Friday, February 9, 2018

Helping out the new ESL (English as a Second Language) program at church

My wife and kids were helping out with the ESL program at a church before we moved into our house.  I was very happy to see them helping out; I wasn't able to do much regularly because I was usually running late due to my work and the commute home. They ended up having to give up that opportunity due to the distance/time from the new house.

The good news is that our new church is just starting an ESL program. We are only minutes away and my wife was able to join that effort.  I'm very happy for her in this - she enjoys these opportunities and is very good at organizing and planning. I'm excited for her and all the other volunteers but nervous as well - I know it is in God's hands but.. Anyways, hoping the turn-out is good but not so overwhelming that the help becomes hard to provide.  i.e. too much of a good thing..  We'll see how it goes Feb 14th!

[2018/2/16] Wow, the first day of the Bell Shoals Baptist Church ESL program had around 31 students show up. Over 40 were registered and a number didn't show up but others showed up that didn't pre-register.  With 40 expected, my wife gave me the "eyes" and asked sweetly if I would help with the evals so the students could hopefully be placed in an appropriate level class for their needs. It was enjoyable but slow - I didn't want to rush people as we spoke about their families and such during the eval. You can see how hard it is on people when they have trouble with the local language.  I can imagine that if I moved to a foreign country where I didn't know the language I would feel lost and maybe a bit frightened and confused - and embarrassed if I couldn't understand others or get them to understand me. Now the big questions are (a) what to do if the numbers grow much higher, the building where this occurs wasn't meant to hold a big crowd (b) how to find/keep enough volunteers to teach the variety of levels needed. Next week there are a few more students to eval since we ran out of time to get to everyone but hopefully after that things will go into a closer to "normal" routine. Of course, with the lessons being open to start anytime - it will be interesting to see how to make that work with a small group of volunteers.

[2018/03/02] Over 70 people are now registered and around fifty people showed up this week. Still a good number of walk-ins. They are having to close registration since they can't support any more people in the current building - removing the tables in one room to gain seating even.  Space is the downside of using what was originally a small 3 bedroom house at one time. The good news is that when they start the new session in Aug they will move to a different day and building where they can support a lot more class rooms (and bigger rooms at that)! The original request for volunteers also indicated some days outside of Wed would allow more people to volunteer.



I'm not doing much day to day with ESL work but I did contribute elsewhere.  They need whiteboards for the rooms so I started to build a few fairly inexpensively.

Below is a partial sample of a frame from some scrap pieces.  I used this sample to make sure the joinery and finish would be ok.


For the frames, I used two 1"x2"x8' stain quality pine boards per frame. I routed out the backside so the marker board and frame would be closer to flush with the wall when mounted.  I mitered the corners at 45 degree, added a touch of glue. For each corner I drilled a small pilot hole across joint from the top or bottom about 1" from edge toward 1" on the side edge, counter sunk the hole and then used a pocket hole screw to hold it together.  It seemed strong enough for this use. I didn't fill the screw holes since they don't show unless you are really tall or sitting on the floor.

Below is the backside of a completed whiteboard.  The whiteboard material was sold pre-cut to this size at lowes - I think it was similar to this:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/23-75-in-x-3-98-ft-Marker-Board-Hardboard-Wainscoting-Wall-Panel/3042205

I ended up putting 8 small screws around the outside of the whiteboard material to hold it in place.  I could have glued it but I wanted to be able to easily replace the panels if needed.

I ended up buying a 6' x 1/2" piece of aluminum.  I cut it into roughly 4.5" pieces and mounted those at the top and bottom on each side to use for mounting to the wall (see below).  I used 3 screws into each strap on the frame which was probably overkill but at least I wont worry about it getting bumped off the wall easily.



I ended up using some old lefter stains/finish which I had to mix to have enough - was trying to hurry.  My stain/finish job wasn't as good as I like but it still looks ok.  Below is one of the 3 boards completed and mounted.


Hopefully the boards will see years of use and be part of a program that helps many people.


Philippians 2:4

4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

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