus said that the highest position in life was that of a servant. And teachers (like anybody else) should be servants. Jesus himself was a servant. Finally, I said that I wanted the chance to tell people about this wonderful person – Jesus. I did rather get into just how wonderful he is in character (but who can do that adequately) They then heard something about our church’s main Bible teacher and how he helps us understand more of Jesus each Sunday. But no – that wasn’t an invitation to church. It was just another example of how kind God is to me.

Pray that he will be eternally kind to them too

The biggest problem

14 October 2017

Who doesn’t like pleasant surprises? This morning the cafe proprietor greeted me by saying that three of them were waiting upstairs. Cappuccino ordered, I go up to our window seats. Two “answers to prayer” greeted me. Well, I have been hoping (praying) that God would send some men to the class; and here they were (I think). We were soon joined by Mrs Stressed and Miss Czech. Finally, a text from our two Italian girls anticipated their late arrival. So we were full. Did the numbers make an enormous difference? Not really. When you teach you get into a zone and filter out stuff like numbers. But it was interesting. New learners bring new opportunities and new dynamics.

We had a successful time gathering words connected with ill-health and writing them down with prettily coloured pens in a wordcloud. Some unusual words, such as varicose veins and asthma, came up. From these we talked about our personal experiences of ill-health. The students then selected nine of those conditions to write onto their “Bingo grids”. In this one activity we had the chance to practise all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing).

It was now that this week’s planning paid-off. I was so happy with the interaction with my church elder. I had left it until far too late. Nevertheless, he managed to scramble together some wonderful thoughts while on the concourse of Euston Station. He messaged me with them. He continued with his approach of finding the “quirkiness” and intriguing in a passage. We were in Mark’s account of the paralysed man and his four friends. He was brought to Jesus for healing but what does Jesus say? “Your sins are forgiven.” What’s the connection? I can’t see it immediately. That’s why God has given us Bible teachers (not priests) who help us by being paid (usually pitifully) to relentlessly pore over the text of the Bible and to help us understand its meaning. It is through this Word that we hear God speak. For decades Jesus’ words here have puzzled me. Still, I am in good company in my incomprehension – the apostles often didn’t have a clue what Jesus meant. For intelligent men they were really slow on the uptake. But I think that at last I was steered towards understanding. Jesus is telling those around him that healing the body is dead easy (for him). What is much more difficult, and interesting, is healing the soul.

The insight given afforded me a good excuse to develop work for practising our “zero conditionals” (google it). We started with “when/if statements” to which I added some ridiculous non-sequiturs like “If I have a broken leg … the doctor gives me flowers”. This is what Jesus’ declaration of forgiveness seems like. Time to talk about how difficult it is to fix broken relationships and souls. I pointed out that God is not simply angry with the way each of us around the table had trashed our lives, his world and our relationship with him. No. He is also unspeakably sad (we might say heartbroken) at this. How do we even begin to fix that? Will a “Sorry” do? Not at all. We acknowledged the fact that we all have wrong hidden within. I think the point was made: “fixing stuff to do with souls, hearts and relationships” is far harder than fixing bodies. So when Jesus says he can do this – he can forgive- this is enormous. He offers to put us right and change us. That’s deep.

Pray that God will show our class members just how deep.

Can do better - must do better

21 October 2017

Pray that God will show our class members just how deep.

Out of the bag

4 November 2017

Once the Discussion Cat is let out of the bag there is no telling where it will go. Today that scarily proved to be the case. If we treat people as individuals, the gospel as true and speech as free, then discussion is bound to be untamed. That can be nerve-rackingly taxing but it is exciting too. Our text today was from Mark 4 where Jesus told the parable of the sower. I got another good steer from our church elder Dave this week. He continues to encourage me to look for the dissonances that should evoke curiosity. He pointed out how “wasteful” the farmer was in his scattering of the seed. This should seem odd to us.

We began by suggesting similarly poor work practices in our jobs. We wanted practices that would earn us a P45. The students knew what this form was but had never come across the terms “you’re fired” or “you’re sacked”. Nevertheless, our list of sackable practices in the building and catering sectors just grew and grew. My aim was to prepare the way for a look the farmer and his seemingly wasteful behaviour and the way in which the apostles took their lead from this in their offering of the gospel to all and sundry.

This week’s grammar point was the present simple tense… again!! It is so easy to trip over this one. The students offered a long list of work themed verbs. They then had to take those verbs and make short sentences with them. This went really well. The pressure of having to make as many work themed sentences as possible in 60 seconds just added to the excitement. We went on to use this same tense to look at habits, fixed arrangements, and general truths in the world of our work

At last we were ready to go on to our reading. Here is where things got really interesting. Striking the balance between finding enough common ground to make dialogue possible and pointing out enough difference to be to be truthful is not easy. Anybody can “passionately”give the gospel” in three minutes of steamrollering their hearers and ignoring their questions. Anybody can insensitively alienate while being “valiant for the truth”. But then it is also all too possible to think that by gently dealing in generalisations and “finding common ground” that we will get a good hearing later. Me – I am thankful for disagreement where it comes.

I do find controversy difficult to manage but that goes with the job of having a discussional class. Our Italian friend shared her belief that a proper investigation of all faiths is necessary in order to arrive at the truth. She also felt that all religions are essentially about the same thing – living well and loving others. Ooh I couldn’t let that rest – could I ? I replied that the solution that the Bible offers for our “wrongness” or sin is, essentially, not the same as other religions. It’s not more penances, or confessions, or prayers and fastings It is trusting that Jesus has righted the wrong and paid the penalty for all that we have done wrong. I was so thankful for such friendly, vigorous, respectful debate. Mr Constructive, our Bulgarian, seemed to get it that it was not the responsibility of the farmer to make the seed grow. He added that it was not the job of the teacher to make results from the word. It is God’s power that does this.

The language of God

18 November 2017

Today we had two. Is my time so valuable and am I so important that I should have more? Nobody is! Two was great.

It was Ms Passionate and Mr Constructive again. They began by competing on an online quiz I had made earlier in the week (quizizz,com). They did really poorly – which was fine.

I am so thankful for the challenge and stimulation of having to read and think about whatever language item I am teaching at the time. Today it was “imperative sentences”. As far as our text in Mark 4 was concerned I had received my usual help. My elder suggested that the very human tendency to talk with inanimate objects might be a fruitful thought to pursue. And so it was. We started with a short humorous video of men talking to various objects. Next, we studied a sheet of traffic symbols, another of instructions about what to do in case of a hurricane, and a whole page of those “Keep Calm and …” memes. What they all had in common was that they provided us with instances of the “imperative”. It’s really all around us.

We spent a long time discussing things we speak to. We then got wonderfully sidetracked into questions of language. Why? Because I wanted to say how in heaven there will be people of every tribe and language. Cue Martin Luther and William Tyndale and how they delivered the common people from Latin and gave them the Bible in their own tongues. This got us into the territory of linguistic pecking-orders and wars and how it seems as though Latin, Arabic, Greek, Sanskrit and Hebrew have all laid claim to be the “language of God”. No doubt there are plenty of other contenders for that title but I pointed out that there were enough curses and swear words in all of them to remind us that there is nothing holy about them. God has used each of them but there is nothing magic about their syllables and sounds. Mr Constructive gave new life to the conversation when he offered that an old Bulgarian language was the most accurate and cosmically geometric of languages. Oh no! This sounded a little too much like scientology or numerology. But that’s what you risk when you try to make yourself understood in another language. Eventually we dismissed the idea that God “speaks” any of our languages as laughable. He doesn’t have a frontal lobe or the problems of processing and word-choice that we have.

Why let our conversation run on so? Because we were going to look at the power of words and I wanted us to see that Jesus was more than a magician uttering some strange incantation to achieve his purpose. So words were doubly important in today’s lesson. And so we get onto the text itself where Jesus uses an imperative sentence to speak to … an inanimate object. Neat eh? Well just remember it wasn’t my idea.But I did get to deliver it. Awesome. He speaks and the storm stops. This last part of the lesson saw us read through a simplified English text of the passage. This went well as we got lots of vocabulary, pronunciation and intonation work done on the back of it.

But the lesson went on for just shy of three hours. Whatever happened to “leave them wanting more”? I was shattered but happy. I still wait to see what God will do through this work. I pray that it will be something eternally g

Nice problem to have

25 November 2017

I got to our cafe just as Mr Constructive was about to go in. He hesitated, turned and greeted me along with his friend Mr Stubble . It was Mr Stubble’s first lesson. He was around my height, stocky middle-aged with short hair and a five o’clock shadow. He looked as if he had been around the block and had attended a school of hard knocks. Even from 10 metres, having never met him before, I started to imagine his story. Don’t we all do that. Don’t we try to size up a person from first impressions? Dress and demeanor are often designed to communicate to others. But I have been surprised often enough to try to avoid this sort of storytelling.

As we sat down, once again my lesson plan went flying out the window. Mr Stubble’s English was so limited that when I asked him to show me his mobile phone he didn’t have a clue what I was asking. I asked his compatriot the same question and although he understood there was still not even a flicker of recognition from Mr Stubble. This was going to be a long morning. When the penny eventually dropped we followed up with work on the idea of “mobile”. So movements such as “push”, “pull”, “drive” and “put” came up. Why?

Because mobile phones… move. Google images on voice search was really good for pictures around the words we introduced. It is so valuable. A spin-off is that it teaches the learners to do these sorts of searches for themselves. Much of our movement theme was based around lorries because this was Mr Stubble’s job.

Today it was facial expressions that excited and satisfied me. I do occasionally have a little grumble at my students if they give no impression about whether they are understanding or enjoying the lessons. Miss Blankface would not be allowed to keep her name for long in our lessons. I hate occupying a vacuum. I need feedback. Some would say I am too needy. Anyhow here was this middle-aged Bulgarian lorry driver smiling in recognition, grimacing in frustration, laughing with satisfaction and frowning with concentration. Is he my twin? It was wonderful to see somebody who in all probability had been out of education for 30 years but was now in a busy cafe, a very public space, in the position of learning and of putting his need on the table. That is a scary place to put it especially when he is facing a teacher who in the next twenty minutes is going to get him to sing and act. Coaxing learners out of their comfort zones is something I love doing. The singing really worked in terms of improving his fluency. It even helped with his pronunciation.

An hour in and he asked for a cigarette break, which I was happy to run with. We had all worked so hard duringthat time. During the break I spoke with Mr Constructive about the difficulty we were going to have. His friend’s level of English could be described as nearer to absolute beginner than anything else. The problem is that most of the rest of the class is higher beginner and they are able to participate in debate and to understand something of the Bible readings we do.My temptation is to just start up another class – of one. But I know I shouldn’t do this, especially when I don’t know how reliable Stubble is going to be.

I have ideas but you could pray for better ones for us. And thank God for problems like these.

A lovely country

2 December 2017

Today I was in another country. Some call it Cloud Nine, others Seventh Heaven or Over the Moon. But you are as likely to call it the land of Sick as a Parrot, or Down in the Dumps. It’s the country where my two Bulgarian friends and I were this morning upstairs in our Algerian cafe in Leytonstone.

We began with a look at a map of Bulgaria. They proudly showed off photos of the snowy mountainous sights of their country and attempted to describe them. We went on to use the term “is a part of” to talk about parts of Bulgaria, parts of London, and parts of everyday items from their working lives. It’s my job to scramble around trying to bring coherence to their contributions and our planned language activities. I have to do this while appearing cool, calm and collected. Well that’s impossible for me. But I expect that my scrambling is masked and hidden by the passion and energy I bring to the table.

I still can hardly believe that I get the privilege of seeing smiles break through on the faces of Mr Stubblov and Mr Konstructive through their embarrassment and strain. It’s wonderful seeing people learn. It doesn’t matter if it’s children, grandchildren, students, train drivers, apprentices, parents or anybody else. The excitement is doubled when you see them struggle get out of their comfort zone to do this. One of my favourite educational terms is “Zone of Proximal Development”. It’s a bit of a mouthful and it sounds really impressive. But it just involves identifying the next step for the learner. It’s an amazing place for teachers and learners alike. Or at least it should be says Vygotsky (1896–1934).

Too often learners and teachers know what a particular learner can do and they know what they can’t do., But knowing what is just “a stretch away” is more difficult. It is this zone that the teacher encourages and helps the learner to negotiate. It’s one of the most breathtaking beauty spots on earth. Ask any parent urging their toddler on to their first steps, or listen to the words of anyone who utters the phrase “I didn’t know I could do that”. It’s the privilege of mentors, parents, friends, teachers, coaches and others to operate in this area. Here there may be tears of joy or frustration, grunts of effort, cheers of encouragement or any of the other enthralling sights and sounds associated with the learning process.

In this land the teacher doesn’t hover high in a comfort zone of their own watching the struggles of the learner. No. If they are accompanying learners in this territory they have to guard against the temptations to be frustrated by slowness of progress, or thinking that some old tested formula just has to work with this student too. They have to look into their toolboxes and bring out whatever coaxing, encouraging, simplifying, enabling tools and resources they can. They have to think on their feet, think themselves into the learner’s position while thinking about the subject at hand. Wherever progress is there to be made there is wonderment to be had and praise to be given. Praise to the person making the progress. But most of all praise the God who has given them the capacities, the challenges and the opportunities to progress. Jesus himself grew in wisdom, knowledge and understanding. What a wonderful sight that must have been.

