By Elmer Warkentin
Teaching ESL as a volunteer is my cup of tea. No exams, no report cards, no budget. Just a group of intelligent, educated, appreciative young people informally gathering in my living room, me with my whiteboard interacting with them on a topic or field of mutual interest or an area of need. I love that setting. They communicate to me with how they dress, where and how they sit, facial expressions, etc. Inductive teaching. We work our way through a lesson—no problem: use PowerPoint, movie clip, Martin Luther King speech, music, creative art … whatever. It’s fun.
Then, all of a sudden, Zoom. No more “excuse me” or knock on the door, no student coming early and just hanging out over a cup of tea for a bit before class, no whiteboard, no handing out papers. I wait for 7:30 to come along and they show up for class or should I say, their faces appear on my screen. And then we exchange some pleasantries and sometimes there is some verbal interchange between them. Some of them enhance their background with some tropical scene with palm trees blowing in that tropical breeze on that sandy beach. I have stubbornly kept my background as the wall in my study featuring the slatted folding doors of the laundry room closet.
A huge adjustment for me. But I have been an opportunist all my life, both here at home and abroad. I’ve tried to maintain and practice an IWWCW (“In What Ways Could We?”) mentality. So, I paid my Zoom subscription and dove in. My students (upper intermediate, mostly PhD) have been very patient. It took awhile for me to master sharing the screen, or doing breakout rooms efficiently, using audio or video segments off the internet, etc. How I have longed, at times, for that simple living room setting with my whiteboard! But that was then, this is now. And we don’t know when the now will break into the future.
The good thing is that my students live in this technological context as well. They study online, they get lectures online, some of them teach online. Not all goes smoothly for them either. I have come to the conclusion that teaching via Zoom is an opportunity for modelling. They see my technological ineptness and appreciate me as an old man attempting to use modern technology. They like and appreciate my expertise in English. They feel my love for them. They realize I am volunteering, giving of myself, my time, my energy—for them.
An example: For some time now, I have been focusing my lessons on Qualities of a Good Leader. We go through some material on one quality in each lesson and use the lesson to teach vocabulary, pronunciation, idioms, etc. with as much practical exercise in conversation as possible. Often there is opportunity to incorporate Scripture. Yesterday’s lesson was on Respect: a leader must earn respect, not just demand it. I played that recent short intense Biden speech to his Whitehouse staffers in which he categorically states several times that if he catches them negatively interacting with each other, speaking down to anyone—“I’ll fire you on the spot”. A good chance to discuss whether he is earning or demanding respect. It’s a great opportunity to get into breakout rooms.
I’m still in the process of learning to use Zoom effectively, not just because I have to but to see it as an effective tool which I can master. I am thankful that COVID did not force me to quit my ESL ministry, but that God is enabling me to maximize this interruption. Whatever you do, in word or deed [in person or via Zoom], do it all for the glory of God.