Thursday, October 28, 2010

Hablas ingles?

With many of our volunteers coming from America, Australia and Europe, English and Spanish are the common languages of the club. Some basic English is also very valuable for the kids (and their parents) especially when the time comes to look for work. We aim to provide regular English lessons at the club; one lesson for the older kids and one for the smaller ones. Recently, one of the mums has even started taking lessons.

Whether you have teaching experience or not, your help will be appreciated; even if you are not leading the session, a few extra people to assist is always extremely helpful and gives the kids a bit of the one-on-one support they need. If you are interested to help adults learn English, we may be able to put you in touch with the kids' parents or other adults in the community so that you can help them outside club hours. They are often interested in the opportunity as English lessons can be prohibitively expensive for them.

Most of the older kids do learn some English at school but the age range, ability and concentration levels (!) vary widely so we try to keep it fun and simple.


Learning colours by singing a song....


... and colouring in!

A well earned snack.

Of course all the kids are fluent in the international language of football!


Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Tenes tarea?

At the start of every club session, our volunteers sit down with the older kids to help them with their homework.

Large class sizes, a lack of resources and difficult family lives mean that it is easy for the kids to fall behind at school; we hope, by regularly spending a little time with them on their school work, that we can help to remind them of the importance of their education and, through taking an interest in their progress, to encourage them to keep trying.

Not to mention that however much they protest, and however slowly the books and pencils are drawn out of their bags, I think they all secretly enjoy having a bit of one on one attention!


One of our kids enjoying being better at maths than our volunteers... yes we remember doing long division, we just don't remember how! Back to school for us before the next session!


Ah yes... the answer is 4. Or is that some sort of hand gesture that I'm not cool enough to recognise...?


Yes, always good to keep the hood up - it helps warm the brain.


And for those too young for homework, another volunteer helps to keep them occupied.


Very studious... although I'm not sure those glasses are yours....


Many thanks to all our volunteers for their patience (!) and for providing this support to all the kids at the club.