Thank God for the Zone of Proximal Development and all who operate fruitfully in it. Pray that our struggles in it will be eternally blessed.

Why not?

9 December 2017

Are any two days the same in this game. Today It was just Mr Konstructiv. So we had an extended conversation about why so few are attracted to these classes. Have I leafleted the wrong neighbourhood? Should I get our leaflets translated? Why is it that when I ran similar classes in a neighbouring borough we had 30 people through the doors for enrolment in just 3 hours? That was awesome. This sometimes feels like flogging a dead horse. Is it because the classes are free? Do they lack credibility? Those who come know that they are serious classes which are suitable to their needs. But what about those who have never heard? Mr K offered that many Bulgarians feel they don’t need English. They imagine themselves here for a couple of years before returning home having made some money. I said that this was just how my parent’s generation thought when coming from the West Indies but they are still here 60 years later. Still it’s not for me to write the story or the future of such migrants especially as Paul tells us that God himself has “marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands” and that he “Did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him.”

I asked Mr K how many times he had spoken English during the past seven days. He said none. A little more teasing out and it became apparent that he had spoken perhaps a dozen words, saying “Excuse me” and “Sorry” on the underground. Then I asked him how much English he had listened to. Again none. Again, a little prodding and he acknowledged listening in on instructions from his site manager to a colleague expected to translate them for him. He also heard some announcements on the underground: “This train terminates here. Please leave the train”.Apart from that there had been nothing. What about TV or radio? He replied that he’s too tired when he gets in. So we pass on to reading. How much of that has he done during the week? None. No newspapers or magazines. Simple as that. And writing or typing. Absolutely none. And this is a man who was a well-qualified construction site manager in his own country. He is committed to learning English for three hours on a Saturday morning and wants to find another class too.

As our discussion progressed I opined that once Bulgarians or any other younger people started a family in this country then they would see a need to learn English, This is because they begin to engage more extensively with services such as schools and GP surgeries as well as the world of work. Until then they can “get by” just as Pakistanis and Bengalis have in the past. They exist in separate enclaves with shops, newspapers and even satellite TV from their homelands. Not much hope for friendship and integration or community here then. This state of affairs is a sadness to me as one of the greatest joys of my experience teaching adults has been to see the ways in which people from diverse ethnic and national backgrounds have worked together, laughing, sharing, helping and sympathising with each other. In doing this they have invested in each other. I pray that God will use these kinds of classes to bring more of that about and to save people from every tribe tongue and nation. Do pray that he will use us to do this. He doesn’t need or have to but he can.

Why ?

17 June 2018

The last six months of disappointment and bewilderment have also been six months of learning. It is that long since our last class folded and I taught English at the cafe. During those months I had been learning not to hold God to promises he hasn’t made. That only leads to disappointment, confusion and bitterness. I had also been pining, praying, investigating, leafleting, designing and being confused. I had even thought of offering myself out to any churches that ran such classes.I thought, “Doesn’t God know what a good idea teaching English is?”; “Is he holding back on me for some reason?”; “Didn’t I work hard enough in publicising the class?” I could go on. But nowhere in the Bible does God say we must run English Classes: even if it is teaching his Word. However laudable our aims and ambitions we must be careful not to confuse our passions and desires with God’s will.

Then yesterday I had a class to teach. It was wonderful. It was as though I had never been away. I say class but it was only one student. She was a young Spanish woman with very very little English. She was a true beginner. Her English is about as good as my Spanish – just about zero. Oh no, that’s not quite true I know “Hasta la vista baby” and “Viva Espana”. I had met her previously in a library and had told her about the cafe class. I said that she might be the only one if she came. But she turned up. We had an amazing time. We sat down to coffee and tea and I started the lesson with the briefest of prayers. Then we both took objects from our bags and did some naming and pronunciation work with them. Suddenly a couple who had been sitting nearby approached us.. They had overheard us and had an English related question which I spent a few minutes answering before they had to leave.

Much of our one hour lesson was taken up in going through the vocabulary and recording it as WhatsApp messages. She seemed so happy to find success in pronouncing and using the words in short sentences. Because the verb of the day was “have” I was able to speak of my family. I started with “I have a wife” and just went on from there. She was amazed at the family photo on my phone and gave the thumbs up. She carefully counted all of the children and grandchildren and obviously felt that she had been let into somebody else’s life. With some help she managed to say who was in her family. That’s great! I get a look into another life too. That’s one of the great things about these lessons – you really get a window into other people’s lives.

I had set up the lesson with four objectives, one of which was to look at a question Jesus answered. We didn’t actually get there. But I’ wasn’t worried. I know that I set out my stall, and that looking at the Bible next time won’t be an awkward interruption but something to be expected.

Another thing I am learning more about is the chaotic nature of the lives of new immigrants. It seems as though insecure work, insecure housing situations and the lack of family ties all contribute to this lack of settledness. It also means that young single students in this position can’t always make those mid term commitments needed to access English courses. As a teacher I just have to accept that and work around it.

Do pray for this itsy bitsy little work.

Our World Tour

19 November 2018

How many surprises can God have for us. Today saw yet another one. In our cafe “class” of one I prayed for his blessing on the morning’s events. I somewhat oddly added Amen – something I don’t normally do when praying alone. Patricia asked about the pronunciation of this word. She is Colombian, believes in God and has some contact with a couple of Christians.

As we were talking “religion” we went on to think about the word “holy” and I pointed out that Christians in our church don’t have the same ideas on the word “holy” that other religions and some churches have. So we don’t have holy water, holy lands, holy buildings, holy dress or even holy men (as in priests). This neatly led on to what we do at our church on Sundays. We worship in singing, praying and hearing the Bible taught. Cue our WhatsApp group. I showed her some of the discussions we have on there. They are about the sermons we hear. She was surprised to see that they last half an hour. I said that’s because they are important and we want to be taught. She heard a couple of snatches of a sermon and noted the participants in the WhatsApp group.

One of those participants is a young man who is in Brazil at the moment. He is working on a project highlighting the plight of young girls and women who are routinely abused by men. We looked at a short video the young filmmaker had produced on his facebook page. Although she is Spanish speaking Patricia did manage to understand most of the Brazilian Portuguese included in the film. At this point I thought it was appropriate to say that men without God are gods. They make up their own rules and they cause pain to others. The girls and young women who suffer under them know this all too well. The stories in the video eloquently showed this.

I was on a bit of a roll so I decided to introduce another similar work our church supports in the Philippines. By now Patricia was fascinated. She said that the cultures were different but the problems were the same. She had questions about the Christian Compassion Ministry in the Philippines. I said that our churches don’t bribe people into becoming Christians. We work with them and care for them whatever. The only “deal” we make when helping is “give us the time to tell you about Jesus”.That’s why we don’t make coming to church a condition of coming to our English classes. I said we would be happy to make the same “deal” with people of any faith or none.

The final stop on our virtual world tour was Colombia and indeed Patricia’s hometown of Medellin. I pointed out the work done there by a Christian Academic who teaches at a Seminary and is involved in a prison work. She drew in a shocked breath and inquired “Bella Vista?” I said “Yes”. This is a notorious hell-hole of a prison which she knew of as she had practised as a lawyer. She asked “Why? Why would he work there?” My answer “Because people are not rubbish even if they have done terrible things- even if those things deserve death”. She could see that immediately and calmed a little as she remembered some Christians she knew of who were involved in associated work.

The lesson ended with her recapping what we had done and speaking of her experience and life in London and how she believed in God and thought that he had been kind to her. We meet again next week.

A faux pas - What's that?

8 December 2018

Priceless. Couldn’t stop laughing at this card from my class of adult beginners. They are just starting out on their journey of learning English. So yesterday was the last day of term and they bought this Christmas card for me. How long before you can spot the lovely faux pas. I love my job but maybe I need a new one if I can’t teach reading skills properly.

What's it worth?

28 July 2019

What’s it worth? Well to me this is a great question. What is the work I do worth? Who can say? This morning was it worth me getting up at 5 am (couldn’t sleep anyway)? Was it worth the preparation and printing and laminating of photos? Who knows? Was it worth my two students getting out of bed on a wet Saturday morning after a hot and humid week at work? Was it worth me cycling the three miles to our cafe? This morning I think I could say a resounding “Yes”. “Yes” on so many levels. “Yes” for so many reasons.

I arrived in my waterproofs and stripped them off to order my mocha and almond croissant. I greeted Tatyana and saw that another learner had turned up too. Her name was Nadia. Neither of them had much English. Indeed it was too difficult to say “You need to buy a coffee because we are in a cafe”. But when I was served they got the idea and each asked for one.

This morning I was prepared. Indeed I was overprepared. I had so much material I knew I would never get through it but I had enough focus to be confident that we would get somewhere good. I began as usual with a few verbs which would be in the Bible passage which was coming later. There were only five of them but they were essential. We played matching picture cards. Each verb had two different pictures illustrating it. They were face down. Each unsuccessful attempt at pairing was a success for me. Why? Because it meant they got to pronounce each word repeatedly. Actually they didn’t know at first that they were trying to pair cards – awesome. A game with no rules (as far as these players were concerned). But then the penny dropped. It worked really well and generated lots of laughs. I did a little cheating as I occasionally used Google Translate when we were really stuck (I prefer miming or getting images on Google Images – whichever makes a more lasting impression).

One of the learners is a middle aged Russian who was a florist in Russia and is a cleaner here. The other is Moldovan and is also a cleaner. We got onto the reading of the passage from Mark 1. I had a Russian and a Romanian version. I get the passage off BibleGateway.com and paste it into an “attractive” fanfold leaflet that I produce (am I allowed to call it attractive?). It was humbling and wonderful to hear each of them read aloud the short text about Jesus calling the first disciples around that lake in Galilee. This was where our verbs came in. They were “invite, “follow”, “see”, “say” and “call”. It was great to see them notice the words in their own language. Oh it was brilliant. I couldn’t really make any application. I have to pray and hope that God just takes his Word and uses it to speak to these ladies. I can’t do anything except try to choose good and productive words. I focus on them because that’s what the passage does. Homework set (on WhatsApp). Lesson done. It doesn’t get better than this.

I got a “highly commended” during an OFSTED inspection at work this week (showoff!!). I appreciated it but it doesn’t even come close to the satisfaction of seeing the smiles and relief of these learners’ faces. I pray that even that satisfaction will pale into significance if one day Jesus says “Well done” to these halting laughable efforts. Pray that I will be a good and faithful servant.

Weakness is strength

3 August 2019

This morning I felt my weakness. I think that is what God always wants me to feel. I have 34 years experience in teaching and it is too easy to feel I can just do it. But today my printer went on the blink. “So what?” I hear myself saying. “I can just draw my illustrations”. “Yeah. But now you’re late and you have to eat humble pie” I thought. Not the best start. I had to text to say I would be 10 possibly sweaty minutes late as I cycle the 15 minutes to class.

I get there and find the two ladies chatting (in Russian). We’re ready. But ready for what? I plan the lessons but I’m never quite sure what will happen. Yes I could always just plod on regardless of circumstance and deliver what I have planned. But that would be safe (and for me maybe boring). I prefer having a rough idea of where I intend to go and then being responsive to the students’ contributions and needs – much more interesting.

Coffee ordered. This week I didn’t get a croissant (under instruction from my wife). Unfortunately the learners, who were buying, didn’t have enough English to understand so they got me a cinnamon whirl instead. We started work on a digi-book I have designed. Today’s chapter has language to help us introduce ourselves. I don’t think we are ready to use the online version as yet so we used the paper version. It went like a dream. We did pronunciation and meaning along with short phrases.Voila!! These are real beginners so even words like “eye”, “tall” and “have” were beyond them. Each useful word has to be taught and drilled. Amazing! A privilege to be part of their journey in learning English.

We worked through the vocabulary and personalised the sentences. We got to eye colour and I couldn’t quite tell if Iulia’s eyes were green or grey. Solution. Ask two old geezers (complete strangers – about my age) sitting by the window to judge. I knew the potential for ruin. They might not play ball. Iulia might not play ball. I might fall flat on my face. On the other hand we might all have a laugh and get some English and engagement. As it turned out they thought she was blue-eyed so we went with green. We went back to our seats and identified hair colour. Iulia is ginger, so I said she could choose “ginger” or “red” but not orange. I had to have “grey” not “black”. Language and conventions are weird. But that’s another story. Nadia was doing better at producing the sentences about herself so she always went first in order to model the speech.

Eventually we recorded both ladies’ efforts on our WhatsApp group. But I felt I had to go a little further and push the boat out. By now there were three joggers sitting down for coffee and chat with each other. I have been on nodding terms with them over the last year. That was enough for me to ask them whether we could interrupt and have Iulia introduce herself. They were brilliant and so was she. What a sense of achievement – speaking English to real English people.

