regine at the volunteer's fair.

Regine walks up to a desk. “Hi, so, what do you do?”

Man: ‘We pair up people who speak other language with a child who has problems learning in english. We send our volunteers to schools in Nottingham. What language do u you speak?’

Regine: ‘Uh, mandarin?’

Man: (nods wisely) ‘Ah yes, we have 2 mandarin speakers working with a child who speaks mandarin, and that has been very successful.’

Me: ‘I’m not sure that my mandarin is good enough though. Haven’t used it much. What kind of things do you have to help the child with?’

Man: ‘Well, if the child is say, five, his teacher might say to you, he’s having problems with concepts such as colours or shapes. Then you go along and help explain those concepts to him in Mandarin first…’

Regine’s mind: colours. Right. I can do colours…Uh, purple is… uh…. Shit…. Hui se? and yellow is… huang.. and orange.. shit….

Man: ‘…and then maybe try to explain to the child what a triangle is, if he’s having problems with shapes…’

Regine’s mind: triangle? I have no idea what that is in mandarin. Maybe I can explain it using the phrase ‘thing with 3 corners’. Wait, I don’t know how to say corners in Chinese.

Man: ‘… and if the child is older, say, and the teacher is going to tell a story, it might be helpful if you go along and tell the story to the child first in mandarin, so he understands roughly what’s going on, and maybe teach him a few key phrases of the story in English, the important words, so that he can follow it when it’s told in English.’

Regine mind flashes to nightmare scenerios of trying to tell ‘little red riding hood’ in mandarin. It realizes that it doesn’t know the word for ‘wolf’. Or ‘hood’.

Man: ‘… But you know, I’m sure that it will come back to you once you start using it again.’

Regine’s mind: there is no way I’m going to sign up for this.

Regine: ‘Great! Can I have an information sheet?’