Language tutors thrive in lockdown lessons
On any given morning in living rooms and kitchens around the world, NaTakallam language tutors settle down in front of their laptops and prepare to teach Arabic, Spanish, French and Farsi to eager, homebound students.
The online language service, staffed by refugee tutors, has experienced an explosion of interest since global coronavirus lockdowns began.
Not only does the course offer a skill, but learners have the opportunity to swap lockdown stories with people in far-flung places using video calls.
“For the Covid era, we were perfectly placed because we’re already in the digital realm,” Aline Sara, co-founder and chief executive of NaTakallam, told The National from Paris.
The organisation was formed in Lebanon in 2015, and now has tutors teaching four languages from 25 countries.
“The nice thing about confinement, within certain populations who are still getting their salaries and who are still comfortable, is that everyone has turned to online education and learning,” Ms Sara said.
This resulted in a 100 per cent increase in one-on-one language sessions in March, and 150 per cent growth in April, giving refugees, many of whom are settling into new lives in exile, a steady wage.
NaTakallam has been a lifeline for some of the tutors, 60 per cent of whom use the one-on-one lessons to support themselves entirely.
The rest usually supplement their incomes from other jobs, but have perhaps found themselves unemployed because of the health crisis.
This increase in interest in languages and NaTakallam’s services have allowed the social enterprise to disburse 30 per cent more cash to refugee tutors since the crisis began.
“I actually thought that I would be jobless, as I only had a few students with NaTakallam at the beginning of the pandemic,” said Saeed Alaktaa, a Syrian refugee living in Brazil who lost his teaching job at an English-medium school.
“But, thank God, my work with NaTakallam increased, and now I work almost full time. I’m so thankful that I’m still working.”
The bonds between teachers and students have grown stronger in the pandemic, as learners check in with refugee tutors to ask how they are.
“I received more students than before. They all want to know how things are going in Italy because the virus was spreading all over the country,” said Noor Alkasseer, another tutor.
Ms Alkasseer fled the nineyear conflict in Syria for Lebanon, where she began working with NaTakallam.
In 2018, she was resettled in Milan, in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. Lombardy was hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, with more than 87,000 cases and close to 16,000 deaths.
“Some people who were my students called me to ask if I was okay; it was such a kindness,” Ms Alkasseer said, adding that without commuting to her other job, she has time to talk to family in Syria and Canada and enjoy hobbies.
The lessons bring income, but also stave off isolation, Ms Sara said.
She spoke about a refugee tutor in Costa Rica who is alone in a new home because her flatmates moved out to be with their families.
For her, NaTakallam lessons are the only interaction she has on most days.
“That’s really the most powerful component of NaTakallam – that human connection, the human friendship that’s developed,” Ms Sara said.
The organisation today is very different from its beginnings in Lebanon in 2015. Alongside language tutoring, it offers lessons for entire university and school classes and professional translation services.
Both services have been disrupted, but not cancelled by the crisis.
Mr Sara expected “gloomy” days ahead for refugees, but hoped her organisation can help some of them.
“The language classes are empowering because you’re teaching your own language and your own culture and it almost serves as ... indirect psychosocial support because you’re lifting someone out of isolation, you’re lifting someone out of their feelings of uselessness,” she said.
Pavel Corro, a Venezuelan conversation partner for NaTakallam in Argentina, said the service offers more than language to customers.
“It has been an incredibly positive experience for me so far. It allowed me to know my students much more,” he said, describing three students whose Spanish has improved substantially under the lockdown and who he now considered to be friends.
“The classes have allowed my students to release tension or anxiety as we just talk about anything else that’s not the virus,” he said.
“We don’t pretend it doesn’t exist, we just try to have a positive outlook”.
The classes have allowed my students to release tension or anxiety as we talk about anything that’s not the virus PAVEL CORRO Conversation partner