16
Oct
2019

Volunteer Canterbury Award

Volunteers

Congratulation to Joy Sharp, recipient of this year’s Volunteer Canterbury’s Volunteer Recognition Award in June.

Joy trained as an ESOL Home Tutor in 2007 and became certified in 2008. She tutored two learners before meeting Lucila her Colombian learner in 2010. At this time Lucila was a beginner level learner. Joy tutored her continuously for seven years until 2017, after which time they had become firm friends.

A real highlight during their lessons was the project they worked on together to write up her mother’s biography and publish a short book. During this time, they developed Lucila’s writing and speaking skills to be able to talk about her mother’s history as well as her write up this family history account.  After Lucila’s English level had improved enough for her to function well in her daily life, they decided to stop their formal tutoring sessions, but to this day, still actually meet up as friends.

Joy then offered to take on a new learner and since 2017 has been helping a young Chinese lady to improve her English so that she can reach her long term goal of getting a job in her field of insurance.

Joy is an extremely dedicated and committed volunteer, regularly coming into the centre to find new resources and copy materials to carefully prepare for her lessons. She really thinks about her learner’s goals and how to best help achieve them.  She willingly attends various workshops and events, so is a firm member of our ELP family. Joy even generously shares produce from her extensive garden with the office staff!

We are very appreciative of the fabulous tutoring that Joy does and believe she was a very worthy recipient for this award.

Become a volunteer ESOL Home Tutor at English Language Partners! Complete the application form here.

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Volunteer ESOL Home Tutoring

  • Help former refugees and migrants learn English
  • Indepth training course provided
  • Visit learners in their own homes
  • 1-2 hours per week
  • Learn about other cultures
  • Make new friends
  • Give back and make NZ a better place!
  • In all centres
  • Find out more

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