4 Reasons Why You aren't an ESL Teacher

Here is the latest addition to the debate between a white middle class male English teacher, a 6 year old Taiwanese ESL student, and a white middle class female teacher (the comments keep getting deleted, but I received them in pieces, so I'm not sure if they are 100% accurate in terms of the intended order of paragraphs):

[If you have no idea what's going on, start from the beginning.]

"I read all those other parts, but it would be dumb to quote the entire thing. and I understand the article differently than you. Again, there is no such thing as American culture. Culture in New York is different than North Dakota than in Missouri than South Carolina. So what do they base these wonderful texts on?? New York or California. No, sorry. white, middle class NY/CA.

i am not more experienced and traveled than you. I do however have the ability to look outside the box and see things other than what "the man above" says to be true. i also have had class after class on cultural differences, esol students, etc. Oh, yeah, and the fact I was actually educated on how to educate children??? And yes, I have lived my adult life in 3 different states. Furthering my evidence that it is impossible to base anything off of "American" because all three places I have lived (all in the U.S.) are dramatically different in their culture as well as language.

calling a friend sister or cousin or whatever is not a big deal if you are trying to have them communicate and be fluent in English. What does arguing do for the child other than frustrate and discourage them? If they held a conversation with anyone in English, I doubt there would be much confusion. When you hear someone in America say "Hey sister" are you confused? Again, this is where our ideals are quite different because you believe in teaching to the book where I believe in respecting one's culture. Do they understand their girl sibling is their sister? Do they understand their friend is a friend? Yes... okay then who cares what they say. Sorry, the tests. Lets follow the way of the world and stress a 5 year old out because she calls her friend something different than her American teacher. As an educator I find it difficult to hear a child berated because they (using English words) said something different, but similar to what their teacher believes. As an English major, did you ever get points off because your teachers did not agree with your point?

every standardized test has cultural bias.

"I don't consciously teach to the TOEIC or the TOEFL, but it just happens to be that both exams use the same proper English that I was brought up using."

Exactly... you are a white male who lived on the east coast your whole life. these tests (as all standardized tests) are designed for people who speak "East coast or west coast" English. And the tests are biased against people who have liven in the U.S. for a number of years... hmm I wonder if they is because they are learning idioms rather than simply learning from the book. does this mean they stop using their own expressions? i sure hope not. I do not believe there is a globally universal understanding of English, nor should there be. Sure, the basic principles of the language, but there is beauty in differences around the country and around the world. In having conversations with people from somewhere else and saying, "we call this___. what do you call it?" It happens all over the country and the world and that is how it should be, in my opinion.

By denying "Chinese-English" words, you are basically saying their language or words are not good enough. So many words in English come from other languages. And I am not talking about won-ton type words. Words like cookie, golf, brick, shark. These are not American-English words. Of course, if your student was calling a boy a girl or something that does not make sense, I would understand the correction. But, as pointed out in the dictionary, she was actually saying the word in a correct way, just not YOUR correct way. Just like the toast thing, the actual definition of bread is the loaf. so if they call sliced bread toast or rolls or whatever... I mean really... is it a sub or a hoagie?? DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU ARE FROM! Therefore, I do not see the big deal other than that it is different from what you believe to be true."

I'm going to list the reasons why I'm finished having this debate:

1. "I do not believe there is a globally universal understanding of English, nor should there be."

Therein lies the heart of the problem. I do believe there should be "globally universal understanding of English." I'd be willing to bet that the estimated 1,000,000,000 people who are currently learning English would be pretty upset if they weren't able to communicate with the "One out of every five people on Earth," or 1,500,000,000 people that "can speak English to some level of competence." If I were you, I'd choose to leave that statement out of your cover letter if you ever apply for a job teaching English as a foreign or second language.

2. "I read all those other parts, but it would be dumb to quote the entire thing."

In my first point, I have two sections of linked text, that upon clicking them, it brings you to the page I'm citing as a source. All of your comments lack this basic instrument of credibility. As if that wasn't enough, there was an entire article that directly states that it disagrees with you, yet you still were able to pull (without referencing) quotes out of, put into a context that suits your argument, then go on to say "it would be dumb to quote the entire thing."