Well no Bible this week. We spent too much time on the language (and I was late). So I gave them the passage and some simple thoughts about it in their own languages. I asked them to look at it for homework to be ready for next week. Off we went full of coffee and delight despite my “failure”.

Short and Messy

5 September 2020

Oh what a beautiful morning. A face to face class at last after months of Zooming. I saw one of the learners waiting outside the cafe. I had only seen her on screen previously, so I was a little uncertain as to what happens next. Just then our other expected learner, Marta, came out of the cafe when she saw us. So we had one Italian and one Romanian. Great. In we go; coffees ordered and upstairs to sit and start.

I knew it would be a short and messy lesson , so I said as much up front. We began with Marta being clueless about the word “messy”. So one bit of elicitation and a flicker of recognition later and on we go. But nothing is ever that simple. Marta then asked what “short” meant. This could get tricky – a mire of vocab questions before we even start the lesson proper.

At the best of times I am a mass of over-thought undercooked fears and ideas and too often feel the need to explain them. So, it was unsurprising that we pursued our “messy” lesson theme with the thought that I had been nervous about this morning. They were both really surprised at this until I explained that they were new to each other; had different levels of English; were meeting under strange circumstances; and had to operate Covid-aware. One further complication was that I do this work for my church and that I love the Bible and want its story to be in the lesson but that I don’t want to put it there unnaturally. I have to be aware that we may have Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists and others in the class and that they must all be comfortable to question and to assert as they wish. You can guess that I could go into a lesson with a bunch of phobias and come out of it with the same number of manias.

The next stop was pronunciation. I noted that Emilia had done the common Italian thing of extending many words with a “schwa” (the most commonly used vowel sound in English). We identified the sounds she had difficulty with as “plosives” and as “bilabial” . Sounds complicated but she had done University level work on phonics. Then came an impromptu detour to express my wonderment at how our vocal system is able to produce sounds that are clear, beautiful and useful. To do this I mimed taking out dentures and speaking as if I had no teeth. Following this I pressed my finger down on my tongue and spoke the words “You need your tongue to speak”. Next came the lips which I kept tightly pursed as I said “We need our lips to speak”. Then a pinching of the nose, followed by a clenching of the jaw and a blocking of the ears. I’m sure you get the picture. I finished this section off with a breathless attempt at saying “you need your lungs to speak”. The thought that God has designed such a wonderful system that we hardly have to think about unless we have a cold, headache, toothache or missing dentures is astounding. I felt this was super- appropriate to say because it arose out of a phonic problem we were facing and had to address.

The lesson finished with both of them posting a spoken review on the WhatsApp group. No lesson next week as one of my sons is getting married on the Saturday. Oooh I will probably video a little of the wedding for our next class. Everything is an opportunity

Chilling out in English

31 January 2021

Krashen. Stephen Krashen. He’s my man. I’ve long followed his educational ideas from afar. They’ve helped me for nearly four decades as a teacher. Well what’s his big idea then? The boiled down version is that you have to make the ESOL classroom a place with maximum understandable input and minimum stress. Today I thought especially about the unstressed classroom. I often say that my classes have to be places where learners feel comfortable about making mistakes. I regularly point out that without their mistakes I would be out of a job. I also remind them that they can make errors in class without somebody impatiently hurrying them along or judging them. Those kinds of responses will make anybody want to give up. So my emphasis is on getting learners to say what they want to say while, unseen, I note down a couple of useful errors for later correction. Their own experiences rather than those of a character in a text book are the ones we fly with. If it’s familiar to them and important to them then they are more likely to want to talk about it.

Today’s class was made up of three Brazilians, two Turks and an Algerian. I gave them three questions about themselves to talk about and then muted myself (amazing!!). The questions concerned name, occupation and future hopes. After a brief hesitation where they saw I wasn’t going to butt in they got down to it very well.

Next we each successfully logged onto a shared Google document. Even here we need more than one way of participating so that the stress is taken out of the activity. Once we were all in, we worked on the verbs “to listen” and “to hear”. Why these two? Because they would be important in our reading and thinking later. The class suggested various things that we listen to and they made sentences which we corrected together. Some great work followed by some “singing” of the sentences so that we could work on connected speech and intonation. Praise by the bucketload where it was due. Even small steps towards success are pointed out and celebrated in as uncringeworthy a way as I am able.We ended this section with a five minute break for stretching and coffee etc.

During the business end of the lesson they each read The Parable of the Sower in their own language. I emphasised that it was important to read in the language they loved and were familiar with (there goes Krashen again). I then read the first verse in English and asked them to identify where it was in their text. In this way they are using their mother tongue to support their understanding of English. But it is important not to treat the Word of God simply as a grammar resource so I was glad to be able to get on with commenting. My comments were based on a sermon from my teacher at church. He entitled his talk, “the Hearing Test” and he compellingly demonstrated that this parable was just such a thing. Rich pickings here. Jesus was looking for people with faith who would be curious enough to ask for more. These would be the ones he chose to help build his kingdom. Most of the crowd had come to hear a man who they hoped would be king but he told them an agricultural story about sowing seed. Nothing to see here. But some were ready to ask for more.

This gave me the chance to say that Jesus would be a completely different kind of king. The crowds and Jewish leaders completely misunderstood him and the kind of kingdom he would build. There were more than flickers of understanding and agreement from some of the learners but it’s just too hard to read hearts from faces.

I sometimes do feel that the language classroom is a place of maximum stress for me even though I love it. I feel so responsible. Too responsible. I wonder if they are “getting it” or bored or all at sea even though they’ve demonstrated progress. The phrase “Physician heal thyself” comes to mind. Pray for me.

Drawing things out

13 February 2021

This morning at 7o’clock I binned my planned lesson. Why? Because I had re-listened to a talk on Mark 4 that changed my approach. By 10 o’clock the first learner on Zoom had arrived. It was Mohammed. He joined a little too soon, just as I was putting together the last edits of the interactive workbook for the day. He was quickly followed two Turkish friends: one in Turkey, the other in east London. While we waited for one last learner we introduced ourselves. I wanted Mohammed to guess which of the Turks was in London and which in Turkey, How to do this? Ah some bright sunlight shone into one of the rooms so I ask each of them if they were near a window. They were. So they took the phones and pointed them to the streets outside. Traffic and a jogger on one, and apartment blocks and what turned out to be the Mediterranean Sea in the far distance on the other. Wonderful. Eventually into the session came Taina, erstwhile of east London, originally from Brazil.

Elicitation was the name of the game today. Ten years ago I was taught the word but good teachers have always used this skillfully. It’s not the only tool in the teacher’s bag but it is an important one. Elicitation means you don’t spoonfeed learners you draw out and build on the knowledge they already have. I think this is engaging and empowering as well as fulfilling, respectful and …fun. At my most bold I have even been known to go for a whole hour in a lesson without saying a single word but eliciting words, structures and even pronunciation from the class as they become models and exemplars for each other with me simply conducting their orchestra. Exhausting.

We worked our way through some vocabulary work where I tried unsuccessfully to elicit any words connected with “trust. It’s quite a concept so I temporarily gave up on it and went to a puzzle in which they had to drag pictures of professionals around a screen to match them with labels. It was great to see the same screen being manipulated by people thousands of miles apart in real time. We discussed the importance of trust in the cases of teacher, police officer, doctor scientist,soldier and newsreader. Lots of opportunity to speak about different parts of our lives being in their hands and what happens when we can’t trust them. We were now ready for them to discuss a picture of a woman jumping out of a first floor flat on fire towards the outstretched arms of rescuers below. The point of the picture was “trust”. Could she trust them.

Finally, almost out of time, we reached for the passage from Mark’s gospel with me resigned to just having them read it in Turkish and Portuguese (Mohammed had left earlier). It was Jesus eliciting trust in God’s strange strategy for building his kingdom. Filiz asked about our final sentence and its meaning. It said that “When he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.” We worked through the differences between a rabbi and a lecturer and how his disciples took three gap years to learn from him and to observe this rabbi’s life. They saw Jesus with his hair down. They saw him tired, hungry, deserted and in all the circumstances of life. They were ones who had begun to trust him in his great project. That faith would be tested, stretched and strengthened. I pray that these dear learners would be given that faith by God himself

Rejected

10 July 2021

I felt hopeful and happy about the start of today’s lesson. I am making progress with timings. I am getting the learners to ask me how long each activity will take and then award myself 5 stars each time I keep to time! Today we had two learners: one in Turkey and the other in London. They are both regulars. We work through my first grammar activity in which I gradually reveal a photo in response to sentences they produce. I manage to get them to fill in some verb tables to include signal words such as “yesterday”, “last week” and so on. Everything is going great. We have coffee break a little later than usual but it’s all still good.

Now, an hour into the lesson we’re getting towards the point where I introduce the Bible passage. We had been working on the vocabulary of “rejection” earlier because that is what I aim to focus on now. My friend has been producing talks on Mark’s gospel and this week’s was about the sort of people the Pharisees rejected as “the wrong sort of people”. I use this to help me. In the first half of the session we collected verbs such as “shame”, “gossip” and “reject” ready to help us to understand the Mark passage. But it’s at this time that things spin out of control. I showed a short video of me teaching a small child and Fi asked if the right word to use for this is “bless” (more like “cute” really). I explain how the word “bless” has become fairly meaningless in our culture. We use it to talk about things as various as a response to someone sneezing or even as a gentle curse word “He’s down at his blessed allotment again”. We might even use it to describe somebody feeling good about something. I tell them how Christians understand this word. I can see my well laid plans wandering off southwards before my very eyes. Still, no need to panic; let’s ride this wave and see where it goes. As the man said, “All truth is God’s truth”.

We talk about the importance of touch and we share a laugh as Em finds herself saying about how people’s hands can give off energy. We laugh because she is the one who usually says she only believes what she has evidence for. I suggest that the “energy” she is talking about is evidenced not magical. So we think about “green fingers” and explain that it means “very good with plants”. Everything you touch grows because you have skill, imagination, knowledge, patience, wisdom and so on. Then we think about how too many religious figures touch and con people out of their money as they “heal” them. Pictures of crowds captured by charlatans are quickly googled. I say why these scenes are so upsetting to me. Em spells out the name of a Turkish figure of the same ilk and we talk about him.

Fi wonders if the word “aura” is connected with the characters we are considering. I identify it as a brilliant word but one completely unconnected with the sort of aura of somebody wandering around with a radioactive-type glow around them. So a person with an aura might “light up the room” when they walk in, but we can identify and describe how. Maybe their smile is just wonderful or maybe their personality gives joy or hope. Perhaps the sound of their voice or laughter simply makes it good to be around them. I said that Jesus didn’t have a “glowy” aura. We googled and saw many “images” of him like that -weird and tacky! The learners were surprised when I said that I am always disappointed an saddened by such pictures. They asked about this and we looked at iconography and the way in which Roman Catholics, Orthodox and some Protestant Christians say that they are not worshipping such pictures but that they use them as visual aids. I point out that we don’t know what Jesus looked like (apart from the fact that he didn’t look European white, African or Chinese). It was then that I said he wasn’t good looking like Brad Pitt; they added Tom Cruise. Maybe I should have thrown in Denzel Washington for good measure.

My mind went to the phrase “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us”. We went to Biblegateway and saw these words in Isaiah 53. What a passage to end up at. We read and explained the first six verses. They are too wonderful. This was a good chance to say that God has given us many word pictures of Jesus that describe his character but he hasn’t given us a physical description in any detail. Perhaps they didn’t notice how my heart was stirred as I read the words “He was despised and rejected by mankind.” It was the word “rejected” that did it for me. I don’t like playing word association with the Bible but here was the very word I was intending to focus on in Mark’s gospel and somehow it was front and centre of our thoughts.

I know that Fi was impressed at what she understood of the passage. I am pretty sure that Em got far less because our prep for it hadn’t been sufficient and it hadn’t occurred to me to put up the Turkish translation. Ooooh I think I’ll do that on our class WhatsApp group later. I try to remember that I might mistakenly think that I have explained things clearly. I might even think I was on a roll. Something beautiful might have been occurring in my mind and heart but none of that means I have effectively communicated that to somebody whose language is not my own. Just because you say it doesn’t mean that they understand it! Yet I pray that God will use my stumbling attempts and will bless these women and answer our prayers for more.

Just fizzing

11 December 2021

They say if you want something done, ask a busy man. Well, I left my lesson prep until last night. During the week it had to take second place to my sermon preparation for Sunday. I had to finish off my reports for the learners in my day job too. But it didn’t all come crashing down around my ears. I thank God for strength and help and for the slack that others cut for me. I enjoy all of this activity but this morning it was truly fizzing.

I came out extra early so that I could check out the local Costa in case it was more suitable for our numbers. Last night 6 people said they would come to class. That’s the most we’ve had for a long time. We can just about fit into our little corner in the cafe we meet in. More than that and we will have to move. Today we had the regulars but two new learners too. A Chinese woman travels across London to get here. The rest include 3 Turks, a Bulgarian and an Albanian all more or less local to the area.

