"I was a stranger and you welcomed me." Matthew 25: 35

                               

David, Woody, Sue and Lusi at Tuesday night Conversation Group.

Second lesson in for the Tuesday group and Lusi joined David and Woody, two twenty-something Koreans working here at the cotton gin. One of the activities had us all looking at our national flag and explaining what it means to the others in the group.
It shows that students are the same the world over (and also the kindness of most people) that, as the activity had us all scratching our heads, when it came to Lusi's turn, Woody was helping her cheat by looking up the Fijian flag on his phone! They had only known each other for an hour but were friends already!

Woody places the farmer's hat on Lusi's head to play Animal, Vegetable, Mineral  to practise asking questions.

Inspired by a talk by ESL TAFE teacher, Alanna Townsend, Sue decided to start conversation classes in Hillston and applied for a Unitingcare Innovations Grant to get TAFE help with training and support.We have such a diverse population here at most times of the year that it was just too tempting to have a go at this community building exercise. It has been a wonderful opportunity to help new comers, who do not speak English fluently ,or at all, to learn the language and be made welcome. And as always with God things - we end up getting more out of it than we put in.

Huong , student and local. at the Hillston Flower Show

At this stage there are four tutor/student pairs working. These students are from various ages and backgrounds -Vietnamese,Chinese, Indian and Korean and aged 25 - 50.

Woody - Best Hat Wearer on the night and quickest guesser.

In addition there are two conversation groups, held on Monday and Tuesday nights with 3 members in each plus native speaking locals. It has been a real jigsaw exercise finding times which suit everyone's work commitments  but we did it!

Although Lusi may challenge him in the hat wearing stakes!

Sue has written a program for the conversation groups to follow,with a mix of fun and informative activities designed to get everyone speaking. On Tuesday, having started at 8.30 pm supposedly for an hour,we finally left at 11! We were all having too much fun.

 No complaints but David takes a step down from his usual sartorial splendour to wear the Hat.