Teaching English to Efrat, Day One

My name is Justine Frankel, and I'm here at the ENP with JInternships.
I come from Montreal, Canada and I'm 22 years old. I study child studies and education in University.
When I first arrived at ENP I knew I wanted to teach English, but never did I think I'd be teaching it to someone older than I was!

Her name is Efrat and she's been in Israel for 31 years. She came with her sister after her parents passed away in Ethiopia, and she studied in phys ed. and sciences to be a sports instructor. She loves her job and family very much. What a cultural difference! As I am a Canadian with only one sibling, in her 20 years of marriage, she has 7 kids! WOW! She was so sweet and kind to work with, and for the next couple weeks I'm going to share my experiences with you.

Today we got the chance to meet for the first time. I was extremely nervous because I don't speak a word of Hebrew. Knowing Sherutzim and Sababa really doesn't count for much when you're teaching someone a language. I'll just say, google translate is our best friend. I was pleasantly surprised to hear her English wasn't as bad as I was warned it would be, it was actually pretty good for someone just learning for the first time. Her languages of origin are Aramaic and Hebrew, which are the languages her entire family speaks. She was very eager to learn, and as was I to teach. We decided to focus today on expressing who we are, because it's important to be able to tell your story to new people you meet. We learnt a couple of number pronunciations, like the day she was married (June 25th, 1996), and when she came to Israel (1985).

Although I'm more used to working with children, I've learnt that no matter what age, when something clicks in your brain and you finally understand it, your eyes light up, just like a child. Seeing her speak about how shes been learning slowly, when she said the word "slowly" she was unsure about if it was the proper word. I assured her it was and she lit up, her smile big and proud. She may be older than I am, but I felt so proud to be helping her in that moment, like any teacher would be proud of their students.

We finished the session by typing up in complete sentences everything she likes and wants to express, and looking up a couple of interesting articles we can both read and talk about next time. Today, even if its only about an hour, was probably one of the most rewarding hours of my life. I felt so blessed to get to help this woman, and I'm so excited to see her again next week!!!!

Until next time,
Justine Frankel

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