I couldn’t believe how receptive they all were to all we were doing. As so often, I seem to be one of little faith. But I think God helps me in my unbelief. He just expects me to do better next time. To be fair, I exist in the same corridor of uncertainty in my day job teaching English. It’s not “imposter syndrome” after 36 years in the game. No. It’s more like, I know more and more of what could go wrong and I’m more and more aware that my learners are individuals. So for a million reasons I can’t read them like I read a book. Are they happy? Do they realise where we are going here? Did they see that mistake I just made? Does it really matter? Am I going too slowly for this one or too quickly for that one? Is it worth their coming? Freud would have a great time with me on the couch. Sometimes I need someone to tell those voices to be a little more quiet. Have a little more trust in God and in my learners and in those who encourage me.

As usual, I prepared too much. This goes with the territory of being uncertain. That’s really odd because I am confident that I could give a coherent and useful lesson at the drop of a hat. But imagine having your own personal OFSTED inspector always by your side always taking notes (no disrespect to HMI). That’s what my voices do for me. But they don’t take away the pleasure and satisfaction of seeing learners respond and improve. That’s immense!

Today we went full-on digital. We started with a drag and drop vocabulary exercise on learners’ phones. We followed that up by recording our introductions onto our WhatsApp group. We happily chatted over these. Then they used phones to do a diagnostic grammar assessment. The time was marching on totally unsympathetic to my silent pleadings; or should that be “wishings”. We got to within 10 minutes of the scheduled close and still we had only prepped for the Bible reading from Mark. I suppose I feel that I have to pack in tons of stuff that they have come for before giving them stuff that I think is important. Not good. But we spent a good half an hour reading the parable of the sower and its setting and then unpacking it. I thought it was wonderful. I feel so privileged. I suppose I imagine being tolerated rather than engaged with. But that is never the case. I know that they enjoy and are engaged with this part of the lesson from the questions, odd comments, nods, smiles and frowns. The questions aren’t necessarily deep, but they do show genuine interest.

I set up base-camp in our opening verses which I got them to recount with what English they had. I thought I’d take the bull by the horns and wrestle with the elephant in the room. This was Jesus saying, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” I introduced this as a shocking thing to say and something which could be very upsetting. But then I remembered from a talk I heard, that we form new families whenever we marry. This resets our relationships with those we love. I spoke of how I had a long nervous conversation with a young man who asked for my blessing to marry one of my daughters. I reminded him how for all her life I had loved her and would take a bullet for her, like any loving father. But when she married, I said I wouldn’t even be a close second to him. I must step back. That is how much things change. So Jesus forming a new family wasn’t so outlandish. He builds this family based on faith not blood. There seemed to be understanding and appreciation of this. This understanding turns the parable of the sower into a kind of “hearing test”. How do we hear Jesus’ words? I got close the the bone in saying that he characterises all people as being like one of the soil types in the story and that includes all of us. I was anxious to point out that although I hope I am “good soil” I recognise that I am spoiled but that I know enough to ask God to change me. What a privilege to be free and able to talk in this way to friends in a busy cafe on a Saturday morning. After the two and a half hour session I was buzzing but still waiting for the tiredness to kick in. Now it’s time for my other work

Pray that God will continue to help our church in this small work. Pray that he will make us a blessing to these dear people. You might pray that he would give me the sort of teacher mentoring role I hope for.

The right sort of tired

8 January 2022

The Bible tells me that the rest of a working man is sweet. Well it’s Saturday afternoon and I feel tired. I’m so thankful that it’s not the sort of tired I sometimes get from staying up late watching mindless piffle on the internet. Nor is it the kind I get from dealing with the politics of my day job. No! This was from full on face to face English teaching in our local cafe on a Saturday morning. Only two today. Did I say “only”? Well that word is an irrelevance. If I had twenty I wouldn’t be any less tired. As a teacher you try to give yourself to your students. I take my model from the apostle Paul who said that this is what he did for the Thessalonians. He spent himself.

As usual, I had some sort of plan in mind. I knew that eventually I wanted us to read and talk about the passage in Mark where Jesus explains the parable of the sower to his inner circle. But how we would get there today I had no idea until a little lightbulb moment quite late in the lesson. That’s okay. I love it when things come together in that way. I might even attribute these things to God himself. I think that although he runs the rest of the universe he has enough time and attention for me and those who meet over coffee in a nondescript corner of that Universe in east London. Amazing. Especially if I am not mistaken.

The vagaries of any language can be confusing and fascinating to the outsider. To be truthful they can be that way to the native speaker too; especially if , like me, you are a student of English. We found this to be true in an error made in saying the date. How can telling the date be productive or how can it have any mileage for teaching English at all? Well imagine you are trying to make an appointment with somebody and they are unclear about the date. There’s a lot at stake there. So off we go on a wonderful journey fuelled by an error. On our way we saw ordinal and cardinal numbers; our place in the family: and the tomb of the unknown soldier.

After getting back to our place of departure we thought about the importance of listening. Why? Because a good teacher is always listening. The understandings and misunderstandings of his learners are so important. It is the teachers job to swipe right or left and ignore some errors but to focus on others as being significant and productive. I suppose this goes for all of life and learning.

It was this question of listening carefully that took my mind to the title of today’s passage “Listen Carefully”. I knew I had to develop it in order to lay the groundwork for our passage so that it didn’t seem like some bolt from the blue or like some sort of irrelevant add-on or game of word association. I hate those when it comes to talking about the Bible and Christian truth. I would rather let such “opportunities” pass by and wait for more natural ones. Having said that, there are people who can make the most seemingly disconnected things come together without seeming cheesy or awkward. I love them but I don’t have their gift. I have my own.

We talked about active listening and how some people look over your shoulder at someone else when they have half an ear on what you are saying. We thought of those who have an answer for your question before it is even off your lips. It is so important to listen actively. To be “all ears”. This all allowed a good “lead-in” for the passage in which Jesus speaks of how different people listen to words about the kingdom of God. Wonderful. They read the passage on their phones and then considered what kind of listeners Jesus is looking for and those whom he warns his hearers about.

Finally, the lesson ended and off went Mrs BusyMum leaving Miss GoWest with me. She asked for a few minutes to talk. This turned out to be half an hour. But I had just been taking about listening so I had better take my own medicine. I suppose to some degree I’m nervous about not being in control so I wondered where this was going and was hoping that she wasn’t going to ask me for some sort of help that would take up an inordinate amount of time. How disappointingly unlike Jesus I am. He had time. He gave time. He spent himself on the weak, the vulnerable and the needy who could contribute little to anybody’s cause. That sounds like… me. He is beautiful. Anyhow, during this time she poured out her story as a cancer sufferer, a refugee and a divorcee. I was the winner for putting caution to the side and listening. She only wanted to say how grateful she was for a link I had given her for McMillan nursing. She was also thankful to friends who had clothed and housed her. She also mentioned the pastor of our church who had been in on an earlier set of texted messages. She said had no idea about what happens at a church. Why would she? She listened carefully to my talk of singing, praying, worshiping and Bible teaching. She was curious. She asked if she could come tomorrow. That’s worth the tiredness.

Just as I was leaving the cafe a young man in a small group asked me if I could help his friend to learn English. How on earth did he know I teach English. Ahh It’s a bit obvious when you suddenly remember you have a sweat shirt with letters 2 inches tall saying “I teach English”. I had a lovely conversation with them. His friend? Interested! That’s worth being tired for.

Pray for us

Still Surprised

15 January 2022

God owes me nothing but he is kind. He is gracious and has blessed me with all the good I have – and that is a shedload – more than I should ever hope for. Part of that shedload for me is teaching. I have now been teaching for 36 years and I still get butterflies in the stomach. I am still surprised. That is absolutely awesome. Today was no exception. I walked towards the cafe not feeling sorry for myself. Okay maybe I was. I wondered at why the work I was doing wasn’t more established and wasn’t bigger than it is. I thought of people I know who have tons of energy, passion and skill, and they just seem to make things happen. They have thrown themselves into their work and the results make me a little envious. I occasionally think, “Well I’ve got passion, and energy and skill so why isn’t it happening for me? Lord you know I don’t want a name or reputation. I just want opportunity to help others and to tell them your good news. I’ve learned a few of the life lessons you’ve had for me along the way like, ‘You don’t need me. I need you’; or, ‘You show that you are strong when I realise my smallness and weakness’. There’s even, ‘It is possible to be tiny, overlooked and pathetic in the grand scheme of things and yet to be highly treasured by you.’ Finally, there’s, ‘You are often honoured when your people simply hang on in there through the dry times and the famine’. I think I get all of that. But I still wonder what you want of me. I suppose you want me to just be like the man with the single talent who put it to work without casting an envious eye on the one you gave 5 talents to. Hmm. Anyhow, I was heartened by the thought that today you would surprise me in ways I could never have thought of.”

And so there was Mrs Optimist from Bulgaria. She turned up first and we exchanged greetings in the queue for coffee. She told me about her Christmas. She remembered that I had posted a photo of our family gathering on the class WhatsApp group. So we looked at the word “gather”. That was great. It led to the antonym “scatter”. By the time Mrs Busymum and Mrs Numbers, an accountant came, we had looked at crops, farmers, cereals and seed. So the lesson was simmering nicely as I knew that eventually we would be looking at the Parable of the Sower again. We looked a little more closely at that word “gathered” and saw that it could be either a verb or an adjective. That led to a long discursion into “ed” adjectives. Then came the lightbulb moment. It’s the kind of moment that changes a lesson; energises it and gives it clearer shape and narrative. It means both the teacher and the learners have agency. Mrs Busymum had noticed that some of our words had commonalities. She said they were “emotional” words. And so we were off with “emotional adjectives” ending in “ed”. They trickled out: starting with “shocked”, “exhausted”, “tired” and “loved”. Most of the words came from the class. That’s the way I like it. I knew that we could exploit this language later on because I knew it spoke to matters of the heart and spirit.

We chose one of those words and made a “cline” in which “terrified” was at one end and “nervous” was at the other. We put “scared” in the middle and then ordered a few other adjectives in appropriate positions. So useful to have a choice of words so that we could say “The bank manager was concerned at the overdraft” rather than, “The bank manager was terrified at the overdraft”. Word studies are so useful in helping us to express ourselves accurately, sensitively and appropriately.

At the end there were just two learners and twenty minutes left. Neither of these learners had been present last week so I went through the parable itself. I am very conscious; perhaps overly conscious wanting to acknowledge that many would regard these as just primitive stories. I suppose I often see Dawkins or Hitchens sitting behind my learners whispering their scepticism and questioning. That’s not good. I don’t need to justify myself to them. But I do have to be honest with myself. Still, we plough on. I think I simplified the English well enough for it to be understood. I was really happy with the way that went. Next we opened our slideshow on our phones and read Jesus’ explanation of the parable. This was where they read it in their mother tongues, Albanian and Bulgarian. I was able to point out that Jesus’ storytelling was for adults. We adults tell stories to make points all the time. We thought about stories at weddings to humorously embarrass the groom; stories at funerals to characterise and celebrate the deceased; stories at parties to entertain or break the ice; and even stories that coaches tell their players before a big game to motivate them. Then what are films but stories. Or do you remember the days when passengers on trains would have novels in their hands instead of mobiles. And so Jesus told this story to make an impression. He wasn’t interested in storytelling to entertain. He would leave those who simply wanted to be entertained paddling at the edge of things. But those who were invested and serious, he gathered and said more. He wanted them to be part of his kingdom. They would press in to know more. It mattered to them. They had faith, however small. Both these dear learners seemed to appreciate the urgency with which I invested this story. I wanted them to know that I for one believed it. I want them to have the same thirst or more. Pray for us all.

Nobody does it that way

22 January 2022

What would you expect from a small band of learners from China, Albania, Bulgaria and Turkey? The unexpected! And so it proved. Today the warmer for the lesson went on longer than expected. But I started so I thought I should finish. We began with what we had done during the week. There was no rocket science in that. But we ended up with “The Ashes”. “Don’t go there teacher!” should have been in flashing fluorescent warning lights. But, as they say fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Who even says that any more. I thought I had been really clever in sidestepping the little matter of explaining cricket to foreigners. Instead, we got onto setting fire, matches, scorch, burn, ashes and pot. So much room for ambiguity and confusion in so few words. Now multiply the potential for confusion in those for whom English is not their first language. Still. I think we got somewhere and they seemed to be willing to hear almost anything to get a little more English.

Eventually we moved to a quieter corner of the cafe and jumped off the Ashes train to work on some grammar. Today we looked at “conjunctions”. Each of them managed to log on to our grammar quiz and compete live on Quizizz.com. We followed this up by going over the correct answers and explaining when to use “but”, “and”, “or” and “because” (which is the odd one out?). That was great. They did the test a second time to improve on accuracy or speed and to reinforce what they had learned.

Mrs BusyMum stayed on longer today and got a significant part of the reading from Mark 4 where Jesus tells of how God’s kingdom is built. In other weeks I aim to upend the lesson so that she doesn’t miss out. She is both nominal Muslim and nominal agnostic but she engages well in this part of the lesson. I am grateful for her honesty, and grateful for the chance to speak into such a life. So we read the simplified English text and expounded it. Our text is a loose paraphrase aimed at summarising Mark’s Gospel in one clause sentences.

