Things that are hard - Part I

1. Communicating cultural differences. 

In the US, it is generally considered rude to snap your fingers to get someone’s attention. Additionally, Americans tend to like their names and usually prefer them to “teacher”. Here, when you arrive late, you typically try to sneak in as quietly and inconspicuously as possible. You do not, for example, knock on the door, open it, greet the teacher (and expect a response), take a seat, then ask to be caught up on what you missed. In the US, if your cell phone rings during class, you try to silence it at once. If you must, you might opt to sneak out as quietly and inconspicuously as possible to take the call. You do not, for example, allow the phone to continue ringing, then interrupt class to ask permission to take the call, then, when you’re done, knock on the door, open it, greet the teacher, take a seat, then ask to be filled in on what you missed… I may be exaggerating just a bit, but the point is, cultural differences are hard to deal with. And it’s hard to communicate them because we’re not coming from the same perspective - What is seen as a sign of respect (e.g. “teacher”, knocking on the door, etc.) in some places is not interpreted the same way in this culture. Likewise, things that are very disrespectful here (e.g. snapping), are not at all ill-mannered elsewhere. It’s hard because they can be annoying and lead to misunderstandings. It’s hard because explaining the differences takes up class time. And it’s hard because old habits die hard. But, I also think it is SO important to do. After all, these students are learning English because they want to attend American universities. If they are to succeed, they not only need to learn the language, but also what will be expected of them as a student.

2. Using the textbook without having class be totally boring.

In addition to being ugly, “Easy True Stories: A Picture-based Beginning Reader”, is VERY formulaic. Every chapter begins with a series of nine line drawings illustrating scenes from the reading. The reading itself comes next, followed by a vocabulary exercise. So far I’ve seen two options for these, either “Match the word to the picture,” or “Write the opposites.” Following this are two comprehension exercises, then a discussion prompt. Every unit ends with a writing activity. The discussion and writing activities are all pretty lame. The stories themselves are okay for the most part, and the comprehension activities are a quick way to gauge what’s sinking in, but doing exactly the same activities in exactly the same order every single class would quickly become stale. It’s been a challenge to come up with fun, interactive, level-appropriate activities that complement the readings in the book. Perhaps I’ll share some of my lesson plans and the materials I’ve developed at some point.

3. Having to define “rock” on the spot.

Some things are so concrete and have been in my vocabulary for so long that I’ve never even thought of defining them. The online Merriam-Webster Learners Dictionary tells me that a rock is, “the hard, solid material that the surface of the Earth is made of.” Good to know.

When you get bored, hide your money.

Yesterday’s story was a real yawner. Seriously, just about all of us yawned at least once. It wasn’t that it was especially boring (though admittedly, it wasn’t particularly interesting either), or that we were all unusually tired (though I actually was). The real reason for the yawning outbreak was that the story was about the contagiousness of yawns (and it seems to be true, because I just yawned while typing that). I printed out pictures of yawing people and animals that I found on the internet. Before reading the story, I challenged each of the students to look at his picture for 30 seconds without yawning. I think about half of them were able to do it. I thought this would be a fun, kinesthetic way for them to get the main idea of the story. They definitely got it, but it didn’t really turn out to be as fun as I’d hoped. They got bored (which may or may not have prompted some more yawning) and then they got a little restless.

Speaking of restlessness, these men can get rowdy. Generally, I enjoy their enthusiasm. Who wouldn’t love a student who wants to answer a question so badly that he just about falls out of his seat? But sometimes the speaking out of turn/over someone else/all at once, side conversations, teasing, giggling, etc. can get a little out of hand.

Agatha* uses an interesting class management tool: Monopoly money. When the students come into class, she gives them each two “dollars.” If they’re late, she immediately takes one back. They can earn extra “money” with really outstanding answers/participation. They can lose money for being disruptive, speaking in Arabic, and coming back from the break late. If she asks for volunteers/answers and nobody is jumping at the opportunity, she encourages participation by offering a dollar. At the end of class, they turn back in all their dollars. In exchange they get… nothing.

