Describe a time when you taught someone how to do something

I'd like to talk about the time I taught my grandmother to use a smartphone. She is seventy-six, and she had always been a bit suspicious of technology. She used a basic phone only for calls, but when my cousin moved abroad, she became very eager to learn how to send photos and make video calls.

I visited her one Saturday afternoon with a new smartphone that the family had bought as a birthday present. First, I made a cup of tea and told her we'd go slowly. I had learned that being patient was the most important thing, so I broke every task down into small steps. We began with the simplest thing, which was how to answer a call, and I wrote a list of instructions in large letters on a sheet of paper, for her to keep next to the phone. Then we moved on to taking pictures, and I let her photograph the garden and her cat. She was thrilled when she saw them on the screen.

The video call was the hardest part. She kept covering the camera with her finger, and she couldn't find the right button, so we practised a few times. In the evening, we finally called my cousin together, and the smile on her face was priceless. She cried a little when she saw the baby.

I felt a great sense of satisfaction. Teaching someone you love is very different from teaching a stranger, because you really want them to succeed. She now calls us every day, and she's proud to tell her friends that she is a smartphone user.