Abigail Fulbrook: Welcome back to the Elevate blog. I’m here with Turesa Lewis, where are you in the world, by the way? I haven’t asked you.
Turesa Lewis: I’m in the United States in the state of Michigan, the city of Detroit. So, it’s Detroit is considered the largest city in Michigan and it’s also referred to as the motor city because we have the three major car manufacturers here and it’s a real vibrant city. So, I grew up here and just pretty much stayed here all my life and I enjoy it. I’m familiar with it. So, one of the reasons why I stay, I guess.
Abigail Fulbrook: And you’re an English teacher. How long have you been teaching English?
Turesa Lewis: It’s been 10 years this year marks my 10th year. it’s really a fun thing. I started just teaching English to high school students, helping them prepare for the college entrance exams. And during that time, that’s when I really realized that I loved teaching. And it was just a volunteer type job, something I did on the weekends. And I did it all for three four years straight every weekend. but on my job I worked with a Fortune 500 company and I wrote documentation and as I wrote the documentation I started sharing it with those around me and then before I knew it I was conducting classes on a regular basis on the side while doing my real job. So, teaching just seems to be a calling that I’ve had and I never went full-fledged teaching, but kind of felt like I should have, but it’s just been something on the side. Excuse me. I have a lot of patience and I think that’s one of the reasons why I enjoy teaching. I enjoy patiently listening and finding out where the problem is or what the concern is. And as I teach I’m looking for those areas. I’m looking and listening intently and I listen so much that time later I’ll repeat something that someone has said and they’ll say did I say that? I said, ” yeah, I remember. I don’t know if I should have recorded you or not, but” So,…
Abigail Fulbrook: So these days you’re teaching English online. What kind of thing are you teaching these days?
Turesa Lewis: these days, I just finished a contract with a mother and a daughter. They were from Brazil and I would actually go to their house twice a week and I spend one hour with the mother and one hour with the daughter separately. their lessons were designed specific with a old lesson is thoroughly different from an adult and her mother was here for a job. I was helping her with business English. we had doing lessons on just speaking in front of people. She was really concerned because her English was not good and she had moved here and she was working really hard to understand what’s going on in the meeting. So, we spent a lot of time role playing and I’m in a meeting and she’s doing the presentation. we did a lot of that and we enjoyed it, and that was my three months contract where I did two days a week, one hour each and somewhere mid-March our contract ended. So once it ended, I continued on searching for other students. Of course, I volunteer with the literacy organization and they’ll assign me students periodically if I ask, just to keep my experience up because I enjoy teaching so much, so why not volunteer if I can’t find paying students? So, that sounds pretty crazy. My son thinks it’s nuts, but..!
Abigail Fulbrook: No, not at all. I started out teaching voluntarily yeah, I was teaching a disabled refugee lady and she’d been putting house in, She couldn’t walk, but the council had put her in on the second floor, no, third floor with no elevator. So, she couldn’t get out of the house. Poor woman’s kind of stuck. it would take a big effort to get out. So, getting to classes was, really hard. So, it was my pleasure to go to her and help her with her English then. Yeah, I learned a lot. Yeah. From that. But teaching, I think, yeah, you and me both, we love doing it because of the people that we meet. Tell me about your other students you were telling me about your South Korean student you had.
Turesa Lewis: my South Korean student she had three kids, a husband, and she had only been in the United States a couple of years. we did venture off into a discussion about her becoming a US citizen and I explained the qualifications and what made her eligible be before even to apply. you want to make sure you’re eligible first. And so the students that I’ve actually helped to become students to become citizens. I actually created curriculum and the curriculum is a 12-week course that takes you through the entire process. we do the interview and everything that’s involved in the actual obtaining your citizenship. And my last student last year received her citizenship and of course there was restrictions where I couldn’t attend the ceremony with her. But she sent me pictures and it was just very exciting because we worked really hard to make sure she answered the questions and knew all the things that she needed to be qualified to even take the test. And so I was really really thrilled for her. I was just so excited jumping up and down when she sent me the text and I says, ” really?” Because that, when my tutoring stopped with her, I didn’t know that she was going to continue to pursue it. she kind of was still hesitant because her English she kept saying now those are things I find about many of my students are always concerned about their English and I really work with them so that they can be understood I understand that’s what my one student told me you understand me because you’re my teacher and I says okay okay I give you that. But, I think just working at it and building up that confidence is what really helps.
