ESL post #1: Humiliating myself, as usual, in good ways

Learning a language is infantilizing. It forces grown brains to bend back to their earliest education, when letters themselves signified only scratches, yielding no information. And again you begin in the most stuttering steps, in monosyllables, half-sentences. What I think I will find in tutoring ESL is that teaching a language may be almost as undignified and disorienting.

These past few weeks I’ve worked with Laith and Aseel, an Iraqi couple with three small doe-eyed moppet-children. They are easy to like: motivated and excited, and they welcome me into their home each Friday with much kindness. Actually helping them learn won’t be as easy, though. Aseel, the mother, is a level above Laith in their classes through World Relief, a refugee organization. She often translates for him, which can smooth out miscommunications but also makes him impatient – especially when her tone of voice and rolled eyes seem to say, “Duh.”

I enjoy talking with Aseel – she understands much of what I say, and she seems to have a good edge to her humor – and I wish I could help Laith improve faster. He is always impatient. Questions burst out of his mouth in garbled syntax. Much of this process, I think, will require us all to set some dignity aside. I have already paraded myself around the room yelling, “I am going to the bus! I am going to the bus! [then sitting:] I am on the bus,” etc. But they are good-natured and tolerant, luckily.

I am still finding my footing in terms of planning lessons, so thus far we’ve spent most of our time attempting conversation. They have a lot of questions. Sometimes my answers startle them. When they discovered that I don’t live with my family but am also unmarried and living with a man, there was something of a stir. I tried to explain that my roommate is a friend, but their expressions (Laith’s incredulous, Aseel’s a knowing smirk) indicated they thought the lady doth protest too much.

There is also the topic of religion: They belong to a persecuted group in Iraq, the reason for their refugee status. I’m afraid I don’t remember its name, and my grasp of Arabic is so poor, but I want to hear more about it. Again there was wide-eyed disbelief after they asked me about my religion: A Christian mother, a Jewish father, and as for myself, nothing – What? It felt too insensitive, somehow, to even try to explain atheism to people who have had to flee everything they know because of their religious beliefs. (Of course, without religion there wouldn’t be religious oppression, but sort of an irrelevant point under the circumstances.)

I’ll be writing more as the lessons go on. If I feel something like an awkward child in these first weeks, then perhaps like a child beginning school I will also be amazed as a new area of knowledge, once opaque, becomes open to me.