When Yasir Hussain came to the UK, he hardly spoke any English and struggled to understand the language. Yasir joined Merton to enrol on the full time study programme for ESOL 16-18s at Entry Level 3. which, alongside ESOL, also includes Functional Skills ICT and Maths.
He says: "When I started at Merton, I studied ESOL to help improve my understanding of English. Throughout my studies, I was lucky that I was able to learn the language quickly and, with the help of our wonderful teachers, easily got to grips with it. I found the classes to be fun and interesting. Within the full time study programme, we also studied FS ICT and Maths.
Last year, there were no online classes or social distancing, so we could get involved in group classroom discussions. This year, we had two to three months of online classes via Microsoft Teams. I found this to be a challenge because it was often hard to focus all the time when we were learning remotely. When we eventually returned to College there were so many rules to follow, including the 2m social distancing between students, no group discussions and face coverings worn all the time. There is a big difference between this year and last year."