3. "As an educator I find it difficult to hear a child berated... "

This one is tricky because we were both brought up in the same areas, so presumably we should have the same general ideas on words and their definitions. However, whatever separate paths we took led us to different cultures, and consequently have led us to a misunderstanding (of the very nature I am arguing can be avoided) on the word "berated."

As I understand it, to "berate" someone is to give someone an oral beating. In my mind, I imagine a loud and angry voice. The situation in which you are referring to looks like this:

Teacher: "She's not your sister, she's your cousin."

Student: "No, she's my sister."

Teacher: "You don't have a sister."

In your eyes, that's viewed as a verbally abusive scolding. In my eyes, because I had the knowledge that the "sister" in question did not come from the same mother or father as my student, this was simply a correction.

If the girl had called her pet cat a "lion," I would have said "You don't have a lion."

I'm not sure if your use of the word "berate" comes from an interpretation that you've learned in your culture, or if you said it just to exaggerate and make me sound like a monster, but either way, that's reason enough to end this.

3. "Words like cookie, golf, brick, shark. These are not American-English words."

cookie

1703, Amer.Eng., from Du. koekje "little cake,"

I'm pretty sure by "Amer.Eng." they mean "American English."

As for the other words, sure they come from other languages, but the reason is because English didn't already have a name for that particular thing. In the case of my students mistaken identity with her cousin, she simple didn't know there was an English name for cousin. That's because she's 6, not because she's trying to preserve Taiwanese culture through speaking English. Are you actually suggesting that in all cases, before checking to see if a foreign language has a more appropriate word, we should just use ours because it suits us better?

In Chinese, they often use the same word to talk about "cans" and "bottles." If I have a student holding an aluminum can of Coke, should I correct the student if he or she calls it a "bottle?" Is that what you mean by saying "By denying "Chinese-English" words, you are basically saying their language or words are not good enough." What I'm basically saying is "Hey, in English we actually have a special word for this. It's called a 'can.'"

4. This final, and most important reason that I'm finished with this debate is that you have no platform for your argument. You don't seem to consider the actual English learners in your English speaking free-for-all. They want to communicate with people. Since I've been in Taiwan, I've been in contact with people from that speak English from probably a dozen different countries. There was no problem with communication, and I'm using that as a basis for saying "You're damn right I'm from the east coast of America. The English that I learned there has now been tested with the English of others around and the world and the results show that the English I'm using and teaching can assure you the ability to communicate globally as well."

You have painted a beautiful picture of a very liberal teaching environment where anything goes and nobody is wrong. Should I consider throwing out all of my textbooks, flashcards, books, etc? How can I teach "apple" if I think that somewhere in the world, somebody calls it something else, and, according to you it doesn't even have to be in English!

I understand that the English is not as rigid and exact as mathematics, but if we were to put English on a scale between Math Class and Finger Painting, I'd say that the English Language falls closer to the side of "has rules and can be assessed."

To top it off, you don't even offer an alternative solution. You keep asking things like "sub or hoagie?" but you've never said what YOU would do, or what you think teachers SHOULD teach. Over the course of these comments, you have basically told me that the way I can be more tolerant of Taiwanese culture is to embrace whatever "Chinese-English" I hear. This is a very radical concept, probably more for me than you because I hear "Chinese-English" on a daily basis. Since these posts have started, I often think about not correcting my students when they say things like "Put where?", "Have ant," and "My home have" (I could go on and on with this) all on the notion that the very attempt at English speech has automatically become accepted as part of English syntax.

I guess I have 2 main points that I have been repeating: the first is that children shouldn't be encouraged to directly translate from their language (or at least not without correction). The second is that if anyone is going bother teaching English, there needs to be some continuity throughout the world. To illustrate the line of continuity, here is a conversation I've had with a friend:

Friend: ....at my mimi's house.

Me: Your what?

Friend: Mimi. I call my grandmother Mimi.

So if you want to call your sister your "father," your garbage collector your "uncle," or whatever, I guess I can't argue that. The point I'm trying to make is that both parties need to be able to trace it back to a single or few universally understood words and say things like "Well, he's not actually my uncle, but I call him that"(like the sub/hoagie people can both agree on a "sandwich").