volunteer profile - Hayley

Hayley has lived in Calgary her whole life. She is studying to be a Licensed Practical Nurse and found out about ESL volunteer opportunities on Volunteer Calgary’s website. She decided to try working with ESL students because she is interested in teaching overseas, traveling and learning about other cultures and languages.

She currently works as a volunteer classroom assistant for LINC1 and LINC2 classes. She loves helping people, helping new Canadians experience Canadian culture and really values seeing improvement in the learners, especially at the low level.

She finds it a challenging experience, often trying to get her point across and find new ways to communicate with people who have low proficiency in English. She is very sympathetic to the cultural and communication challenges faced by new immigrants.

Hayley thinks that a VESL workshop in reading and writing skills would be most beneficial for her, as communicating verbally comes naturally, but teaching people reading and writing skills is an area she would like further training.