On my way to the cafe I had listened twice to a short talk on our passage given by my church elder. I normally try to listen three, four or even five times to these talks so that I have the ideas front and centre in my thinking. Today was great. I heard how Jesus’ disciples needed to trust him when all that he did seemed counterintuitive. For that reason I titled our text ” Nobody does it that way!”. Of course we needed to understand that idea. We looked at the word “nobody” and one by one asked “Who around this table comes from America?” Eventually the penny dropped. “Nobody!” Then we thought about things we do to build a business. Mrs BusyMum is a professional photographer so we asked who she would want around her to build a photography business. She thought of people with different areas of expertise. We asked the same from Mrs Moussaka if she should ever have a catering business. The main idea was that it is only right that we look for the best and most qualified. However, in building his kingdom Jesus so often chose those who have nothing significant to offer. He was different from the religious people of his time. He welcomed and taught prostitutes, their clients, wasters and nobodies as long as they would listen sincerely. He wanted people who knew they were fundamentally broken and needed fundamental fixing. He wanted people who would put their hands up and say they were in this bracket. They only needed to be sorry for their wrong and to ask God to change them step, by painful step. That’s a big “only”. Again I pointed out that those who just saw Jesus’ stories as entertainment or a Thought for the Day were left at the fringes. He would explain nothing to them. His teaching wasn’t for the hypocrites who hid their wrong or did some quick calculations and thought it was all about good outweighing bad in their lives. He gladly explained to those who really wanted more.

I nervously explained the idea of “kingdoms” and the way they are characteristically built in this world. Dishonourable mentions went to the British Empire, the kingdoms of Albania and of Bulgaria. The equivalents in China and Turkey and the USA were also highlighted – hence my nervousness. The main thought was that in this world such kingdoms or empires are built by brute force. Jesus on the other hand builds his kingdom differently. He welcomes the weak, the hated, the stumbling as well as the strong and wise. Just leave whatever you count as to your credit at the door.

I really felt that all of this was getting somewhere. But then it’s hard to tell misunderstandings from smiling faces willing to please and those for whom this was just the price to be paid for learning English. Nevertheless, I do believe that there is genuine interest. Jesus’ stories are, after all, interesting stories told by an interesting man. They have the benefit of being fresh. After fifty years of hearing them I am still frequently surprised and shocked. But I can’t really enter into the freshness with which strangers hear about Jesus and his life, claims and teaching. Even Mrs I’mNoGoodEnglish managed to passionately recount some of the ideas on kingdoms. Perhaps because she had been beggared and encouraged to hear me mention Enver Hoxha whom she knew to be an old dictator in her country.

It is a privilege to push the boat out a little more each time in these lessons. I just pray for more boldness, more clarity and for more learners to hear this wonderful good news. May God cause them to get on board even if many who are overfamiliar stay on the shore.

Nobody builds anything that way

4 February 2022

I’m glad to have the privilege and the duty of telling others the good news of Jesus but it’s more than that – so much more. God wants it to be a joy! Well today I had a wonderful time describing the Kingdom of God to a couple of women in our cafe class. One was from Bulgaria and the other from Turkey. These learners have been in class for a couple of months now and have been introduced to the text of Mark’s gospel. At times I have been confident in the telling. At other times I have been nervous – I suppose even I don’t like to be thought a naive zealot or an “enthusiast”. But today was one of the bolder days.

We continued our progress through a paraphrase of Mark 4. The passage seemed so weird. It had several pictures that appeared incongruous at first reading. But God does have a way of throwing light on things that seem confusing if we really want to have clarity. I think that’s what he did today. The ladies read the passage in their languages. They did that willingly as it’s just part of the schedule. I wasn’t so concerned about the pressure of time today; I knew we had done loads of English grammar and conversation earlier.

As I started to read Mark 4 in English I remarked that Jesus presented his hearers, and us, with a picture of a lamp under a bowl. He had a way of surprising and even disturbing his hearers. He was always testing them and provoking them to thoughtfulness. Why? Because he wanted those who were after more than just great stories. He wasn’t part of the entertainment industry. Although some thought of him in that way, others took him more seriously. We thought of soaps and other programmes which merely entertain. There’s nothing wrong with being entertained but it’s not serious. We noted that those who came to Jesus merely for the spectacle, ended up simply confused by his images and stories. They loved listening but they couldn’t see what he was getting at. They just went away with some warm feeling or other. But there were others; they were the ones Jesus really wanted. Actually he wanted everyone. He longed for his hearers to turn, but he truly wanted thirsty ones; people who were confused but were driven to hear more – who wanted him to explain. These people were serious. They had the faith that we had earlier spoken about in the parable of the sower. I know that my hearers were drawn in by the gentle urgency of my tone at this point. The question is: were they drawn to my “performance” or to the truth of the Scripture?

With all this talk of some hearing and others not, It seemed appropriate to look at coded language. Some politicians use what they call “dog whistling” in their speeches. This is coded language They know that those “in the know” will understand their words in particular ways. The same goes for families, friends and other groups. They use language so that the “in group” get it. Something similar was happening when Jesus told his stories. Those who were thirsty for more understood enough to ask for more. Jesus was very willing to explain and help them.

Mrs Turkey is a bit of an agnostic and is nominally a Muslim but she sees something important in our conversations as we unpack the text. Mrs Bulgaria seems even more interested. She remarked that her country has little church going – maybe just Christmas and Easter. She put this down to the Soviet era when religion was suppressed there. All of our talk about Jesus and his kingdom is completely new to her. But she recounts it clearly and well in her developing English. She is happy to show interest and to give her own thoughts and illustrations. I think she thoroughly engages in this part of the lesson. I hope this is not just wishful thinking on my part.

The all too familiar kingdoms and empires of this world have their own methods of kingdom building. We returned to this theme today. Those kingdoms are built by human strength, force and politicking. We could see this in the hundred thousand troops camped out on the Russian border with Ukraine at the moment. This is chapter one in the playbook of empire builders. But the Kingdom of God is definitely different. Jesus said it starts off as something small like a mustard seed. Then step by step it imperceptibly grows into a large plant. We saw that it is built using a different methods. Jesus looks for the waifs and strays, and the quiet and insignificant although he does call the intelligent and the powerful too. But they must come with thirst and neediness. Surely “Nobody builds anything that way”. That way involved Jesus’ motley crew of 12 disciples and the churches that grew out of his teaching. I am just glad to have the opportunity of openly presenting the truth of that kingdom to those few who come on Saturday mornings to learn English. Pray that they will hear the invitation to come into it.

Journey into the unknown

12 February 2022

Just me and one other at each of the last two classes. How did I feel about that? Great! How will I feel if it goes on like that? I don’t know. I am always delighted when I get notifications of absence to my Friday night WhatsApp inquiries. That shows respect and continuing interest. I really do understand that Saturday mornings can be times when other stuff has to take priority. This week and last illness, appointment and emergency meant that we didn’t get the five or six I now hope for. Today Mrs Ankara came and last week it was Mrs Tirana.

Our language work in the main part of the lesson was aimed at leading onto a discussion of the passage in Mark 4 where Jesus makes the stormy journey across the lake and ends up stilling the storm. I was so happy that I had individual time with Tirana last week. Her level of English is “beginner”. She struggles to express herself, but she also struggles to know that she really is making progress. She was able to describe her difficult journey from Albania to the UK. By car and minibus she had passed through several countries which she named in turn. We did some sentence work on this using the conjunctions “and then” to chart her progress across Europe. She said that she had felt good leaving Albania but became anxious on arriving in Belgium, believing that the police might stop her from coming to the UK. Then she dropped the bombshell that her husband had died from a heart attack during the past year. This left her alone in a strange country, staying in a hostel with her young child, and sharing a room with another mother. We recorded the basics of her journey onto the Whatsapp group leaving out the sensitive details.

All this fitted nicely with our reading in which Jesus made the difficult and terrifying journey across the Sea of Galilee. I really felt that she was able to grasp something of the story and its meaning in the simple English text, supported by the Albanian translation of Mark 4.

Today was quite different. Mrs Ankara has much more English. She has more formal education, is younger, and as such recognises a lot more grammar but still needs improvement in word selection and word order. Again, we began with the theme of journeys. I recounted mine to the cafe this morning. It started with getting a lift to a crossroads and making a successful hundred metre sprint to the bus stop. That made me feel quite smug. Once I got near to our cafe, I visited several locations: a Costa, a McDonald’s, the library and Tescos (with a Costa) to see where we might try to have class in future weeks. I wondered if one of these might draw in some locals to join us if they saw us at work. Anyhow, once I recounted this Ankara had some idea about what I was asking of her. She recorded her journey from Turkey to the UK a year ago onto WhatsApp. Because we were in a moderately noisy environment she needed to hold the phone right up to her mouth to make sure we didn’t get background noise. Great! So she did between thirty seconds and a minute of talk. I knew that I was after an error for us to work on. We got there without too much trouble. She said “I begin new life”. This was so productive. She had missed an article and presented me with a problem – do we say “started or began”. This is one of the great things about teaching a language – you find yourself constantly stretched to give explanations as to why one expression works while another doesn’t. We saw that in most instances “start” and “begin” are synonymous but that there are differences. For example, you wouldn’t begin the machine, but you might start it. Fascinating.

Once we got on to Jesus’ journey it was much easier to go into detail and nuance with her than with Tirana. So we began with the English text and then she read the Turkish. I continued by addressing a couple of introductory questions. How could Jesus remain asleep in such a storm? How does Mark show that this is an unusual and frightening incident? How is this different from a Disney story or a fairy tale? Eventually, we got to the application in which we saw that our lives can often seem like mini storms in which we feel things are out of control. I referred to people in my life who have sadly felt that way in the last week. I added that I sometimes feel confused and fearful by events but that I am comforted by the book of Psalms. It contains songs of people who are hopeful, depressed, angry, happy and even confused. The confused songs give me permission to be confused too and yet to trust. God gives us that permission. Ankara seems to be a real agnostic but she is drawn in to engage with the stories and to express her responses to them. Perhaps she is a distance from the kingdom but who knows. I’m just glad that she listens well. I’m glad that all of these dear learners listen well. I listen to them too. Pray that God will listen and hear prayer on their behalf and that he will dispel confusion and give faith to them. Pray that he will send others to join us too.

What little minds we have

21 May 2022

Who knows what a day may bring? I’ve had so many enquiries about the class over the past couple of weeks. But nobody new has actually come. So I travelled in hope that our two or three regulars would be present today. Just as I got off the bus I looked on my phone and saw that they had left messages saying they couldn’t come. At least they cared enough to message. So I was left alone to have my conversation with God about what he’s doing and how I could do better than that, and why he can’t or won’t send good numbers along. Of course I was onside enough to say that “he could” but that he has chosen not to send anybody. “Why’s that?” I wondered. I thought you wanted Jesus to be honoured by people coming to know him and being saved out of the crooked lives we live.

I thought I would have time to lick my wounded sense of entitlement and to do some preparation for my day job instead. Then I looked at the phone again. A message popped up saying “I’m here”. It was a newbie. She was from the Dominican Republic. She came up sat down and we made introductions. Five minutes later a phone call brought news that another newbie was waiting outside. She was from Pakistan. This was wonderful.

I got Ms Domininca to recount what she knew about me from our 5 minute intro. She did this really well. That stopped me from having to repeat myself and gave a me chance to assess her abilities. Great. Once we got those intros out of the way I spoke about the class and how it works. I wanted to be clear about the Bible content, especially as one of the ladies was a Muslim. On the other hand I didn’t want to lay it on so thickly as to sound exclusionary. I think it went okay.

The next step was to introduce the class WhatsApp group. I showed them a load of our posts and they noted how many photos there were. I suppose I just want it to be as attractive and welcoming as possible and so I illustrate everything with a graphic or photo. I generated a QR code. They scanned and joined – just like that. It is amazing that stuff like this can be done so quickly. Once they joined they each wrote a few lines of introduction drawing on what they had said earlier.

Now for the business end of the class they got to use phones to populate a verb table on a shared slideshow. Their phones were used as pens and my tablet was the whiteboard. The theme we used for our verbs was “messages”. This would fit well with our reading from Mark’s Gospel later.

WIth twenty minutes to go I asked them to turn to the slides of the Bible text in their languages. They both seemed a little surprised and pleased to find their languages, Urdu and Spanish, used in this way. I was happy too. And so they read. Although we read up to and including John baptising Jesus I didn’t fancy having to explain why Jesus was baptised, and what baptism was, on the same day – to people for whom English is a second language! Another time maybe. For today it was enough for us to see that John prepared the people for the coming of God’s king, Jesus. I think that was a great and long awaited message. It’s one we hope to unpack in coming weeks.

No place to hide

28 May 2022

After arriving in the cafe I pulled on my ESOL hoodie. Plastered on the front were the words “I teach English” and so three women approached me at once. It became obvious that they were the “house parent” and two young Ukrainians who had texted me in the week. Up came last week’s Dominican too, and so we were ready. Introductions made. Whoops here comes another; a middle aged lady. Rather than go over all intros again I got the earlybirds to recount what they knew of me and the class. All good. She turned out to be Ukrainian too; but one who had been here a few years.

