Finding Voices

I tutor IGCSE First Language English in one-on-one classes. These are quite difficult lessons, because spending ninety productive minutes with a tired teen requires a level of energy that I struggle to provide by myself (give me the raw voltage of kindergarteners any day). But these are also rewarding sessions because the material we work on is interesting, as are their reactions to it.

There’s one lesson early on in the textbook where they read examples of travel writing, look at advice on good travel writing, and produce their own piece of travel writing. This segment is challenging as the examples are both incredibly exotic and somehow not all that gripping, while the lengthy advice is tricky to wade through. It says helpful things like “use first person” and “be concise”, but it also suggests that they “create a concrete image” and “be funny”, which is a tall order for a fifteen-year-old already navigating international school in a foreign language. When we look at the bullet points we’ve gathered on the board and prepare to work on their piece, the student will invariably panic and say things like:

“But I have nothing to say. I’m not funny. Nothing ever happens to me.”

And that is my cue to whip out the first few pages of Neither Here nor There by Bill Bryson, in which he details his epic journey of walking to the bus station, obtaining his bus ticket, and catching said bus.

“Was that funny?” I ask.

“Yeah, I guess.” (High praise in teenspeak.)

“Okay. So, what is it about?”

They think, then shrug. “It’s about… what this guy thinks about getting on a bus.”

Suddenly, they go all thoughtful and the gleam of panic leaves their eyes. Yes, they think, I’ve gotten on a bus before. I can write about that and Teacher will be happy.

Yes, Teacher will be happy. Once she has subjected Student to the Interrogation: “Right then. Where did you go on your last trip? What did you do? Did anything go wrong?”

And to that last, they will inevitably say “No, nothing went wrong.”

But after a bit more drilling it turns out that plenty went wrong. Lost tickets, misunderstandings, broken-down vehicles, mix-ups with hotel reservations, inadvertently adventurous food orders, and a general sense of bafflement. We sift through these unfortunate experiences to extract the most coherent, interesting, concrete, and absurd image, and they write that down (I would love to list the stuff they come up with, but that would be stealing).

By the end of the lesson, they are invariably impressed by what they’ve produced. It is usually still lacking in important elements like structure and grammar, and we’ll get to all of that… but not today. Today was all about them finding their voice.