English at Home
Our Students
The English at Home (EaH) project helps refugees and asylum seekers who, for reasons of caring, disability or gender, are unable to attend classes.
Developing Skills, Participating in the Community
EaH aims to develop students' language skills so that they can cope with everyday life and become empowered. We are committed to promoting cross-cultural friendship and enabling participation in the wider community. It is hoped that some students will go on to further and higher education.
Our EaH project began in February 2001. We are always amazed at the quality of people, not just preofessionally, who volunteer for us as tutors for the project.
What Working for LASSN Means for a Volunteer Tutor
My name is Sarah and I have been volunteering with LASSN for 2 years. I joined when I had recently returned from a year travelling, during which I had done some English teaching to children in Guatemala, although I had virtually no formal qualifications.
I agreed to give [English at Home] a go and was allocated a young Afghani woman. She had never had any education in Afghanistan and could not read or write in her own language. Her English was very limited but her eldest daughter had just started school and was rapidly picking up English which motivated her to want to learn. In view of her background this was quite a challenge to me. It took me some time to identify the obstacles arising out of her never having been formally taught before. However, we did start to make some progress and I started to try to teach her to read. I was always warmly welcomed into the family and looked forward to visiting. I was very pleased when she secured a place at Thomas Danby where she would get more teaching time and the opportunity to mix with other students.
I have been teaching my current student for a year. Again, she is from Afghanistan, a little older than my last student, she has had some education. Her English is significantly better than my previous student. This has created a different challenge as she needs a broad range of material but does not have much chance to speak English outside of the lesson time.
I have benefited greatly from meeting my students, learning about a very different culture and understanding the difficulties faced by refugees. I have found it an interesting intellectual challenge to find ways of teaching that are suitable for their very particular circumstances. LASSN provide some very useful training, both in relation to working with refugees in general and teaching in particular, and are always there as support.
If you want to volunteer to become an English at Home tutor then please contact Gerard on 0113 373 1759 or download our application form.