I’m often telling my learners that the classroom must be a place where it is safe for them to make mistakes without being laughed at or judged. Today I remembered that this is true for teachers too. Because of our staggered, messy start I hadn’t been able to stake out my ground by opening in audible prayer. It shouldn’t be awkward but I find it is. I’m up for praying in public places with other Christians and I do that without embarrassment. But I think in the future I may read a couple of lines from a Psalm rather than do something as intimate as pray in front of people who don’t understand what is going on.

They all finished an online test I had devised. There was a gasp from both youngsters when it turned out that the narrative in the test was based on my life. We followed up with some pronunciation work. That pesky “th” sound was pronounced as “zz” by the Ukrainians and as “d” by the Dominican. So we got our phones and set them to selfie so that they could all see and practise mouth movements. They were impressed.

The last part of the lesson was the most awkward. It had a beautiful start as the youngsters seemed delighted to see their language on our google slide. This called for another sharp intake of breath. Nonplussed, they went on to dutifully read the passage from Mark 1 in Ukrainian. The other learners were older and took it in their stride, one reading in Spanish and the other in Ukrainian. This passage was full of subtexts and quotations, different voices and references although it was only 8 verses long. The youngsters swapped awkward puzzled looks, so I decided to focus on just one verse. The verse where John prepares the people for the coming of Jesus. I don’t even know if these girls have heard of Jesus in any meaningful way. I think next week we’ll have a little quiz to see how much they all know. For this week I had to satisfy myself with looking at the word “prepare” as John prepared the people for Jesus. We saw it meant “get ready”. The best explanation I could give was the role of a police officer breaking bad news to somebody. They tell them to sit down. They prepare them. Whatever I do next time, I think I need to very very narrowly focus on one word, idea or theme. That will mean butchering whatever I feel I should say. That will take some guts. The Holy Spirit is able to work however he wants even with my faltering efforts, but I have to do the best I can to communicate what is in the text.

I know that all were very happy with the lesson. I hope they will be back next week. I hope I will do better then. Pray that I will.

Double-minded or just thinking?

4 June 2022

Oooh. That’s three texts to say that our Ukrainian, Peruvian and Pakistani friends were not able to make it to the cafe lesson today. Then came another. It was from an Ethiopian couple who were actually waiting outside the church rather than in the cafe. Although it was only 5 minutes straight walk between the two and they managed to get to the cafe they didn’t make it the final few metres to our table.

Onto the lesson proper. I began by lamely reading out the first lines of Psalm One in an attempt to replace my usual audible prayer. Unclear on all fronts. I wasn’t clear to God, I wasn’t clear to myself and I wasn’t clear to my two learners. More thought to go into it next time. I will actually find a Psalm which begins with a one line appropriate “plea”. Nobody has dug me out of the hole that is “praying audibly in front of incomprehending friends who don’t believe and don’t speak English”. It sometimes feels performative. Why not just pray before the lesson on my own? That might be the best, most sincere and easiest option.

The lesson itself went really well. By well I mean that some significant language was learned. We went through the alphabet and recorded their efforts on the WhatsApp group. We also went through the sounds of the letters. I titled today’s lesson “Nobody speaks like him” because we were working on Mark 1:14-28 where Jesus’ words came with an authority completely different from anyone else. So our theme was to be “speaking”. We got a few “speaking “verbs onto our google slide and used these to practise the present simple tense.

These are the lowest level learners in the class and so to get them to understand any narrative is difficult enough. We got onto today’s reading just when the lesson should have ended. I still haven’t arrived at a satisfactory approach for this new grouping. Do I ask questions or do I just go through the narrative and pick out a single thought? Should my questions be merely factual or should I ask for opinion and application? Should we paraphrase the text together as best we can. I think I will try to emphasize the narrative and allow other questions to come up. Is this cowardice or is it me recognizing how difficult it is to operate in a foreign language when you are at the beginning of your learning?

I wanted to bring out what it meant for four young men to leave their businesses to follow a teacher. The closest analogy I could get was the football coach who finds a lad and says something like “Come follow me and I will make you a professional footballer”. That young man will leave his job and will change his diet, sleeping patterns and all of his routines to be coached. Sure, the analogy breaks down at several points but I thought it had something in it. I hope they got it. But I wanted them to see that Jesus had something amazing to offer them – something more than some professional qualification. It’s complicated. Today I was happy enough to leave it at the calling of the first four disciples. I think I have to allow that however unclear the English and the explanations were, at least they had read the text in their own languages. Maybe I’ll try to get some Christians with those same languages to write the briefest of greetings and reflections for each of the passages. That could be a great takeaway.

No elephants in this room

23 July 2022

This morning it was just Mrs Ankara in the cafe to start with. She is so keen and loves to use what little English she has to ask how I am. Today I was determined not to go too far off script, so we began with a spelling activity. There were 6 scrabble letter tiles spread out on our Google Slide. Among these were the scrambled word “ENLIST” as well as two other six letter words and a stream of shorter ones. She had to make as many words as she could. It was hard going, and all she came up with were “ten, sit, set and nail” and with a little prompting “tile”. No problem. We’re in this for the long haul. She typed these few words onto the Google Slide and then I put out a whole lot more including today’s themed word*.

Then we go on to some words associated with today’s big idea “listening”. With more prompting Mrs Ankara managed to suggest a few. At this point Miss Kiev arrived embarrassed and full of apologies. I told her not to worry even though we were over half an hour into the lesson. She understood that the lesson was themed and that she would need to play catch up to understand it fully. We went on to look at the imperative verb “Listen!” and showed how there was a hidden subject “You” in it. Loads of other imperatives demonstrated it. “Stand. Sit. Come. Go. Wave” were just a part of the fun and games we had with imperatives as they followed these one word instructions.

I asked how they would feel about extending the lesson as we were nearly at an end and hadn’t done our Bible section yet. They were both happy with this so they went on to translate my caption for a painting of Peter teaching a crowd (Acts 10:34). The caption consisted of the words “Listen! He has good news from God”. I explained that Peter had been a follower of Jesus and that Jesus had done more than just teach him. He had put him through a programme. They could see that this was different from just teaching. This was more like a master and his apprentice, or a coach and a young footballer. Those youngsters are put through painful experiences that train them up to be the men or women they need to be. I pointed out that this was more like the relationship Mrs Ankara had with her daughter (but tempered with love). She could see this immediately. She is more than a teacher. Jesus was more than a teacher.

Miss Kiev then asked the most obvious question in the world; “What is the good news?” Ooh. No elephants in this room; just an open goal! Amazing. What a chance to speak about the way that we are in big trouble with God with no good way out! It’s plain that we all have gone wrong, done wrong and not lived in ways that please God. This is easy to see in our lies, stealing, jealousy, hate and lust – and that”s just a start. Most of those I put across by gesture and mime. So the good news that Peter told was that Jesus came to wipe away that wrong and to change us bit by painful bit even giving us a new start. I couldn’t believe how possible it was to say all of this stuff. You just have to take my word for it that it was awesome. You might pray that it will be well received.

Come

30 July 2022

Three said they couldn’t come today. This included the dependable Mrs Ankara and the eager Mrs Tirana. Then there was a last minute cancellation from Mrs Santo Domingas. This meant that I didn’t really know who would be joining us. With this in mind I decamped to the ground floor of the cafe. It would be noisier than upstairs but it was more open to public view. I hoped that passing trade would see us and be interested.

Miss Kiev and Mrs Caracas arrived, bought their coffees and sat at the table with me. Mrs Caracas does herself down too much. She apologised for missing lessons because of her “necessary break” in Italy. She hadn’t had a break from work in four years. This gave us the chance to work with the structure “a much needed break”. It was easy to morph that into all sorts; “a short break”, “a long break” etc.

I asked Miss Kiev to recap on last week’s lesson and tell us about her practice during the week. She was honest enough to say that she hadn’t done enough. And so I demonstrated the merits of practising often, even if a little at a time. I showed them my fitness app which displayed my regime of gym visits and exercises over the last month. Even I was impressed. They saw the reps and exercises and could see how that applied to them and their English. But I didn’t want them beating themselves up too much. We have to acknowledge that family, work and mental health all take priority over learning English.

Oh dear, I could see my lesson slipping down the interesting avenue of word roots as we came across the word “midnight” – which needed defining as “the middle of the night”, and midday and afternoon. So enjoyable for me, and important enough for them to take down notes. I mentioned how unaware native speakers are of so many of the words we use. The word “breakfast” came to mind next. They both thought this word meant eat quickly in the morning. Amazing how words get uncoupled from their origins. The same went for so many place names. And so we were off again; this time with “fords” and “mouths” along with their rivers. All good stuff.

Out with the phones to work on this week’s imperative verb “Come!”. At last we were onto the business end of things which meant using the word “Come” to introduce the Bible text from Acts 10:34. I thought it wasn’t too much of a stretch to say that “If Peter is saying that people of all nations are welcomed by God” then that’s an invitation. That spells “come” in my book. I got them to translate the words “Come! God invites everybody”. They did well but I thought the phrase, which was mine, was a little tepid. So I filled it out with the thought that we all like to think of our own people as favoured. In the past God had a favoured people, “the Jews” – it’s complicated. But even then he welcomed many from outside to join them. However, in this text Peter says that God no longer has favourites. People from every group are now fully welcome. I needn’t have wondered how much mileage this had. Miss Kiev was there ahead of me. She remembered that last week she had asked “What is the good news”. Well, she could immediately see that this was it; at least part of it. Everybody was invited!

Pray that these dear people will respond well to that “invitation”.

A trek around Tesco

10 August 2022

A month ago I started speaking in one word sentences to my class. The words I used were called imperative verbs. We use them all the time to give orders, instructions and invitations. “Come” or “Stop” are two of the more obvious ones. But why would I want to do this? Because we can easily build sentences and understanding around them. I have found that trying to teach Mark’s gospel to people who don’t know common words can be very difficult. Sometimes learners have picked up a single thought from the lesson. Or is that just my wishful thinking? More advanced ones do get more. So I decided to limit what I will try to teach even more. Each lesson will centre around a single word.

Today was part of our summer programme and so we were going out and about. The learners had previously decided that we would go to our Tesco superstore. So what to teach? The night before the lesson the most obvious imperative verb sprang to mind. It was “buy”. “Come! Those without money. Buy!” reports Isaiah. But I was finding it hard. Buy what? How can you buy without money? Am I going down a convoluted hole here where I have to explain one thing after another. Well my answer came in a Saturday phonecall to my friend, the pastor of our church. He gave me some great ideas..

We spent some time thinking about expensive things. Somebody had a bag. We googled a £16,000 Prada bag. Somebody had a watch. We said none of us could afford a Rolex. The point? God tells us to come and buy from him. But we can’t afford what he has for us. He has things to fill our hearts and make us happy and satisfied. The price? No price! Just listen to him. Listen. No money. Just listen. Well that’s what Isaiah said. Something in me said “”Come on. You have to ‘get the gospel into this’ more fully”. But then I thought “No! It’s enough to show that this is the kind of God who invites people and has good for those who will listen.

And so we went off to Tesco. Miss Kiev and her friend Ms Donbas along with Mrs Ankara, her daughter and Mrs Tirana and hers. Even walking the five minutes to the shop was a chance to teach about shops. Coming into the car park more useful stuff was taught. Finally, we were in the store. Using words like aisle, section, compartments, pallets. I took us to the pharmacy and we looked at “care” as we saw, skincare, haircare, babycare and mouthcare products. Then stopped and wouldn’t say another word until somebody asked a question. After we got one we moved on but I said somebody had to take us to a place of their choosing. We went to the meat section and looked at minced, diced, meat as well as joints and steaks and chops. Then Mrs Tirana said “bread” so we went off to the bakery. There were so many different types of bread to look at. I said how I thanked God for such amazing variety. When I was young we had brown, white, thick sliced and thin sliced. That was about all. So to see all this bread around us was wonderful. Other sections we stopped at were the dried foods and the electrics. Finally one of the children asked for the sweet section. And so that was the end of our hour’s trek around Tesco.

Pray that these will be who listeners who buy from God.

Restrain yourself man!!

17 September 2022

I settled down in our corner of the cafe to prepare for today’s lesson. From here I spot a foreign looking young woman so I give her a class publicity leaflet without comment. I don’t do hard sell. Just then along comes Mrs Ankara . I notice the leaflet-reader rise and come to join us. Mmm. She turned out to be the Mrs Petersburg who had texted me yesterday. Great. And with so little English. Even better. That means all of my learners are real beginners. This means, for example, they would not understand if I said “Please bring me the plate from the table behind you.” Wonderful. What a privilege to be in at the beginning of a life-transforming journey of language learning.

We had just completed introductions when a Mr Lahore stood uncertainly looking at us. I motion him to join. He is another first timer. As it happens out of the three of them only Mrs Ankara has been in the country for more that 3 months. I briefly recapped last week’s moving lesson on the death and funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. We saw how she was a wonderful servant of the United Kingdom even as we noted that no leader is perfect even if we compare them with leaders such as Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. Publicly, at least she has a great record of faithful service.

