Joanne first came to ELP Hawkes Bay for our English for Job Seekers course, where the skills gained in cold calling helped her find her first job in New Zealand.
In an update from Joanne, she tells us she is now a Mandarin teacher at a local high school, is working towards gaining her New Zealand Teacher registration, and has just recently become an NZ resident. As well as all of this, Joanne has also become an ESOL home tutor with ELP! She gives time every week to supporting a Chinese learner with his English language skills.
“I appreciate how much I benefited from the lessons I had from ELP, I hope I can be a little bit useful to others,” says Joanne of her decision to volunteer. “Also I was curious about how the home tutor system goes. The ESOL home tutor training this year was fabulous.
“Teaching is learning. I benefit from giving my learner lessons because I need to think about how to work with him in a more effective way before each lesson, I learn something else from him while helping him with English,” she says.
“I have great passion for teaching or being involved in activities that suit me well. Being a home tutor makes me happy.
“Meeting new people (the other tutors and the learners) is also something exciting.
My learner Guo is doing very well. He is a willing student with plenty of time which makes it easy for me to reschedule when needed. He and his wife are both very respectable people, being wise, kind-hearted and caring for others. I feel they are friends given to me by God.”
Read Joanne’s story about how she was supported to find work in our Connecting Cultures magazine, Issue 30.
