Older Adult English class!

Once every two months I "help" at a local adult English class.  The teacher is a man whom Tetsu has known through work and Tetsu introduced him to me at the pool (we are all three members).  When the man explained that he was teaching English to a few people and that they would welcome the chance to practice their English I wasn't too interested.  The class is at night from 7:00 to 9:00 and I don't like to drive at night...  and I was really trying to get away from any more English teaching.  But Tetsu encouraged me to help out as the teacher had been active in the workings of the convalescent home and Tetsu felt indebted.  For the past year every two months Tetsu drops me off at the community center and then picks me up two hours later.

Did I mention that the teacher is in his 80's...  And he speaks excellent if somewhat archaic English.  When I talk to him I feel like I am talking to someone from a Jane Austen novel...  The five students in the class are all in their late 70's and early 80's themselves and they diligently spend most of their weeks translating an English book sentence by sentence.  On the evenings when I attend, the students are expected to give a "speech".

"Good evening, class."

"Good evening, Sir."

"Could you please tell me what is today's date?"

"Today is the third of May, Sir."

"Very good.  And what was today's weather?"

"It was a cool and cloudy day."

"Very good class."

Occasionally I can't bear the slow exactness of the class and start rambling something like, wasn't it a nice day, or weren't the cherry blossoms pretty or something, but the teacher will look over at me indulgently and then go back to his prepared dialog for the day.  I sort of feel like I've stepped back a few generations and if I speak out of turn again I might get my knuckles rapped with a ruler.

When I say that the students prepare a speech, what actually happens is that they all work very hard to write something of interest and then they read off their page without ever looking up.  I have suggested that maybe "conversation" might be a better use of our time (instead of me listening to them read aloud) but they are set into their custom of doing their homework and reading their efforts.  Not much is required on my part...

Last month when I was finally asked to add some native English to the evening I started talking about "Show and Tell" and how this was a common activity in kindergarten and elementary school classrooms.

"Let's have Show and Tell time next class.  Everybody has to bring something in and tell us about it."

Thus this week was a Show and Tell class.  It was a lot of fun!

The first man who is in his 80's stepped forward with three oil paintings that he had done.  He explained how he took up oil painting as a hobby after taking a community center class.  One painting was of the English countryside he had visited, one was of a Japanese temple and one was of the city's Central Park pond.

The next person to Show and Tell was actually the first student's wife and she too brought in her painting using Japanese natural paints on hand made paper.  I think this was a scene of swans in a lake...  She also learned to paint at a community class (different from her husband's).

A student brought his travel journal and pictures of a motorcycle trip he took when he was in his 20's (he is in his late 70's now).  He had meticulously written down his the cost of food he bought on his trip and the names of people he met and the wishing that he had someone special to share his travels with.  (A romantic!)

Another man brought in pictures he had taken when he'd gone hiking as a young man.  His story was interesting because he explained that he had used an accordion box camera!  Maybe you've seen how the lens part pulls out accordion style and how the box sits up on legs.  He explained about the great weight and the problem of lugging the camera up mountains and setting it up to take pictures.  I thought it amazing that such a camera could take such clear pictures.

The teacher's wife claimed that she didn't have anything interesting to show us but actually she brought out bean bags that she had made and demonstrated how she can juggle.  She said she learned to juggle as a grade school girl and that bean bags were one of the few toys that she and her sisters and friends played with.  She explained how bean bags can be played alone (juggling) and also with friends, and nowadays she has joined a older citizens' social circle where many of the women are enjoying the juggling they learned as school girls.  For this evening's Show and Tell we all tossed bean bags back and forth to each other, under-hand, over-hand, flip from hand palm to the top of the hand, toss two bean bags at a time, keep a rhythm going etc.  It was really hard!!!  Here this lady in her 80's could demonstrate juggling three bean bags at a time!

The juggling student even gave me the three purple flowered bean bags as a present and now every so often I pick one up from our living room table where they sit and toss it back and forth from hand to hand even enticing Tetsu to join in and see if we can keep the back from falling on the floor for more than 10 tosses.  We end up laughing a lot because we are so uncoordinated.  Who would have thought bean bags could be such fun!

So...  I am very happy to report that Show and Tell was a big success for all involved!

Aren't these older people inspiring!