We went on to recount that the Queen was essentially a servant. I asked for appropriate translations of the word “servant” from my friend Google. I wasn’t about to let the learners get me in trouble with their possible misunderstandings. We saw how we serve our families and others in many ways. We couldn’t quite picture the Queen ironing or making the tea but we knew she served the nation in many ways. We had seen some of those last week. For me a particularly moving moment was when I managed to google an image of the late Queen’s signature which included the words “Your servant”. How wonderful was that?

I wanted to explain that the ‘Son of Man” mentioned in today’s Bible passage, Mark 10:45, was a special title used by Jesus of himself. How to get across the idea of “titles”? So, I asked them for pet names they had for their spouses. Mr Lahore piped up “my heart”. This was his title for his wife. Mrs Petersburg said this was her name for her husband too, while Mrs Ankara said that her husband called her “Rose”. Lovely. I said Jesus had many many titles including the one “Son of Man”, which showed he was truly human. Each title showed us something special about him.

Our last stop was to ask each learner to speak and record their understanding of the teaching of this passage in their own language onto our WhatsApp group. This they did following it up with a very short English summary. I could hardly believe that today I had been given such a clear opportunity to speak of the way that Jesus, the Son of Man, did not come to be served but that he came to serve. Most of all he came to “give” his life for those who will admit that they have done wrong ; those of us who know and feel that they are in trouble with God. I don’t want to say too much. I think what I said was enough. I mustn’t overload them them with language and thoughts that are beyond them at this time. I need to be patient and show self-restraint. Pray that God will help me to do this.

Simply Awesome

15 October 2022

I have to be careful not to see God at work in ways that he is not. We can easily do that. It’s called wishful thinking. I’m too often gulity as charged m’lud. But I do want to be surer of what he is up to, even when he doesn’t want to tell me. I just have to remember that he is the author of every good thing whatevuh. And that goes for today’s class.

Today we had 9. That’s the most we have ever had. Am I a number cruncher, a bean counter or what? As if numbers give credibility to what we are doing. That’s rubbish. Well I didn’t actually count the number in today’s class until half an hour after we finished. During the lesson itself I only briefly basked in the “glory” of having a good number of learners. There was too much to do keeping plates spinning to bask in anything.

The first in today were Mrs Ankara and Mrs Tirana. They were followed by Mrs St Petersberg and Mrs Chisnau. They are regulars. Next came Ms Sao Paula, Mrs Santos, Ms Brasilia followed by Mr Manaus and later Mr Salvador. I occasionally get worried that not all of the class come from the area local to our church, but then I remember that God is entitled to do whatever he wants and that includes breaking out of any geographical boundaries I might set for him. I just need to get with the programme and work while it is day.

The business end of things happened as we introduced ourselves. This was to give me an idea about their vocabulary and understanding. Apart from two of them it was very limited. Job done. Next up was a Wordle game. This was really challenging but eventually several of them uncovered the word “hard”.

The next was a labelling game. They did this on their phones despite me messing up on the set up. It did occur to me that I had a lot of legwork to do to make the connection between this “First Aid” activity and our earlier work. Note to self: try harder next time. Still, it was a hive of activity with a few other cafe users curiously looking on from a distance. The final part of this time was spent translating five or six words that they would need during the Bible part of the lesson.

With all the intros and digital setup done we got to midday and hadn’t yet started on Mark’s Gospel. With newbies in today I definitely didn’t want to leave it out for fear that it would look awkward to parachute it in next time. I pointed out that the class was for anybody: Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Atheist and all else between. Eventually they all got to read Mark 3:1-6 in their own languages. That’s the story of Jesus, in the teeth of opposition, healing the man with the withered arm. Our theme was “hard hearts”. When they finished I went through the simplified English paraphrase I had made. I think it worked well. I did a lot of gesturing and used a lot of body language which in turn got plenty of nods of understanding. I was happy that they all seemed to see the correspondence between my simplified version and the passage they had just read. So happy. Who knows I may even get to just teaching instead of counting. You might pray for good understanding on my part and theirs and also for the tinnitus that has irritated me 24/7 since August.

It speaks for itself!

21 January 2023

“Good lessons are all alike; every poor lesson is poor in its own way.” Thanks for this Leo. Not quite sure how far to take it, but I can say that the same feelings hit me after any lesson that goes well. A bucketful of euphoria mixed with half a pail of inadequacy. What went well? A great deal. What could have gone better? Lots. And so begins the inquest!

Today I expected the first Muslim man we have had in a while. I got a phone call from him the night before. He speaks Farsi and so I prepared the materials to include this language. In the morning though I had second thoughts. I didn’t want to add to any confusion by dropping him into the middle of Mark 10. God can handle that. He can handle anything but I can’t. I would be beating myself up if I didn’t use whatever speck of rationality and skill he has given me to make things as straightforward as I can. So I went to the very first verse of Mark’s Gospel. This would be a reminder to those who had been with us since last July. It would also be an intro for Mr Kabul. Could I get enough out of this verse? I thought so. I’ve been taught by so many good teachers over the years – surely I could give something back here.

The first part of the lesson was spent on a tour of the UK with a 4 minute video presentation. We got a ton of language work from this. This was followed by some great work on prepositions. It was after this that we got into the passage from Mark.

It was lovely to hear them each read their page from the tablet. Next I asked for spoken summaries of what the verse had said. Mrs Istanbul, Mrs Tirana, Mrs St Petersburg and Mrs Domingo all more or less translated the passage from memory whereas Mr Kabul interpreted it. It was interesting that he used the word Messiah. When I asked for clarification he said that his religion says that Jesus was sent by God. I tend not argue religion, especially with people operating in what is for them a foreign language. I simply pointed out that we were looking at this particular text and seeing what it meant. He seemed happy with that.

I take the caution of a friend who said we should let the Bible text speak for itself rather than force it into our theological boxes. I think that’s wise. Too often we mangle the message by trying to tidy it up and give it the context which we think it ought to have. But Jesus often leaves things unsaid and incomplete. Sometimes he has a single point to make and he isn’t interested in presenting a systematic theology. Sometimes Matthew, Mark or Luke or John deliberately leaves out or includes information for their own god-inspired purposes. So I have to respect the writer’s purpose. On the other hand some context must be given or we will end up with merely “decorative” texts. I don’t like playing that game. So yes I did say we are in trouble and lost and in the wrong. That is what makes this good news so good. It wasn’t my job at this point to unpack it all. It was enough to say that Mark invites us to believe it.

I am buzzing! I am blessed to be given the chance to present and explain that good news every Saturday. Pray that God will help me

Make me a butcher

20 May 2023

I travel more expectantly these days. Today I was hopeful that the two new Afghans and Pakistani from last week would be along again. As it turned out they didn’t attend but along came Mrs Mogadishu and Mrs Damascus, two newbies, along with Mrs Istanbul, Mrs Tirana, Mrs Quito, Mrs Santa Domingo and Mrs Karachi. What a lovely gathering.

It’s a real bind trying to teach with double vision. That means keeping one eye closed. It’s possible but it is tiring. If there had been a second teacher I would certainly have them take the driving seat. I’ve been off work for two months so far.

We started with the theme of “news” and asked them for good news stories they had to share. They did this in pairs before reporting back in what was, this morning, quite a noisy cafe. I followed up with a labelling exercise for a news website. Then I gave them two lines of text to read in their own languages: “The good news about Jesus. He is the Messiah the son of God”.

The first question to pop up was one of those you dread when you are in the middle of getting things started. Mrs Mogadishu piped up with “Do Christians believe Jesus is God’s son.” I said that we do but that I didn’t want to get into that right now. I hate being mired good in conversations at the wrong time. Only one of the others would have got the gist of it.

The business end of the lesson saw them read those two sentences aloud. After that I thought we’d go off into uncharted territory. I said I felt that if God came right now it would be very bad news. They wondered why. I said that there would be many things he would find in me that he would be totally against. It’s the same for all of us. How to say this kind of thing to people when you are trying to bridge a linguistic, cultural and religious chasm. Daunting. I often imagine that everybody knows that they wouldn’t want all of their inmost thoughts known by others. But what when people are quite nice and just don’t see themselves as a mass of maddening contradictions with all the good and bad that involves. I don’t just want to project my neuroses onto others, but I have to believe that the Bible says we have all gone horribly wrong. Eventually, I got back onto the good news about Jesus. He came to put things right. Mrs Mogadishu offered that he came to show us the way as a prophet. I couldn’t settle for that. No we needed more than an example we needed somebody to fix things between God and us. It’s like we are divorced from God and we need somebody to fix the relationship and to change us and clean us.That’s Jesus. That’s the good news.

There was too much to say. I really struggle to present it patiently and little by little. But I must. I need the skill of a butcher to brutally chop off everything that is not needed. It’s no good me thinking what a good job I’ve done in mentioning this or that wonderful or important truth and how pretty it would look to friends who already believe. But what about the actual people in front of me at the time. They need a teacher who will be limited enough in ambition. Pray that I will say enough and that I won’t simply enjoy the sound of my own voice,

Getting the penny to drop

26 November 2023

We were around the tables in the library playing a card game when the library assistant gently butted in. “Nothing bad”, he said. He wanted to see me after the session to see what I would think of the library publicising our ESOL class as part of their offer. Wow! We’ve been here since February when we moved from a cafe. We’ve been noticed. Hopefully that’s good news.

Back to the lesson. Today we started off in mother tongues. I asked each to say why they come to class and what they like about it and what they would change. I wanted them to speak to us in their mother tongues because they would find this much easier and have far more to say than their English would allow. Following this they used their phones to type out their answers onto our shared slides. Great. I could put these through Google Translate later.

We got into the business end of the lesson during which we were to practice using “some” and “any” to talk about inexact amounts of things. This went really well. First we looked on my Instagram page for some images chosen especially for this work. They made up short sentences based on the pictures and we built on them. The learners “recycle” and “re-purpose” the phrases a lot so that they are speaking from their own vocabulary and experience. It works well. Eventually we did some corrections and some pronunciation, and they recorded the results onto our WhatsApp group.

Today for the second time we looked at Mark’s account of Jesus healing the man with the withered arm on the Sabbath. I left it quite late in the day but thankfully we are able to run over in these lessons. They read the passage in their mother tongues. Mrs Marrakesh who is a live-in nanny found this to be something completely new but she got on with it well. How to turn this into something useful for life rather than just a comprehension or reading exercise. I thought let’s ask why the religious leaders wanted to kill Jesus. That seemed a bit of a strong response for them. The learners, Mark and the Pharisees said he had broken the Sabbath. But did that explain the violence of the thoughts. I needed to get that across so I insulted Mr Chisnau (with his permission). I told him he was nothing and was rubbish and various other stuff. Why do this? I wanted the class to get the sense of hurt pride and how powerful that emotion can be. I think they saw that a little. But it was when I set up a different scenario that the penny dropped and they laughed because they fully understood. Ms Marrakesh asked me for a tissue and I brusquely told her I wouldn’t give her one. She said “that’s nice” in a joking tone and went on to ask Mr Ankara instead. Mrs Ankara willingly gave her a tissue. My eyes narrowed and I looked sharply at Mrs Ankara. She looked innocently back at me. Job done. They could see that her kindness had made me look small to others and to myself and as a result I was very resentful (only acting). It was this feeling that made the Pharisees want to kill Jesus. Those hearts put us at odds with God and in great danger. It’s the hardness that can’t be overcome,.But God can change the heart. It’s pride that stops people from asking. We need that change. Pray that God will grant that to these dear friends.

Utter rubbisjh

4 February 2024

Hi David,

Here’s what happened yesterday. I got on the library bound bus and spotted and greeted Mrs Tirana and her daughter. We chatted once we got off and walked to the library. When we got there our table was already buzzing with a group of five ladies who were early. It’s always good to see this kind of interaction as it means they are gelling as a group and are actually using their English to communicate. I love the fact that they extend beyond the class. On several occasions three of the mums have taken their primary aged daughters to McDonalds after class (I’ve been with them once). I also know that Mrs Istanbul and Mrs Tirana, who live miles apart have been to each other’s homes. Just one more thing – Mrs Istanbul joined a local exam class and told us about it, only for Ms Karachi to join too – all so good. You can see a little community here. Other library learners see it live and the library staff have said they are really happy to see the space being used in this way. Joining us today for the first time were Mrs Athens and Ms Beijing. Mrs Athens had been invited by Mrs Istanbul. Ms Beijing had traveled for an hour from Highbury because she could make this class rather than the one I teach over there. It is humbling (and potentially ego-inflating) to think of this kind of effort being made to come to class. It’s also an incentive for me to remember that these learners are spending valuable time on their learning so I had better make it worthwhile.

