Happy Friday y’all! We hope everyone was blessed with a fantastic week. In today’s installment of What’s Your Story, I’ll be sharing a story from Carolyn Porterfield, an ESL teacher at Valley Ranch Baptist Church in Coppell, Texas.
After retirement and years of missionary work, Carolyn found her calling and a second wind in ESL ministry. Tune in to hear about her experience with teaching ESL during the pandemic last year, and the silver lining she found through it all.
The woman holding the baby attended my class during the 2019-2020 year. She didn’t come at all during 2020-2021 but heard from a friend we were having a small party to end the year and asked if she could come. We didn’t know she was even pregnant so it was a shock when she arrived with her new son! It was so much fun.
With retirement in 2019 came the opportunity to do something that I had done as a missionary journeyman 40 plus years ago in Japan — teach ESL. My church, Valley Ranch Baptist Church in Coppell, has a wonderful ESL program, and I was ready to jump in. I don’t have a long enough history with my students to know the long-term impact of the ESL teaching but I can tell you that teaching these wonderful students from around the world has impacted me!
My first year of teaching was a growing experience for both students and their teacher. Not only did we work on English skills, but also shared with one another about our countries and cultures. Everything was going well until spring break of 2020. We said goodbye and thought we would be back together in a couple of weeks. Little did we know that would not happen.
For the remainder of the spring, teaching videos were created and put online for students to use, but I had no idea if anyone was using them. I missed the interaction in the classroom and wondered what the fall would bring.
As we looked toward the fall, the decision was made to use Zoom, limit class sizes, and have one-hour classes twice a week. While teaching through Zoom was not ideal, I discovered some really good things. A smaller class size allowed students more opportunity for speaking, asking questions, and talking with one another. Those who came to class were truly dedicated to learning which resulted in better attendance. To maximize the one hour, homework assignments were given. The students faithfully did their homework which resulted in my being able to interact in new ways with them and see their improvement. The curriculum we use has some wonderful online tools that helped the students both inside and outside the classroom.
The pandemic and other world situations also opened doors for praying for my students and their families. What a joy to ask Jesus to reveal Himself as a healer, provider, protector, and savior to some who were just learning His name. One student even asked me to pray for her dog who was having surgery!
This past year was stretching in lots of ways and tested my creativity. In many ways, I feel I am a better teacher because of it. In spite of a pandemic, we had a great year, and the students made good progress. I must admit, however, that I look forward to being back in a classroom when we begin again in the fall.
Carolyn’s story is relatable for many of us in adult ESL and ESL ministry. Some of us have found our calling or our “second wind” in teaching ESL in our communities, and nearly all of us can attest to last year’s pandemic testing our creativity and ability to adapt. Hopefully, much like Carolyn, we were all able to find a little silver lining in our rain cloud.
Do you want to share your story with Literacy Connexus and other educators? Send us an email at info@literacyconnexus.org. We would love to hear from you! As always, blessings and happy teaching. Until next time!