We love hearing from our pupils and volunteers about their reflections on Jacari tutoring and what impact it had on them. We wanted to share this story from Aga and her volunteer tutor Sophie.
Aga is a 13 year old girl from Poland, who arrived in the UK in summer 2020. When she arrived she spoke no English and had low confidence. She was matched with Jacari volunteer Sophie at the end of November 2021. Aga’s family wanted her to have sessions online instead of the tutor coming to their home, because of Covid worries. The family didn’t have a laptop at home so Jacari loaned them a laptop, which was donated by one of our supporters and refurbished for our pupils to use.
They meet virtually and do writing, speaking, spelling, grammar and vocabulary exercises. They also do lots of games, like Wordle and description guessing games.
Aga says:
My sessions with Sophie are not like normal school, we talk normally and it’s nice. I don't feel like I’m learning because of how much I enjoy it. I have gotten better at using past tense. In school I used to always have to ask the teacher to come and help me with my writing in lessons, but since I have been working with Sophie, I don't have to ask the teacher for help as much. I am more confident and comfortable talking to friends and the teachers.
Sophie says:
In the earlier lessons Aga definitely made more errors whilst speaking to me, however over time she's become a lot more confident and as a result her speaking ability has improved. In the first few sessions, she was a lot quieter and we didn't have conversations as naturally as we do now. Since then, Aga loves having long conversations with me about whatever is going on in her life.