Hello! My name is
Sister Judith, a
Daughter of Charity who works in The Passage as a volunteer. My background in teaching in a Infant School, then Secondary School and finally coaching overseas students. For the past three years I have been teaching English as a foreign language and also helping people who want to improve their language skills. Hopefully, this will help people who want to get back into work.
Language is all about communicating. The better the communication skills, the better the chances of finding and keeping a job. I have learned a lot by working in The Passage, both from the staff and from the clients. Actually, it was one of the clients who introduced me to the Cambridge University Press
grammar books. He had bought one and was so enthusiastic that it changed my approach too. Another thing I have learned was that when people have problems, the very fact of finding a new interest and new friends helps them to work through the problems, or at least to bear them. Concentrating on the
positive does the rest. This is how we work together.
I offer one-to-one tuition for a 45 minute lesson. The clients choose a time from 09.30 to 12.30 or 14.00 to 16.15. As other people use the room I am only able to offer three and a half days per week - all day Monday, Thursday and Friday, and afternoons on a Wednesday.
The tuition combines a three-fold approach; phonetics - the sounds of the language; vocabulary - the meaning; and grammar - how to use the language. I use a combination of all three and find the Cambridge University Press books very helpful. Over the last three years we have seen people of many nationalities; Czechs, Colombians, Congolese, Eritreans, French, German, Italian, Latvians, Lithuanians, Pakistani, Polish, Slovaks and many others. Over the past three years I have accumulated twelve foreign language dictionaries, and that still isn't always adequate!
British people also come to catch up on schooling they have missed or simply to improve their skills generally. Many of my present students come through The Passage for only a short time, others stay around for longer and if they attend the classes on a fairly regular basis we can achieve a good standard. What is on offer is tuition from very basic to advanced level, using a variety of material that is fun as well as challenging. I believe that we learn when we really want to, so I try to make the lessons enjoyable. There is a real partnership and even a friendship going on there.
Anyone who would like to take on this challenge can approach the Education, Training & Employment (
ETE) team at The Passage and they will direct you to the classes.
