ESL in Tual

Our new friends, Paul and Christine on SV TTAAK from Australia, introduced us to Muin.  Muin is 23 years old with a passion for physics and language.  He attended school in Makassar, Indonesia, where his focus was geophysics, but when he realized that there were no English courses in his hometown of Tual, he teamed up with a friend and decided to start one!  He had taken a 3-month course in Java, and continued to improve his English using YouTube to listen to and practice.  Now, he was eager to pass along that language to the youth in his own community.

It just so happened that we were anchored in the Tual harbor the week his class was starting up.  When I first met Muin, I was impressed with his English pronunciation and vocabulary.  He had a strong grasp of the English language.  He tried to be shy and nervous at first, but my barrage of questions didn’t give him room to stay quiet.  Gradually, he shed his nerves, and we found we had a lot to talk about!  We met up again, before his first class session, to collaborate about teacher preparation, curriculum, and how to best engage the students.  As we sipped a scrumptious cup of Saraba (a local tea with condensed milk and warming spices - ginger and nutmeg, maybe?) I felt like

ESL Classroom

I was having a planning session with a teaching collegue again.  It energized me to share ideas and brainstorm educational strategies again.  Sure, I teach everyday in our boat schooling, but I don’t get the opportunity to plan/collaborate with other teachers anymore really.  It was the highlight of my day.

The following night was his big debut.  The air around him was vibrating, it seemed.  I told him how I always felt the same way as a teacher on the night before the first day of school.  I wouldn’t get any sleep because I was so anxious!  I remember going over and over things in my mind, trying to manage and predict every last detail.  Actually,  I loved that he was nervous, because I knew that meant this really mattered to him.  He wanted this class to help these young people gain confidence in their English.

ESL Class in Tual

As it turns out, Paul, Christine, and I each took a turn speaking.  Muin wanted the students to benefit from hearing native English speakers, and Tual doesn’t see many foreigners.  Actually, they got much more than English - I spoke some Spanish, Paul shared his Aussie accent and a bit of Japanese, and Christine, whose family is Vietnamese, taught them some words in Vietnamese, too!  I imagine the students’ heads were spinning by the time they deciphered all of the accents and languages our visit exposed them to!

The understanding of the students impressed me, and I know their eagerness to learn will bring them along quickly in their acquisition of the English language.  For me, though, this experience struck a chord.  It energized me and proved to be a culmination of my passions for language, literacy, travel and teaching.  Like those nights before the first day of school, I find my mind racing with ideas and hopes for this class.  I keep sending Muin links to YouTube videos and ESL resources.  I’m sure I’m driving him crazy by now, and he’s probably overwhelmed by my enthusiasm, but I seriously cannot stop!!  Perhaps I need to start my own floating English class!!

Best of luck to Muin and Akbar as you share what you have learned with your students.  I will always feel a special connection with this class, and hope we can chat in English sometime soon online!