How is beer feminine?

Well, OK, I’ve probably made some of my female friends angry with that statement, but let me explain . . .

I am diligently returning every other day to my Duolingo online account to learn basic French, and while I am picking up a few words and getting through some of the lessons, I am struggling to remember some of the rules, like biere being feminine (la bee-air-ech with that noise from the back of your throat) and sandwich being masculine, une sandwich. Or how the suffix of words changes depending on the noun—is it mange, manges, mangez, mangeons, mangent . . . depending on whether it’s tu, vous, l’homme, nous, ils . . . quel palabre!

All of this effort makes me fondly recall my wonderful literacy student, Moureen, when I worked for the Literacy Volunteers of America (LVA) while working in Passaic County, New Jersey. Moureen was a lovely, vibrant fifty-ish woman from Jamaica who had little proper schooling. Having been presented her first grandchild, she wanted to be able to read with her, help her with her homework, etc. I found Moureen’s willingness to go the the LVA to try to find her path to literacy courageous and admirable. She had to work hard to fit lessons and homework it into working, taking care of her home and her family (including as I recall a lazy husband) and babysitting her granddaughter.

We hit it off spectacularly. I had travelled to Jamaica many times in my life and so we had some common ground to start off the relationship. Moureen was also an extremely hard worker and appreciated my persistence with her pronunciation and spelling. She focused during our two hours each week, always attempted and often managed to complete the reading and writing assignments, and never, never gave up as exasperating as the English language can be!

Why is “oll” in doll and roll sound differently??  How can kernel and colonel sound the same and be spelled so differently? It’s just the rules, isn’t it? Silly rules that make adult learners tear their hair out trying to keep it all straight. We’d laugh at some of them, and she’d diligently write some notes down for reference in her book. And, occasionally, she’d slip up after a lesson or two when the word resurfaced.

I now feel her pain.

I haven’t thought about Moureen in a while, and it’s when I do that I feel sad that we lost touch a few years ago. I found it so hard to tell her that I was leaving New Jersey to come to England and so she’d need to find a new tutor after three and a half years of lessons with me. In those years we’d become friends, and we knew about our families and our ups and downs; we bought each other cards for birthdays and Christmas and Easter. We spent the first few minutes of most lessons catching up, but not too long because we both wanted to see Moureen improve. 

And she did. I was so proud of the essays she wrote and the fluency of the books we read together after years of study and practice. In fact, to this day one of my most proud moments of my life was being chosen as the Literacy Volunteer of the Year for Passaic County. It was an award that belonged to both of us—Moureen’s efforts to improve and my efforts and patience to get her there. The scores she received at each testing phase every six months always jumped a notch or two. I only recently came across the plaque I received; I had carried it with me from America to England because I was so damned proud of what it stood for. I did finally recycle it; I have the memories and no longer need the physical object.

Perhaps I’m also reminded a bit about Moureen because I am feeling that I will be challenged with my new primary school reading partner, a smiling, young girl in Year 3 called Isha. Some of her mannerisms remind me of when I first began reading with Joy—fidgety, unfocused—only she more so. We have for the first two weeks changed seats and books at least once in a 20-minute span, and while Isha prefers to sit near her classmates, it’s a huge distraction and I’m often trying to find ways to bring her eyes back to the page.

I will be patient. Isha does try, when she is focused, and will look at me after she takes some time to sort out a word, almost as though for acceptance, before moving on to the rest of the sentence. I nod and give a word of encouragement when she gets it right, or help her work through the sounds of the letters when she’s close but not quite correct.

The half hour goes quickly and she does give me a broad smile and a wave when she’s done—shades of Joy, who always had more energy than could fit in the room. With any luck I will be Isha’s reading partner for four years—enough time to see her improve and blossom into a strong reader. J'ai de grands espoirs!