I probably told you before that I do some voluntary work for an organisation named New York Cares. Every Friday I help Arabic women with their English language skills. Sometimes that means I ask them questions which they should know for their citizen ship exam, like what the stars on the flag represent, in which year the constitution was written or if they can name all the states. Some questions are really tough and, like in Holland, the average American citizen would not know the answers. If you want to give it a try, here are a few; questions citizenship.
Sometimes I have to tell them a bit more about a topic and in that case I have to stick to the textbook they work with. There is just one thing I skip all together and that is the story about the exploration of New York and the help they received from the native population, which resulted in a ‘fruitful co-operation’… B-shit patriotic propaganda. Fortunately Gina, the teacher, agrees and is fine with me quickly turning the page to a different subject.
Other times I teach women who just joined the class and don’t speak English at all. Often they don’t know how to read and write in their own language which makes it even harder to learn a foreign language. In that case we just point at pictures an practise words. I wish I knew how to teach them in a better way but there’s just no time for that in this voluntary project. Next Friday I’ll go for the last time and maybe weird to say but I’m going to miss them. They are all so motivated and happy with every volunteer that comes in to help. I guess I’ll say what they taught me: Masalama!