via thecampuscompanion.com

Before I saw this system in action, I had my doubts about how well it would work. I mean, these are adults! Will they really be motivated by fake money – fake money that doesn’t even buy them anything? Surely not, I thought. Well, I thought wrong. They LOVE it. Whenever they’re given a dollar, they try to wheedle Agatha into giving them more (usually four – I’m not sure why that’s the magic number). They police their friends, calling them out for speaking Arabic or arriving late. They try (very fervently) to answer her questions, even when they don’t have a clue. They just seem to have fun with it. Case in point: Agatha taught the first half of class yesterday, so I was sitting among the students. Sharif* was sitting next to me. When he got up to leave for the break, he looked at me, then he looked at his stash of dollars, then he snatched them up, ran across the room, “hid” them under the overhead projector, winked at me, then walked out.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Today’s reading was about a woman who was driving with a cat on top of her car. Another guy on the road spotted the cat and tried to tip her off. She freaked out when she noticed he was following her. She turned left, and she turned right, but she couldn’t shake the creep, so she drove to the police station. An officer told her about the cat and suddenly the man seemed less of a villain.

It’s interesting to think about the cultural appropriateness of this story. Most of the students are learning English so that they can attend an American university, but Yousef* is a little bit older and already has a career as a math teacher. He is here chaperoning a cohort of Saudi women. By “chaperoning”, I mean he accompanies them EVERYWHERE they go. He actually didn’t come to class today, but I kept wondering what he would think of this woman, driving alone (well, besides the cat), being followed by a strange man.

I think I mentioned that I would be teaching for the first half of class today. Well, I did and it went pretty well. Here are some highlights:

• The Good: I managed the heck out of the time. This is something I tend to struggle with, so it is a success I’m particularly proud of. 

• The Bad (well, not bad exactly, just not fantastic): I designed a cloze activity for the students to do with a partner. I found a stylized local map online that included key buildings and landmarks, and indicated a starting location. Then for half the class, I whited out a few place names. I whited out a few different place names for the other half of the class. Students with mismatched maps were to pair up and practice giving each other directions. Once they knew where a certain place was, they were to fill in the missing place names on their maps. 

• I was hoping it would be communicative. It was. They talked. They exchanged information. This was good.

• I was hoping it would be challenging. It was. They had to use English for an extended period of time. They had to listen and pronounce things carefully (one pair got hung up on a misunderstanding of “straight” as “street”). They had to use new vocabulary and grammatical structures. The trouble was, understanding what they were supposed to be doing was also a HUGE challenge. And it took a looooooooong time. Even after several different attempts on my part, some of them were completely in the dark until their more astute classmates clued them in in Arabic. 

• I was hoping it would be relevant. I used a local map. I thought they might learn something about their new city. Mustafa* took one look at the map and exclaimed, “What is this?!?!” “It’s a map,” I said. “But everyone have GPS,” he countered. “I don’t.” “Everyone have iPhone!” “I don’t. I use a map.” He gave me a look of utter incredulity and said, “I buy you iPhone tomorrow.” 

• The Ugly: I didn’t call on all the students equally. Samir* was particularly left out. He doesn’t often volunteer answers in class, and I didn’t  solicit his participation much… because I forgot his name.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Let's back up for a moment.

I have always been fascinated by and passionate about people. My mom has often told me about a trip we took to the public library when I was three. Instead of listening intently to the librarian’s story as the other kids were doing, I was busy watching another kind of story. I looked around at each child and carefully mimicked his or her posture and facial expressions. Just as the characters on the page captivated the other children, the “characters” at storytime captivated me.

Fifteen years later I enrolled at Earlham College, hoping for an experience that would help me prepare to make my contribution to the world. For as long as I can remember, I’ve known that I wanted to work with people “when I grow up,” but it wasn’t until college that I considered a career in teaching English.

During my first year as an undergrad I took a social psychology seminar called “Power and Privilege.” We talked about topics such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, and socioeconomic class. About half way through the semester we stumbled upon something that we hadn’t planned to discuss that related to all of these categories of marginalization: language. We began to investigate both the power of language and the languages of privilege. In particular, we explored the use of slang, its relation to these categories, and how unofficial languages are simultaneously powerful and powerless. It was during this course of study that I first began to really think about language deliberately.

I later decided to major in Spanish and Hispanic Studies. At the time, there were approximately 25 million Spanish-speakers in the United States and between 300 and 400 million in the world. In my sociology classes, I’d been learning about language as a vehicle for the expression of ideas and feelings and as an important aspect of social identity, and that communication is facilitated by shared language. I decided to pursue the major because of the amazing possibility of using words, both English and Spanish, to connect with 900 million people.

