Tutoring at Presentation Lantern

On Wednesday Nov. 7th I helped clean and organize the rooms in Presentation Lantern. Presentation Lantern is a place where volunteer tutors help teach English to people who have come to Iowa from other countries who speak little or no English. I straightened some of the shelves and put objects away. Sr. Corine had other small tasks planned for me, but they were running short on tutors so she asked if I'd be willing to tutor instead of clean. The time spent at Presentation Lantern that day flew by. I was asked to tutor Max, who spoke Chinese and had arrived in America two weeks prior to our first meeting. He was from Taiwan and spoke a limited amount of English. At first I was nervous, because I had never tutored someone who was older than me, and I was afraid that he would think I wasn't suited to be his tutor. However, Max was very eager to learn. He told me, in broken English, that he wanted to learn conversations. I used a Chinese/English picturebook to teach him vocabulary. I would point to the word, say it, and then he would repeat the word, trying to match my pronunciation. The translation was printed below in Chinese, and there was a picture of the object to reaffirm what it meant. After the first five minutes, I was completely at ease. We began engaging in broken conversation, resorting to a white board and marker to draw what we both meant when the picturebook wasn't enough. We came to the "holidays" page, and we flew through New Year's and Halloween. However, Thanksgiving was difficult to explain to Max because it's strictly an American holiday. I used a globe to communicate "Europe" and "ocean" and the travel of the pilgrims. I taught Max all about Thanksgiving and the pilgrims and how we feast and the foods that we eat. I was so proud when I saw the light in Max's eyes showing when he finally understood what was being said. During this session, I had spoken of pumpkin pie, which took me quite some time to explain what a pumpkin was, and even harder to explain pie. When we took a break an hour later, it just so happened that there was pumpkin cake being served! One of the volunteers offered some pumpkin cake to Max, and he got a huge grin on his face and looked at me and said "PUMPKIN!" I was overjoyed! I was overcome with a sense of accomplishment and also of self-worth. I had taught Max something helpful! He used the conversation skills we had practiced earlier to say "yes please" and "thank you." On Wednesdays, the building is supposed to close at 3pm, but we were so caught up in our conversations and the company of one another and learning that we didn't notice the clock until 3:30pm! I helped clean up and unplug everything before leaving. While driving home, I couldn't stop smiling. I had a very rewarding day and couldn't wait to go back!