My first experience teaching ELL learners came eleven years ago when I was obtaining TEFL certification. At the time, I was preparing to move to France to teach English, and I wanted to specifically be trained in how to teach non-native speakers a language different from their own. As part of the TEFL training course, the students I taught were 70 and 80 year-old Russian immigrants. All the immigrants had been forced to leave Russia for one reason or another and all were quite eager to learn English. None of the TEFL teacher trainees spoke a word of Russian and our students spoke extremely limited English. In addition to following a specific lesson plan format, TEFL trainees were taught that, no matter what, we shouldn’t speak the native language of our students during instruction. This rule was meant to apply not only to our Russian pupils, but also to any students we would be teaching in the future.
The atmosphere of the TEFL training course was extremely convivial, and we as student trainees really loved both teaching and learning from our Russian students. Though we were not officially told to do so, we all were very interested to know about the lives our students led in Russia and learn about their past experiences. I was quite interested to learn some Russian words, and, overall, a very respectful and happy atmosphere was created by all involved. I fully understand why my TEFL instructors taught trainees not to ever bring the native language of our future students into the classroom----not only might students use this as a crutch, but what happens when the teacher doesn’t speak the language of her/his students in the first place? However, above all, though I think we as teacher trainees already innately had the instinct to show respect for the culture and first language of our students, it was great that our teachers also felt the same way. When writing about ELL, Mari Haneda stresses that there is any number of ways that students can learn another language, but she focuses on the importance of literacy practices at home, school, and the community.
In the course readings we’ve read for class this week, whether learning about trilingualism, bi-lingualism, the primitive language myth or bi-culturalism, a common theme in all articles was to always show respect for the first language/culture of students when teaching in language diverse settings. Not doing so has a high likelihood of having a deleterious effect on learners. During the course of my TEFL training, one of the key factors in teaching approach was to show respect for the language, culture, and overall identity of students, despite not knowing much about how to speak Russian. As a result of this, the TEFL teaching experience was successful and fulfilling. I was then able to take what I learned and apply it to my teaching English to French students in France.
I entered into this role with much eagerness and was quite excited to teach young French pupils. I did find that my TEFL training rule of never speaking to students in their native language didn’t apply so well in this instance----because I was now teaching young children, they constantly asked me questions in French. I speak French fluently, and I found that, when working with young children, always refusing to speak in French meant that we often could not move on from an idea. I wound up finding a happy medium of having to speak French when necessary during the course of a lesson. In contrast to my French pupils, my Russian students at the Boston Language Institute knew that one of the rules of the TEFL program was that speaking in their native tongue during English instruction might impede the learning process.
In Chapter 4 of The Skin That We Speak, Judith Baker discusses trilingualism, an English teaching approach that focuses on the idea of students mastering three different forms of the English language: that which is spoken at home, that which is spoken in a professional setting, and that which is spoken with all formal rules and standards intact. The goal of the trilingual approach to teaching is to help students master the mechanical difference between these three forms of English. Of these three forms of the language, formal English is generally considered superior.
Meanwhile, Lomawaima and McCarty introduce the idea of the primitive language myth, a theory that raises the belief that some languages that exist are savage and less advanced in quality when compared to English. Historically speaking, any Native American language, regardless of tribal group, fell into this category. European settlers deemed all Native American languages primitive, and the learning of English and a western way of life was wrought upon Indians by force. In order to learn how to survive in the changed cultural landscape of North America, Native Americans have been caught in a battle of attempting to hold onto their own cultural languages and identity as well as master English. In this blogger’s personal opinion, any indigenous group in any culture theoretically will face the challenges of bil-lingualism and bi-culturalism if they are dominated and colonialized by an outside group.
Ultimately, and without exception, all articles we read for this week shared a common theme: in order to have the effective teaching and learning of English and literacy instruction take place, not only must the original languages of students not be criticized or labeled as ‘wrong,’ they should be respected, be left intact, and used in an appropriate setting.
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