Ooh a biggie today was another new member of our community. How would this one work out. In came Mr Lahore after we had done all of the introductions. I guess we were 20 minutes into the lesson. I drew up a chair next to me as he was the only bloke. We were missing Mr Chisnau whose wife had recently given birth. I love having men in class (cos I’m a man). Well Mr Lahore was, I guess, in his 40s and traditionally dressed. What would he make of this group of 8 middle aged women and a grizzled old geezer teaching them. He joined in the spoken part of the lesson but needed tons of support with reading and writing. He can’t read English at all and doesn’t know that letters represent sounds. I love this type of challenge; it’s something I put a lot of work into. He really enjoyed the little successes he had in the lesson.

Our work today was “rubbish”. That’s right. We were talking all things rubbish because of the text in Mark’s Gospel. It’s really nice to have the dog wagging the tail in this way. I listened to your talk on the passage. Last week it was “all things washing” because we were looking at the baptism of Jesus. Today learners brought in things that were of no use, or rubbish. They spoke about them. They didn’t actually know the word “rubbish” which is why I had put photo examples on the WhatsApp group earlier in the week. We got lots of spoken work out of this. Too much. It meant that I was eating into the time I wanted to spend on the passage. Still I was glad that we would be spending two weeks on it. As usual there was a lot more I could get into 10 or 15 minutes than I imagined. I needn’t be so fearful. We read the paraphrase and related the main points to our lesson. Next week they will read the passage in their mother tongues. The theme of rubbish had been chosen because that is how the Pharisees saw Levi and his mates who Jesus was eating with today. That is such a fruitful line of thought. It says so much about God and how he sees us. It also picks at our tendency to look down on others and to exclude them. I’m really looking forward to next week and to using all of the vocab and structures we prepared this week. I know that you pray for me and our community. Do pray on.

Just a conduit

28 May 2023

I got up early this morning feeling a little guilty about a lack of preparation. So I quickly got to sourcing all of the necessary translations of today’s text from Mark’s Gospel. They were Turkish, Albanian, Spanish, Urdu, Arabic, Pashto, Somali and Farsi. When I eventually got on the library bound bus I found myself behind Mrs Tirana and her daughter. What a surprise for us. We chatted all the way.

Around our quickly constructed nest of tables in the library were Mr Karachi, Mrs Lahore, Mrs Tirana, Mrs Damascus and two newbies Mrs Delhi and Mrs Tehran. We started by talking about appointments because Mrs Santa Domingo had asked to learn about time We had just started when she arrived. We looked at examples of appointments and then got each learner to speak to others about theirs. Just then, in came Mrs Kabul and Mrs Helmand. I gave the mildest of disapproving comments, reminding them that we start at 10 o’clock. On the one hand I don’t want to discourage them, but on the other I want them to know that these classes are to be taken seriously. Mrs Mogadishu, who had crept in just before them, mumbled a quiet apology. This is the thing. These are, by and large, younger middle aged women who have been out of education for a good number of years; are busy bringing up children, and are in a new country. Most of them have been here for a matter of months. So gently does it.

The work on time went really well. One or two of them already had this skill so I majored on pronunciation and intonation with them. As there were so many relatively new students I placed a premium on them referring to each other by name often. I want them remembering each other and investing in each other. That’s really important.

Eventually we got to the Bible part of the lesson. It feels far less awkward the less ambitious I am. Today they read the account of the healing of a paralysed man. They successfully recounted all of the characters. Although some tried to run ahead, all I wanted to start with was a step by step recalling. They did a great job.

In this episode we got as far as Jesus saying to the man “your sins are forgiven.” Just understanding the idea of forgiveness is a big ask. We looked at it as laying aside the anger a person has towards somebody who has wronged them. The kicker here is that we have all wronged God and that he is perfectly angry with us. I have to be careful here to let the text. I don’t want to force Mark’s telling into my theological boxes. So the idea here is that Jesus saw these men trusted God and that was why he forgave them. There’s more to it than that, but that’s enough for the moment. We’re just over the two hour mark and I don’t want to try their patience so I ask if there are any questions and we wrap up. As they leave they show their appreciation in different ways. Even through their burqas, Mrs Kabul and Mrs Helmand’s eyes show beautiful gratefulness.

For me it’s not enough just to say things that I am happy with. I want God’s word to have an impact on my learners. I want him to do things I hadn’t anticipated. I really want to be a conduit who afterwards is forgotten. Pray that those won’t simply be lofty pious words but that God will honour them.

Jesus' lesson planning

19 May 2024

I was looking forward to this morning’s class. That’s always the case. And I can say I’ve never been disappointed. I suppose teaching isn’t quite the zero sum game that football is. We can all be winners. But there again there is always risk in the game. I’m constantly on show and putting myself out there ready for failure of one sort or another.

This morning a new man sits among five regulars around our library tables. Don’t know where he comes from. Probably a respondent from a reminder text that went out last night. He introduces himself and we get on with it.

I do my bribery and corruption bit by saying that the DigiMags I hold in my hand are for those who had registered that they were coming (I gave a pass to the newbie). I really want them engaging with this process and with these workbooks.

I haven’t really got a running order today so I just show them my first worksheet which consists of a photo of a lost boy and the caption “whose child”. They were to get on and talk about these pictures and situations in their small groups. I am glad to see Mr Chisnau appear. That means these two men can work together. Mr Khartoum and Mr Chisnau – what an unlikely and beautfiul pairing – and in my class. What a privilege.

We move on to some vocab work on the theme of laws and rules. They think up an alphabetical list of words connected with it. That’s because later in the lesson we’ll be looking at an incident where the Pharisees accuse Jesus of breaking God’s Sabbath Laws. This is going to be a hard ask. So, for now we get into the zone. Loads of talking about things like school rules, traffic laws, the police, rules at work and so on. There is a lot to say.

When this is done and we’re ready for the Bible element. Really?! I wonder how Mr Khartoum will take this. He has been told (by text), along with everybody else that this forms part of our weekly lesson as we look at Mark’s Gospel. Nothing like being up front in my book. He looks chilled about it.

And so I read my paraphrase of Jesus’ disciples picking and shelling grain on the Sabbath and make a few observations about it. I really try not to sound like “Thought for the Day”. Jesus doesn’t sound like that anaemic smorgasboard of moralism. How can I misrepresent what he was doing when he went to so much trouble to deliver truth in striking, in-your-face, under-your-skin, patient, gentle ways. Next week we’ll have a more careful look at this episode. For now, I’m so glad for this eight week cyclical approach suggested by my mate Dave. Weeks one and two, Jesus the man; the next two, Jesus the Son of God; next up Jesus the teacher, and finally Jesus as Lord. Sounds like a plan to me. This way learners get the big ideas if they miss a week or if they have to leave the course before early, and I get to work through Mark to the end.

I wonder how Jesus planned and organised his teaching work. Wow! That’s quite a thought. I dare to think he had a running order, end of term, holidays, mock exams and finals for his disciples. He had stuff they had to learn in ways that meant they would pass on his teaching not their own. Must dig deeper into this. Pray for me.

Will something just turn up?

What a beautiful and exciting development for me in the midst of the everyday difficulties that life throws at us. I think that God has given me the chance to enjoy and get on with what I love best. He doesn’t owe that to me but he so often does give it. I get to teach and am paid for it. It’s almost like a child getting paid to do something they love – think playing Minecraft, painting, going to the park or whatever. What a privilege. I have to remember that I live in the rich West and that others would have other explanations for my comfort and privilege, but I am committed to thinking through the idea that every good and every perfect gift we have comes from God. Those who have to struggle more than I and who have a different life will be differently accountable and will be asked different questions.

Today I was in sunny north London helping a church by training one of their members to negotiate first steps in ESOL teaching. She is an experienced home educator and a professional teacher by trade but has not been in the classroom for many years. I have had some of my best and most enjoyable lessons in that church over the past year as folk from China, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Guinea, Zambia, Turkey and many other places have come together to learn English. But the church now wants to make this into a sustainable project and so is investing in training one of its members. Mrs Ankara is keen to negotiate all the challenges of a busy life to develop her skills. I love the idea of investment. God has invested so much in me over so many years. It is humbling. No. Really. When I think of the homes, the meals, the conversations, the support, the rebukes, the encouragements and the examples I have had during the course of my 40 years as a teacher. I had better make something of it or I will end up like the rich man in the parable of Lazarus and the Rich man. I want to aim at receiving the words “Well done good and faithful servant” rather than the dreaded words “Too late. You’ve already had your good things”. So I am glad to be an investor in people and especially in God’s kingdom.

Today the focus of our session was lesson planning. In some ways that’s a laugh for me. I love the idea of constructing elaborate and interesting narratives for my lessons but so often I enjoy being more adventurous and going off on some interesting tangent that turns up. It’s not quite Winnie the Pooh teaching where somebody just ambles along expecting that something will ”turn up”. No, I plan knowing anything else would be neglectful of the gift I have been given and disrespectful to the learners who have turned up to get something worth exchanging for their valuable time or cash. So planning it is. We went through a series of learning objectives and discussed the order in which they might be appropriately placed. That discussion is so important as the process is as important as the product. It’s like “show your workings” as my old Maths teacher used to say. We looked at imperative verbs which are really useful for setting specific learning targets or objectives. The more specific or SMART the targets, the more focussed the teaching, learning and evaluation can be. I likened it to the number of knives that an expert chef might have. I was beggared to think of fish, paring, steak, butter, filletting, boning, bread and utility knives to name a very few. Well, getting the specific tools for the particular job you have in mind just makes everything easier and more efficient. Today I think I was on a roll in that I didn’t wander off down too many bypaths and back alleys. I felt that rather than the sprawling, rambling journey that so many of my conversations can end up being, there was focus and direction – well I am getting paid for this after all. The importance of planning becomes even more evident when we recognise that there will be learners of differing levels of attainment and ability in our classes. Each of them will have specific and individual needs which need to be planned for in some way. Keeping those plates spinning takes planning even if the actual teaching makes it look effortless and flashy.

I’m really looking forward to this series of sessions and the reflections that will come from them from Mrs Ankara, myself and the church. I pray that this will in some way be a small part in their work of building the kingdom of heaven. What a great aim for a church to have. What a great aim for an individual to have with all that investment

What kind of Kingdom

We started a new term in September and I wanted to make sure that we are taking things seriously. Maybe this was because a couple of the learners, though very keen and very committed, have been with us for almost 2 years now. That’s not a complaint but it is an observation that they know they are onto a good thing – free ESOL classes at a convenient time and place. More of that later. So maybe it’s my pride that says “Hey. I’m a professional. I want something that looks more serious.” Bad idea. Pride has no part in this particular game.

Our learners come from all over the shop. A few from the local area which is where we really want to make an impact. But then some are from miles away coming by train or bus. So they are committed. But they do have other commitments too, like work, family or rest. So I can’t expect the kind of consistency that I would in a young people’s class at college. College students have time and not so much responsibility. Three of our mums actually bring their daughters with them and leave them to their own devices during the class. The families would occasionally go off to McDonalds afterwards. So I know they are as committed as they can be.

I thought I could improve attendance by building in more breaks during each term to make it easier to come to more lessons. Then let’s try an informal certificate scheme so that those who turn up and do the work actually get a piece of paper at the end of it. How to achieve this goal of “seriousness” without losing the amazingly friendly vibe we have and settling for the pressures brought into college classes with their funding, attendance and achievement requirements. Fail those and your money flies out the window. Let’s get this clear right now. Our attendance is amazing. We get between 6 and 12 learners each week. So it is not a dysfunctional group. No. It is an untidy group. The sort of untidy you would expect from newly arrived immigrants who are settling here and trying to make a lives for themselves. Housing instability, work instability and even immigration status instability are just some of the challenges they have.

Today Mrs Algiers a very friendly Muslim woman in her 50’s turned up 20 minutes late. This happens occasionally in her case. This time I said “You’re late.” Not too rudely or abruptly I hope, but short enough to suggest, “Let’s be serious here. Turning up on time is important and respectful.” How on earth did I think this could be conveyed in those two words? Ridiculous to even try. But, I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the lesson so I just said if there was a problem she could tell me about it at the end. Then we ploughed on through a good lesson. All good. She was happy and so was I.

At the end of the lesson as others said their goodbyes and made their way home Mrs Algiers was last. She came and showed me a raffle ticket. She said she got it from “Bankford”. I thought “Where’s that?” She repeated it a couple of times and eventually it sounded more like “Bankfood” Finally the penny dropped. It was a “Foodbank”. She explained that she had to be at the foodbank at 10am or lose her place – hence the ticket. Gradually I was wishing the floor would open up beneath me and give me some means of escape. It didn’t. Of course I was apologetic to her. I said “This was your important appointment. So we can’t say you are late”. I said I understood and that she could attend with a later start time.

Where did all this stem from? Perhaps a place of pride and me wanting to feel I was doing something worth a lot of money but which was being done for free. Maybe this was the beginning of what some people call “kingdom building”. It certainly wasn’t part of building of the “Kingdom of God” where Jesus says we build by washing the feet of others, by putting your own interests last, by taking the lowest positions and doing unnoticed work, by turning the other cheek It’s about doing all kinds of counter intuitive acts which God will bless because you are not trying to bask in some imagined glory of your own. Pray that I will do God’s work in God’s way and that he will do his building as he wants.