You won't believe what I did on Thur. I taught ESL students how to use MS Word (although for my whole life, I consider myself as a computer idiot). Most of them had never touched a computer before they got into the computer lab. I had to teach them the vocabulary like: mouse, click, document, copy, cut, paste, etc. in the beginning of the class. Then, I had to show them how to hold the mouse (by holding their hands to do it) and move it and then how to click the left button with their pointing finger to select what they want. 90% of the students do not know how to type in English. They use both of their pointing fingers to type their very limited vocabulary.
For my whole life, I have the American Dream. However, at that moment, I saw a completely different America, which is beyond my imagination. My students come from Mexico, Vietnam and some African countries. Their English is so limited and the pronunciation is so poor that I can barely understand what they say to me. So far, I've made up my mind to try my best to correct their terrible pronunciation as long as I got any chance and time.
My supervisor used to be an elementary school teacher. She is very good at creating a pleasant classroom atmosphere. However, I notice that no matter how poor the studetns' pronunciation is, she does not stop for a minute to 'recast' or 'correct' them at all. She treats all the adults as kids and keeps on encouraging them by "Great Job!", "Good!" and "Yah!!". As an EFL teacher from Taiwan, it is incredible to me. When students never get anything right, how can you keep on giving them compliments?? How will they know they are not on the right track?? If professional ESL teachers do not take the chance to teach them, who else is going to save their English? Can they really get any job in USA with such terrible pronunciation and grammar??
One thing I realize about American culture is: no one wants to be the "bad guy" who always says something honestly but not so "sweet". Everbody just wants to be "polite" and "diplomatic". Now, I am struggling with this issue: if I am going to live in USA for the rest of my life, whether or not I should just keep my mouth shut and hide my true opinions and feelings and try to be "polite" and "sweet" in the typical American way??
To me, teachers teach. Politicians are those who must be diplomatic all the time. Teachers must let students know how to make progress no matter how little it can be. (That is exactly the reason why they got paid.) Otherwise, we are wasting their time (and money), not to mention ours. We can lie to students that there is a beautiful dream that maybe someday they will achieve some proficiency in English (TOEFL 400 or something), but actually, we are not so sure whether what we are doing makes any sense or not, are we?
This very different world in USA triggers me to ponder about a lot of things that I have never thought about before. Go back to the reality, I am just a poor volunteer ESL teacher earning service hours for my diploma. I am thankful to have the opportunity to see a completely different world in USA. However, I am going to teach Mandarin Chinese in USA for the rest of my life. Maybe it should not be me to think too deeply about those issues, right?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
In my service learning I am doing, we just did a computer lesson this last friday. Noone in class admitted to knowing how to use a computer. I find that unusual as well. There were some fairly young people in the class.
ReplyDeleteRuby, I agree that teachers should provide correction when necessary and NOT "feign" understanding of our students' written or spoken productions.
ReplyDeleteHowever, you seemed to imply that creating a "pleasant classroom atmosphere" and correcting our students are mutually exclusive. Surely a good teacher can correct his/her students without offending them, right?
As for ethnic diversity, this is normal for big cities in the U.S. Just look at the history of New York or Los Angeles, for example. Perhaps, minorities realize that they have better opportunities for employment and education by living in metropolitan areas.
Back in 2004, my wife (from Taiwan) and I went to Springfield, Illinois. It is a wonderful, traditional American town. It's most famous for being the hometown of Abraham Lincoln.
However, I recall that my wife received several strange stares--apparently, just for being Asian!
Clint:
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that correcting students' errors doesn't necessarily controdict with creating pleasant classroom atmosphere. Actually, students expect teachers to let them know how to get things right and how to make progress, in a mild way, of course. I was talking about not correcting students' errors at all to maintain the pleasant classroom atmosphere. That is incredible to me.
Americans love fun, even in academic domain. Chinese people take it for granted that "No pain, no gain." Whenever we make up our minds to learn something, we mean it. We don't care whether there is fun or not. We just pay whatever it costs. However, as a teacher, I always try my best to make some fun out of no fun. Therefore, you can say that I am not a typical Chinese teacher.