Teaching English to French Refugees

There is nothing I enjoy more than helping with other like-minded ministries and I have written about my respect for the work a local organization, African Renewal does with refugees. When asked to help I agreed to teach basic writing to a French speaking group of students. They are fairly well educated and have great ambition for their lives in South Africa. Working with them is delightful! My high school and college French comes back in bits and pieces and their English is about as good as my French but we together have so much fun. I enlisted my French speaking friend Brigitte to help me when I could not explain in clear enough English the difference between "to rent" and "to let." I am so focused on teaching them principles and structure but they have more interest in what expressions mean. When you say "I come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo," can you also say I come from Retreat or is it better, as I told them to say, "I live in Retreat." Of course here, when people ask where I live I have readily adopted the local expression and I say, "I stay in Fish Hoek." So today, without any real learning on this matter, (and how I envy those of you who have taught English as a second language, " we first talked about building a house and the way we arrange the rooms before we moved ahead to the order we must have when we write. By the end of the lesson they understoood something of what I had to say. We cheered each other on and come graduation time we will see how well I did.