“You give benevolent lessons”

“Show me all your fingers but one,” I say. 

A room full of precious Asian students grins and me and nods. 

I hold my hand up. “Where are your fingers?” 

Smiles all around. 

“Who has a hand? Show me your hand.” 

One hand tentatively goes up. 

“Thank you, Zheng. Everyone else, show me your hand! Hand!” 

Here I am standing in front of a classroom with my hand in the air, hollering “Hand! Hand!” and a dozen people are just smiling and nodding at me. This is the moment I realize I have a long way to go with this ESL class. 

I’ve started volunteering for a local church’s ESL program once a week. Most of my students are brand-new arrivals from Asia and the Middle East. They barely speak any English at all, but I’ve been tasked with teaching them Bible lessons as a supplement to their regular English class (taught by another teacher). It’s going to be a humorous journey. 

On the first week of class with these students, I gave them each an index card. I asked them to write down their name and a prayer request so I can pray for them and learn their names. I’m not sure how well I communicated the “prayer request” part, though, even after acting out prayer in 3 or 4 different ways. I took the cards home and discovered that one little white-haired man had surreptitiously written me his phone number. 

During class I worked hard to explain some concept, and it looked like one lady had a lightbulb moment. She turned to another classmate and started explaining really emphatically in Chinese.  I was sure she must be right because she was speaking so confidently. “Yes, that’s it,” I said. They both turned and looked at me quizzically. I realized I haven’t the faintest idea what I confirmed.

On the next week of class, I asked them to list out things that are bad. I was trying to write down their contributions on the board, which would work really well if I could understand anything they say. One lady said, “year.” 

“Year?” I asked. 

“No,” she said, “year. Yih, Ruh, Ruh.” Suddenly the grace of God kicked in and I realized what she was saying: “I-L-L.” Illness is bad. Yes, yes it is. 

The students are working hard on their own as well. One man came to class early and showed me a little slip of paper where he had written some key phrases he’s trying to memorize. He proudly read me the first two:  “Good morning, teacher! Welcome to the classroom!” I only started wondering where he found these things when I saw the next sentence on his paper: “They did not realize they needed to buy gas until it was too late.” 

It’s gratifying to see the students grasp new words. And even when they get stuck, they find creative ways to communicate. They do a lot of Google translate, and sometimes they hit the audio button to hear the pronunciation. Today in the middle of class while I was teaching, someone’s phone trumpeted in perfect English, “Why is everyone so confused?”  (I wish I were making this stuff up.)

One man from North Africa only speaks French so far. He likes to test the limits of my college French by writing sentences and having me translate them for him into English. It’s pretty hit or miss. But at the end of one of the classes, he pulled me aside and showed me his Google translate screen. It said, “You give benevolent lessons.” I’ll take that as a compliment! 

We’ve been reviewing like crazy. Three weeks in, and we’re still only halfway through the story of the Fall. But some of the students are starting to catch on. 

Today I stood at the board, poised to write, as we filled out a review. 

“What did God make on the fourth day?” I asked. 

They started in. “Sun, moon…” 

I wrote their answers down and prompted, “sun, moon and what else?”

“Cigars!” someone shouted out. 

Well, almost. Maybe we can start working on pronunciation next week.