"The people living here really want to work but there’s a language barrier," says Ellen Boerma. "So I contacted NHL Stenden and we now have some fantastic young trainee teachers who have volunteered to teach English every week. I’ m impressed by how thorough their teaching is. I myself regularly join the advanced group and I see the enormous progress being made and how that makes them increasingly motivated. They notice that in the Netherlands you can start a conversation with just a few English words!"
"It's fun to do and I learn from it myself too"
In two large cosy rooms decorated for Christmas, the Ukrainian course participants and the four students meet. It’s cosy and they chat for a while first but soon the groups are divided and things get serious. "It's hard work," says Sonya a young girl who studies at home during the day. Her fellow students are at the secondary school in Meppel during the day, but they come together in the advanced group being taught by Hannah and Josephine, two students from Germany and Switzerland, who are studying International Teacher education for Primary Schools in Meppel. The two students see volunteer work as only natural. "During an internship at a school, I took care of a student from China who couldn’t yet understand our language at all," says Hannah. Josephine taught previously in Germany: "A friend of mine is from Syria and I taught him German, I think it makes sense to do this here. It's fun to do and I learn from it myself too. We brainstorm the lessons together and it's nice to see how it’s picked up."