By Gayatri Malik (Y12)
We’ve all heard of the Red Cross and what they do- housing refugees, helping people in need, and other humanitarian aid. They have a centre in nearly every city- including at our doorstep, in Geneva. Most of us have also heard of them needing volunteers and helpers to run projects and help out. Some of us actually have been the ones to help out in these centres- including my CAS project team and I.
Was it standard volunteering? That’s a great thing to do, but unfortunately a CAS “project” had to be more complex than that. So, we split ourselves into roles and started working out what we could count as our project. One of my teammates (and best friends), being her ultra-organised self, immediately took on the role of communication and got us a meeting with someone who works at the Red Cross- and our soon-to-be supervisor. And here was where we learnt that the centre had all levels of English already being taught- except A0. The very beginner level.
A few weeks, overthinking periods, rifts, and long conversations later, we found ourselves back at the Red Cross; four teenagers with no teaching experience about to introduce a roomful of learners that we had no way of communicating with to a new language. With no way of knowing whether or not our preparation sheet was anywhere near enough, we entered the session- and promptly found out all of our students were aged seventy and over. They were also extremely friendly and determined to learn, which was a saving grace- another being that they, despite essentially non-existent English, could immediately understand if not quickly grasp the basics of “Hello”, “Nice to meet you” and “My name is…”. At least, that was what it seemed like. Half an hour into our first session, we found out the previous “grace” had essentially covered most of our first lesson plan, and our best (and only) bet was to improvise.
So, improvise we did. The easiest sentence to teach turned out to be nationalities, not least because all of our participants had the same one- Ukrainian. From there we moved on to languages, with essentially the same discovery, and then we ran out once again of things to teach. Thankfully, the “students” had our backs over here and quickly filled the gaps with questions about basic words- “please”, “thank you”, “sorry”, etc., till our time was up.
If you’re thinking “That sounds like a successful first lesson”, then that’s what we thought too- and it’s true. If you’re thinking “Things can only go up from here—not a lot can go wrong between now and the second lesson”, that’s also what we thought too.
And it’s false.
Because the next week, we were no longer four teenagers with no teaching experience about to introduce a roomful of learners that we had no way of communicating with to a new language. We were TWO inexperienced teenagers terrified of facing a crowd left on our own because our friends were sick.
Turned out there wasn’t too much of a crowd to worry about, though. Yes, about half of our participants from last time returned, and yes, we had two new participants as well, but we still only had to face around seven people. And mercifully, these seven people were absolutely determined to learn to read the preparation sheet better than even I myself had and to take notes consistently.
This time we managed to follow our lesson plan more than we had the previous time, and for the most part, it was fine (there’s only so much you can possibly go wrong with “How are you?” and “I’m fine/ good/bad”, right?), but things got complicated after that because, well, English is complicated. It’s also one of the only languages where verbs aren’t differentiated between genders, which, as we found out, can be very confusing to first-time learners. Luckily, after that hitch, it was mainly smooth sailing until the end. (At least, what was supposed to be the end. Our participants were so eager to learn the numbers from one to one hundred that we ended up going ten minutes overboard, which would have been flattering had it not been Friday afternoon.
Time passes quickly, even when your sessions are only weekly, and so that was exactly what we talked about in our third session- time. Between the twenty-four-hour clock, noon vs midnight, the three standard meals of the day, and other “when” related questions, we got through so much that day you’d almost think we had more organisers than participants. (We did. Four of us were teaching, and only one couple remained.)
And finally, it was time for our fourth and final session, where… nobody showed up.
As some consolation, our supervisor told us that the very determined couple had wanted to come, but had had an unmovable appointment. So we instead spent a little while “reflecting” on how we could have improved- as non-professionals, we were probably too slow, and our participants got fed up—and then comforted ourselves by enjoying our Friday evening elsewhere.
So, that was our CAS project. Not that I have much to say here (I need to save something for my reflection, you know) but it was, against all odds, NOT entirely awful. Maybe it was the experience of getting to know people with a different background. Maybe it was knowing we had the capacity to step out of our comfort zone and interact with strangers. Or, most likely, I was blessed enough to be able to work with my friends who were super organised and got everything to work like a charm.
I suppose it is these kinds of blessings we need to learn to count.