Teaching English to elderly students at PUAM has been, without exaggeration, the most challenging, fascinating, though, demanding experience in my professional life.
I had been recommended to the creator of the programme, Mrs Lucía Benardón de Galli, and I distinctively remember having felt rather anxious before the interview, and not being able to wink an eye the night before the first class wondering how to address the beginners: How should I talk to an eightish, seventish, or even sixtish person? I’m half their ages! As “Ud”? Or as “vos”? In English there wouldn’t be any problems; all of them would be “YOU”. Another issue was how to scold a very respectable person, your senior, when he/she is chatting to a partner (in Spanish!) and not precisely about the task? But the following morning while in class I discovered they proved to be great people who were also adapting themselves to a variety of new situations: the learning experience in the first place and what is more, learning after having stopped any intellectual acquisition twenty or more years ago, being at university for the first time in their lives (when we started, eighteen years ago we had classrooms at Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud y S. Social, 4th floor and no lift in use, about ninety stairs up and the noise of traffic along Peña Street plotting against the cassettes or my voice. And many other factors that they joyfully but successfully, overcame.
Years went by and we were sent to a beautiful summer house and although we lost the contact with young students we have discovered peace, old pine trees, a tiny bridge and it became our refuge with cherished coziness, birds singing, flowers and rainbows … popping into the classroom through the big windows, making classes even more pleasurable.
Nowadays, there are six levels: five gradual ones and an advanced conversation group with some students attending classes for more than a decade: this specific level has raised from intermediate to upper intermediate and then to advanced, (and being classmates to becoming friends and even close friends) and we have never repeated topics! They have worked with verb tenses, phrasal verbs, lexical items, collocations, roleplaying, dramatization, singing, projects, reporting, you name it! But I don’t recall having felt or experienced (in me or the students) any boredom at all.
The rest of the five groups are also very motivated students who are very eager to learn, very open to meeting for homework, coffee and tea… which takes me to PUAM’s core objectives: establishing bonds, making friends, spending good moments while keeping your mind useful, active and alert, creating or reinforcing your sense of belonging, making elderly students feel still “alive”, helping them to communicate with relatives especially English-speaking grandchildren living abroad…
The most rewarding experiences from teaching these students are witnessing how they expect each and every class, the sense of fulfillment when they talk, understand a word on TV or film, or travel and put their English into use.
I must confess that when I first started teaching at PUAM, ( the first years at the university building) though, many colleagues asked me, “Are you still working with the oldies?” As if I had taken up a hobby to be dropped after a year or so and not a lifetime commitment! After practically two decades of classes full of happy faces and trips abroad and within the country to share time together and strengthen bonds, I believe we have convinced everybody that teaching English to elderly people is not only possible and feasible but also tremendously rewarding and a greatly successful endeavour!
The learning experience is so fantastic and positive that after turning forty-five, I’ve also become a PUAM student having joined the “Art Workshop” and currently attending the “Argentine History Workshop”.
Regards to all ICANEWS readers of all ages and remember:
“Aging does not mean becoming old, only wiser” |
When I first arrived at PUAM, I was sure to be entering a period of consolidation and expansion as I had completed some years of English studies. What I had learnt so far, had to be practiced constantly in all four skills: understanding, speaking, reading and writing and we, I mean to say, the whole course have found in Liliana, the guidance to enlarge our knowledge with her ability and, over all because she’s totally devoted to her work.
The whole space is so pleasant and people there so friendly, with a special sense of humour, that you feel glad to meet them as soon as you arrive. Thank you to the PUAM, Liliana, and my school mates for their encouragement, support and guidance throughout the year.
An Advanced Conversation Student’s Comment. |
