Of teaching and being taught

I'm not in college yet. I'm not working at Starbucks or Topshop either. So what do I do with my free time?

Sleep, eat, sleep some more.

That, and also I've started teaching English (for free) at an orphanage near my home. I've never done any proper teaching before this so last night's class was a learning curve. For both me and the kids. The kids were about 9 to 11 years old.

Good thing mum was there too to help around. She's the one who does lecturing for a living so she should know better. We helped around with their homework and then did some story-telling sessions with them.

I would say their level of English isn't up to standard. Some of them have difficulty reading and writing in English. Some just have poor grammar and sentence structure. But at least they have the desire to learn and to know more.

Their eyes lit up in excitement when we sat and read the story books together. I read a paragraph and they followed suit with the same intonation I had. In between, they would ask all sorts of questions like "Why would King Midas need so many gold coins?" A few of them said, "If I had the kind of money like King Midas, I would donate it to poor people or an orphanage."

And that made me smile. Because then I know there's still hope for these kids. None of us were born with naturally good English. We learned along the way. I remember how sucky my English was when I was younger. Like I can't even speak a few sentences without having grammar mistakes here and there. Not to say it's great or perfect now but I got better.

My mum always said that the best way you can improve your language is through exposure. Be it exposure to books, newspapers, TV or daily conversations. And that is what these kids are lacking over here. They have the potential and the brains, just that they are not fully exposed to the English language.

I have a couple of months to work on these kids. Before I finally decide what is it that I want to do next, studies wise.

But for now, like what I tell everyone who asks me what it's like to do all these charity work, life has a new purpose now.

And it's for a whole new reason =)