Learning the Language of Teaching

Hello, my name is Cara and I am interning at Journey’s End. Journey’s End provides multiple resources for people of refugee status in Buffalo. I teach English as a second (or third, or fourth, or fifth) language to those who participate at this center. My responsibility is to assist students on their worksheets, and lead my own lessons on topics that are helpful for learning the English language. For example, I observed that the students I was working with confused the pronunciation of “my” and “me” while speaking, so I broke down the two words, and they now understand it much better. Today, I showed a student the difference between pronouncing “14” and “40” because I noticed she was confusing the two. There is structure, but we recognize that every student is on a different level of English comprehension, so we are always figuring out what works best, and take it day by day. I have an absolutely fantastic group, and I am proud of every single one of them for trying their hardest, and English can be very hard. Places like this are crucial for refugees, I learned at orientation just how little people are offered at this incredibly vulnerable time in their lives. With this in mind, I continue to be very grateful for the dedication of Journey’s End.