New Goals
A couple of weeks ago I wrote that I was planning to give up my Current Events class at Literacy for Life and instead pair with a learner who wants one-to-one tutoring. At the end of last week, a member of the program staff suggested a learner for me; I thought the match looked interesting, so we’ll have our first meeting this week to get started on identifying her goals.
The woman I’ve been paired with is in her early 40s, I think. She has only been in the US for a couple of months, but she has good English language skills and should be able to get a work visa once she’s been here long enough – although qualifying for a work visa can take months or even years. I’ll call her Sonia (not her real name) in the essays I write about my experiences with her over the coming weeks and months.
When I meet with her, we’ll begin to figure out her short-range and long-range goals. We’ll start working on generally improving her English language fluency and getting her oriented to her new home community. Here are a few things we’ll probably do before she decides on a specific career or job path:
The first goal will be improving her general fluency in English, which she will need no matter what else she decides to do.
We’ll see what’s involved in getting her a driver’s license. The LFL office has resources to help prepare people for this text, so we’ll know what we need to do to get her ready for it. I’m not sure what her transportation needs are – I’ll find that out next week. If necessary, we can meet in an alternate location, like a library or coffee shop, if that’s more convenient for her to get to. The public transportation system in Williamsburg sucks, so that’s not going to help her get around.
I plan to take her to our local library, get her a library card, and orient her to the things the library can do for her. We have a great public library system here, with lots of programs and book groups, so we may try to identify some of these options for her. LFL also runs a book discussion group, so she may decide she wants to get involved in that.
I would like to walk with her around the William and Mary Campus and through Colonial Williamsburg. These walks will help her learn about their community, but we will specifically be practicing conversational English skills while we’re doing these things.
I think it would also be fun to go to Jamestown and Yorktown with her. People who live in James City County (as she and I both do) get free admission to both of these sites. I’d like to begin to orient her to the history of this place where she hopes to live for a long time. Once again, visits to these locations will help with her English fluency. Before we go, we’ll role-play routine questions and answers so she can engage with the tour guides or employees at this site in order to get some confidence in her abilities.
All of these plans are subject to her agreement, of course. She’ll have ideas of her own, and we need to do what she needs to do.
At this point, I don’t know what career assistance or coaching she will want to pursue. When she makes those decisions, we’ll move toward those goals.
I’m excited to be working with Sonia. She is very pleasant and very committed to making a good life for herself in Williamsburg. I’m delighted to be able to help her do that.