Blanca and Lindsay met in January 2013, beginning what would become six years of weekly ESL tutoring sessions with Literacy Network.
Blanca wanted to build her English skills to help her family. She had experienced numerous challenges in communicating with her kids’ teachers and helping them with their homework.
“I wanted to give back in a way that added structure to my weeks and social connections to my life. Working with Blanca provided both in spades,” Lindsay shares.
“Blanca was a dedicated student of English grammar,” says Lindsay. “She requested additional practice and review until she was confident she’d mastered each concept. She practiced pronunciation, learned new words, and even though it wasn’t her favorite, wrote sentences and later paragraphs.”
Life changed and Blanca’s goals did too. They worked on English skills for interacting with Blanca’s kids’ daycare, practicing for job interviews, and communicating with healthcare professionals, especially relevant when Blanca welcomed her fourth child four years ago.
“She was all the time with me,” Blanca shares about Lindsay. “She has a lot of work to do, but she is always open for me.” Blanca and Lindsay received support from Literacy Network that made their years of tutoring possible. Lindsay attended workshops run by Literacy Network staff every quarter to pick up new strategies for tutoring such as ways to practice the high-level grammar Blanca was asking to learn. Blanca appreciated Literacy Network’s attentive Student Services team checking in with her every semester to make sure she was comfortable and tutoring was going well.
Six years later, Blanca and Lindsay are ending their time working together as Lindsay moves out of Wisconsin. Their time together will have a lasting impact. “What sustained us, I believe, is Blanca’s genuinely kind and caring spirit,” said Lindsay.
Now Blanca can offer her 4-year-old so much more than she could her oldest child, who is 17. She can now be more engaged in school, in health, and in the community with her improved English skills.