Another class at Earlham caused me to think even more about language and become interested in teaching English to speakers of other languages. I began volunteering at Amigos, a community-based English as a Second Language program, to fulfill a service-learning requirement for “Spanish Conversation and Composition”. I enjoyed it so much that I kept volunteering after the semester was over. I taught one-on-one English lessons to Mexican immigrants through this program for two years. During my third year with Amigos and my last year at Earlham, I served as volunteer coordinator for the program. In this capacity I recruited and trained volunteer tutors, assessed students’ language proficiency and paired them with tutors, created and distributed curricula and materials to tutors, and planned and facilitated tutor support and training events.

I gained a lot of practical teaching experience while working at Amigos, but felt I needed to learn more about second language acquisition, materials development, and methods of teaching English in order to be the most effective teacher that I could be. I decided to earn a master’s degree to better prepare myself to do this important work. Three and a half years into my two-year program (give me a break – I work full time too!), I’m in my final semester.

After I graduate, I’m interested in continuing to work at the intensive English program where I’m completing my practicum, teaching abroad, or getting back in to teaching “survival English” to adult immigrants. Though I’m not as keen at the moment, I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a PhD. It seems to me that there is a pretty sizable gap between ESL research and pedagogy. I would love to contribute to this body of knowledge by conducting research on student learning and on the conditions that support (and inhibit) quantifiable learning gains. I’m also interested in developing materials and curricula based on research-validated methods.

One thing at a time though. I’ll be teaching for the first hour of class on Tuesday, which means it’s time to lesson plan!

"He is beautiful."

Today was my first day in class, but it actually started on Tuesday, so they had already met once without me. It’s an introductory (the lowest level offered at the school) reading class. There are 10 students, and all are male. One is Kuwaiti, one is from the UAE, and the rest are from Saudi Arabia. They range in age from about 17 to 60.

Update: There are only eight students in the class now. Yousef* stopped attending for unknown (to me) reasons and Faisal* transferred to a Basic I class (the next level up).

Agatha* is my mentor. She is from Hungry, but you’d never guess that English isn’t her first language. She has many years of experience teaching in several different contexts. When we met yesterday, she promised me that she would be entertaining in the classroom, and she didn’t disappoint. She moves around a LOT and both her voice and her body language are extremely expressive. It would be pretty difficult to ignore her. I think I tend to be pretty stationary when I teach – mostly because I cling to my notes like a security blanket – so I hope watching Agatha will help me loosen up a bit.

She started out the class with a vocabulary review activity (the words were introduced on Tuesday). She gave each student a couple of cards, each with one word on it, and asked them to describe it, act it out, or give a synonym. As I type, I realize how boring this sounds, but it wasn’t. Like I said, Agatha is entertaining.

After a couple more short activities, we jumped into Unit 1 in the textbook. We’re using “Easy True Stories: A Picture-based Beginning Reader” by Sandra Heyer. I can’t speak to the content yet, but the cover is truly hideous. It’s mostly brown with some clashing blues and a bit of purple thrown in for good measure. It’s also distractingly busy and has a font reminiscent of the old west. They say you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, which is good, because this one isn't going to incite a love of reading in anyone any time soon. Thank goodness I’m just borrowing a copy, because I definitely don't want it to sully my bookcase permanently.

The Unit 1 pre-reading activity is a series of line-drawn scenes from “The Color TV”, a gripping tale of crime and deception. The book instructs, “Look at the pictures. Listen to your teacher tell the story,” but Agatha had the students describe what they saw in the different scenes. She incorporated some more vocabulary review and a little grammar lesson into this activity, focusing the students’ attention on present and present continuous tenses. 

In the “easy true story”, Jim sees a robbery take place. Since giving a detailed physical description is often a key part of eyewitness testimony, Agatha had the students practice this vital life skill. She gave them each a magazine clipping and asked them to take turns describing the person pictured. As a warm-up she asked the class as a whole to describe me while she wrote key vocabulary and sentence structures on the board. Omar* went first. “He is beautiful,” he said... I’ll sleep easy tonight knowing that the police aren’t likely to find me with that description!

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Welcome!

I'm completing a practicum for my master's degree in linguistics. Here I write about my experiences teaching an introductory reading class at an intensive English program. Follow along as I make myself ready to teach English as an additional language.