Abigail Fulbrook: Yeah. Yeah.
Turesa Lewis: And so, I’m really, thrilled with when I get that good news. I’m really excited for them. Yes.
Abigail Fulbrook: Definitely. It’s great. Yeah. I’ve had students say that to me before, “Of course you understand. You’re used to learners.” but yeah, making them more confident that anyone can understand you is it’s tricky as a teacher, isn’t it? But, we have to do.
Turesa Lewis: Yeah, I kind of focus on not so much the grammar part. I don’t correct. I think I like to let them speak fluently first as best as they can. Even if the verbs are not matching and there’s things they’re saying, but long as they can fluently say something in English, I let that go. And we work on grammar, but I pull it in. It’s a fun thing because I’m a teacher and I love English, I can go into the verbs and why they match and how they agree and why they have to agree and before E except for preceding the C. So remember I get really carried away with it and then it’s like okay she so yeah the whole teaching part of it is just got me just so en enjoyable and I can talk about it for days and once you get me talking about it I just can’t stop you No,…
Abigail Fulbrook: I can see that. It’s great. So this is my last question for you, but if you could summarize why are you an English teacher? What do you love about it the most?
Turesa Lewis: the most I love about it is being able to help someone conquer that hurdle that you just didn’t think you were able gonna conquer it. My initial student was in her 70s and she had been in the United States for some time, but she didn’t feel like she needed to learn anything cuz she had her daughter and her grandchildren doing everything for her. She didn’t drive. She didn’t work outside the house. And when she told me she wanted to be a citizen and when I helped her to be a citizen, she was my very first student because I couldn’t speak her language but I did the best I could to understand when we had a conversation. And that very first student is what really helped me to want to continue to pursue it because she passed the test. she became a citizen and she was so excited and in India they have 28 languages and speaks her speaking had improved it was like seven or eight months we were together and it had improved tremendously. She’d ask me about my grandson and how I was doing and we’d have a really nice conversation and that just really motivated me from there. That’s it. I think I’d like to do this a lot. I’d like to, just have more students. one-on-one is what I enjoy more than anything. I have tried conversation groups a couple of times. usually in a conversation group they’re not motivated because everyone’s from different countries, they’re speaking different languages and one lady just explained it to me. She says it’s difficult enough that she’s here in the United States and she can’t understand English and to sit in a room with people from Mexico and Spain and Venezuela and they’re all speaking their language. She said that just that’s not exciting that she couldn’t do that. And it was volunteer. they could attend the class if they wanted. If not, they didn’t have to. And so after so many weeks, I’d get very low attendance. And that’s when I realized I like the one- on-one because I can give you all of me and making sure that you are conquering your goals and achieving that goal, whatever it may be. That’s why I focused on goals in my initial meeting and making sure that I fully understand what it is you’re trying to accomplish when you want to speak English. I ask that question and I ask it a couple of times down the road. I don’t just ask it and leave it there, cuz we’ll revisit it a second and third time making sure that the goal that you’ve given me is still the same goal. Maybe it’s changed a little, but if it’s just to speak in meetings doing work, just to do a presentation, things of that nature, and we can work on that. And I think it’s better to focus on one thing as opposed to pulling all these things in together because it’s a bit too much. I think
Abigail Fulbrook: My metaphor English is an elephant, you can’t eat a whole elephant and you don’t need to. Just Take what one part of the elephant and manage that. Yeah. Otherwise, you’ll go crazy trying to consume the whole thing. It’s not possible! Turesa, thank you very much. It was great to speak to you today.
Turesa Lewis: Yes, it’s great to speak to you as well.
You can contact Turesa in the Elevate directory of English language teachers here
