Matt seeking extra hands to help with English classes for Ukrainians
A Mullingar writer and photographer who has been running English classes for refugees from Ukraine living in this area has this week issued an appeal for additional people to get involved.
Matt Nolan runs the classes at Áras a Mhuilinn in Mullingar on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and the attendances are running at about 23-24.
“One of the difficulties that I have is that there are just two of us teaching them at the moment, and the levels are causing us the problem.
“You don’t have to be a teacher, because this is about basic conversational English,” Matt said, explaining that some of the people attending have literally not a word of English.
"Others have some English - very basic conversational English, very basic," he said.
“We want to create two classes or groups: one for people who can get involved in some sort of conversation, to help them to improve their conversational English; and then one for the group that have no English but we want them to get just started learning basic words, as basic as the parts of the body, the time, stuff like that. Very simple stuff altogether.”
The attendees, who range in age from their teens to their sixties are keen to learn – many of them because they want to find jobs here.
“We don't particularly need qualified teachers to do this because at this stage, these people don't want to know an awful lot about English grammar, or anything to do with stuff like that. They basically want to learn words, and to learn phrases and to learn sentences that they can get by with.”
Fáilte Isteach, a national project providing free conversational English classes for migrants, is supporting the Mullingar effort: “They're going to supply us with some training for how to teach the Ukrainians and they're also going to supply us with a course book or books for different levels,” says Matt.
He is interested in hearing even from those who can only volunteer for one of the sessions per week, but he is looking for a commitment to at least mid-June.
Some of those attending have come from parts of Ukraine that have suffered – or indeed are still suffering – dreadfully from the war. Some have even had relations killed.
“They are coming from a war zone and many of them are traumatised,” says Matt.
“And,” he continues, “there are two aspects to it. You have to talk with them and give them a place where they can come at least once a week for an hour, hour and a half. Or maybe have a cup of coffee with them afterwards if needs be - meet them and talk to them and try and get them settled into Ireland. About half them – I reckon - will be going back as soon as they possibly can. Some of the younger people will stay.”