Blind Date – in Polish

Torquay Adult & Community Learning recognised the inspirational teaching and enthusiastic learning within its classes at the Adult Learners’ Week Award ceremony on Friday 14th May.

Tracy Johnson received an award for Inspirational Tutor after being nominated by student Sadie Martin. Tracy teaches flower arranging classes and has come up with many varied and wonderful short 5 week courses that are proving very popular and inspiring to the learners. After Christmas, she designed a course called ‘Flowers on a budget’ which taught the learners how to recycle their Christmas packaging, paper, polystyrene, tins etc into fun floral containers.

Sadie remarked, “Tracy has shown us how to take a cheap bunch of flowers and turn them into something special. Each evening I go home and look at what I have achieved and I am amazed at how good it looks.”

Tracy said, “ I like to motivate and encourage people to experiment and am always surprised at how much fun they have learning together and creating works of art. It’s lovely to see their confidence and abilities grow.”

Dot Swann, Centre Head of Torquay ACL, nominated Robert Cowell & Elisa Torrequebrada for the Individual Learners Award. These two learners are from Spain and first came along to Torquay ACL to study on an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) course. They worked very hard and have both achieved their level 1 qualification in all four areas: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

They soon got the learning bug and enrolled onto other courses, trying out tasters and workshops, eager to learn new skills and to make new friends. They became our number 1 students and appeared everywhere over this academic year: Create your own webpage, Buying & selling on the internet, Rags to Riches, Dishes from around the world, Italian Cooking, Introduction to Reflexology, Psychological Health & Well Being and Upholstery and Furniture Restoration.

Also receiving Individual Learners awards were Nikki and Kirsty Stewart, nominated by tutor Muriel St Croix. Muriel teaches the NCFE Level 2 Certificate in Volunteering and wanted to nominate these learners in recognition of their outstanding achievements.

Mother and daughter, Nikki acts as Kirsty’s facilitator, due to Kirsty having visual and hearing impairment, epilepsy and affected mobility. They have established an excellent and commendable method of working together. Nikki provides just the right level of support and help to enable Kirsty to realize her potential as a dedicated and effective student/volunteer.

They have produced excellent portfolios to gain this qualification with a wealth of information showing their knowledge and understanding of Paignton Zoo where they have been volunteers for many years. As well as other tasks, they are responsible for engraving the animal adoption plaques.

Muriel commented, “It has been an absolute pleasure and an inspiration for me to tutor Nikki and Kirsty throughout the volunteering course.”

The group award was given to the Polish Language Intermediate class, nominated by their tutor Karolina Nowakowska.

There is a large Polish community in Torbay, many of whom are learning English with us. Then we realised that some English people were interested in learning the Polish language and started to offer Polish classes.

This particular class have been studying together for 2 years. They differ from other classes because they really embrace the language and are very pro-active at finding ways and situations which allow them to practice their Polish language skills.

Karolina says of her class, “They are excellent, quick learners, so committed and their pronunciation is outstanding. I’m so proud of them.”

To prove their enthusiasm for the language, the audience were then treated to a Blind Date sketch – in Polish.