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Blue Noun Language Hub has offered to coordinate the English learning of Ukrainians living in and around Crieff.

As you likely know, the best way to learn a language is to supplement structured language lessons with speaking practice.

This doesn’t mean sitting down and struggling to converse – especially with beginners: this means sharing doing everyday things and/or special activities with an English learner.

It takes A LOT of practice to learn a language – so our idea is to split conversation practice within the Strathearn community.

As well as accelerating their English learning, this will also create a rich variety of experiences to help people settle and feel welcome in our community (obviously a priority too).

In this blog, we share our suggestions for easy ways to help Ukrainians learn English. See if any suit you. (If not, we have plenty more ideas).


How to Get Involved (Crieff)

Please read through all the information in this blog.

If you would like to get involved, drop into our Jigsaw Sesh ANY Saturday, at Blue Noun, between 5- 7, and we can chat.

Please note, we are ONLY coordinating the English learning element of people’s stay. If you have questions about donations, hosting, work opportunities or anything else, please address them via the Strathearn Welcome Facebook Group.


There’s Something for Everyone | 4 Ways That YOU Might Want to Help

Firstly, Blue Noun is seeking volunteers to PRACTICE English with our Ukrainian English learners (find our list of suggestions below).

We’ll do the TEOFL teaching stuff.

YOU do the chatting.

You need to have a couple of hours to spare regularly, good communication skills and empathy for what it feels like to be in a new country/language.

We are looking for volunteers to commit to working with the same person REGULARLY.

It can be once a week, once a month, etc – or even a 5-minute phone call every day.

We are especially keen to involve different generations in this project.

There is an 18-year-old who needs company his own age.

There are several women of retirement age.

Secondly, a few of the women have young children. Would you be available to babysit whilst they take their English lesson? The lessons are between 7 & 8 on weeknights.

NB: There are obvious safeguarding issues around this, so we’d welcome suggestions as to the best way to do this.

Thirdly, we would like to hear from anyone interested in assisting us in coordinating English volunteers!

Quite frankly, we’re better at ideas than admin. We’ll oversee each learner’s individual progress, but it would be great to have a volunteer coordinator to liaise with learners and volunteers and actually PLAN the activities.

This would be a great bit of CV-building experience for the right person.

Lastly, are you a young person considering a career in TOEFL?

You might want to volunteer during certain English classes to get some work experience and skills under your belt. We’d be happy to share our skills and knowledge with the right person.


Blue Noun Language Hub’s Suggestions | 7 Easy Ways to Help Ukrainians Learn English

Cook and Eat a Meal Together

Invite a recently arrived Ukrainian to your home. You could prepare your family’s food together and then make them welcome during your family meal. (This is NORMAL life. It’s going to provide language skills that only treating people as guests doesn’t).

Invite Someone Along While You Do Your Weekly Shop

It doesn’t seem much, but in fact, it’s a trip out of the house, it’s chatting in the car, it’s practising vocabulary and language skills for shopping. It’s very much the essential daily language skills they need.

Saturday Jigsaw Sesh

Not sure your home is tidy enough?

Drop into Blue Noun and share doing a jigsaw with us.

We’ll be hosting a Jigsaw Sesh every Saturday.

Come and join us in arguing over whether to start with the edges!

5-7 pm @ Blue Noun

Have a Coffee in a Cafe

Maybe you are available once a week to chat over a coffee? Either locally or further afield? (It might be a good excuse to explore your region with fresh eyes).

Visit Your Local Library Together

It’s free, it’s fabulous. Visit your local library and enjoy books & magazines together. It’s a GREAT way of finding conversation topics.

Visit Perth Pool

Swimming isn’t a naturally chatty environment, but it sure can be nice to have someone to go with regularly. There’s always the trip there to get talking if English language skills allow it.

Hosting an Event? Or Going to an Event?

Think about reaching out with tickets or invitations to the Ukrainians in our area.

If you have an idea, drop into our Jigsaw Sesh group.


Other Resources

Thank you for your interest in helping your local Ukrainians practice English. If you have your own suggestions for easy ways to help Ukrainians learn English, please share them in the comments.

If you are in Strathearn, Perthshire, and have questions or need advice about the best way to contribute, please drop into one of our Jigsaw Sesh events (details above).

We are running them for you to get a taste of what’s involved – and as a place for ANYONE to ask for advice from our team.

If you are not a Strathearn resident, but looking for English learning resources for Ukrainian arrivals in your own locality, please do get onto our mailing list.

We are currently sending out a free English lesson every Monday (Monday Morning English) to everyone on our mailing list – plus, we drop an additional monthly collection of learning resources too – called our Gem Collection.

Find out all our FREE STUFF here.

Discover more about Blue Noun here.

Good luck everyone!

Live language learning!