I speaka da English

Way back in the day (like a year and a half ago) I took a class in college about teaching English as a second language (ESL). I thought it was a cool concept and something I could definitely see myself interested in doing, but I tucked that thought away because I couldn’t foresee any opportunities to teach ESL. I mean, I’m from Kentucky. All we gots are a bunch of white Americanos.

Now I find myself in Naples and guess what…people don’t really speak English here. But they’d like to learn. And that is where my first opportunity to teach ESL comes into play. The first day I was so nervous. Probably as nervous as the kids were, just because I had no idea what to do. Thankfully Shannon did the teaching and I was able to take everything in and see how exactly things would work.

Fun fact: I’ve always said that I don’t enjoy working with kids. Every time I’ve ever worked for a church or church organization of some sort, I’ve always avoided anything to do with kids. My brother and I are close in age and I really just wasn’t around a lot of younger kids when I was growing up. So the idea of working with kids just worries me a little bit. However, every time I have worked with a church or church organization, I have worked with kids. And I have loved it. I don’t know why I always think, “No way,” when I have always without a doubt loved it. For some reason it just never clicks in my head that it is something I actually enjoy doing until after I’m already doing it. I hope this explanation makes sense.

Long story short, I’m really enjoying teaching these kids ESL. They are so much fun to get to know, even through the language barrier. I am learning that a smile can mean so much more than words. And a laugh needs no translation. I love getting to practice the few Italian phrases I know with the moms and their appreciation of my effort to speak their language. I’m really excited to see where this goes. I am definitely loving every minute of it.

Now some practical things: I could really use some help with ESL. We like to encourage the kids by putting stickers on the work they complete that say things like, “Good Job, Great, Fantastic,” etc. The problem is, we are going to run out of stickers pretty soon. And we can’t exactly run out and buy English stickers. So if there is any way you could send us stickers, it would be like Christmas to us. Send me an e-mail if you could provide something to help us with: kalaglass08@gmail.com

Some other items we could use: Little things to hand to the kids in English, pencils, bible verse cards, vocabulary flash cards, anything neat you can think of! We teach between 20-25 kids so that gives you an idea of how much of each item we would need. Seriously, it would mean the world to me if you could help out in any way!

We start language school next week, plus we will still be teaching ESL in the afternoons. We’re going to be really busy! So pray for us!