Teach English in Qingtongguan Zhen - Shangluo Shi

The local cultural environment undoubtedly plays a crucial role on the community’s education system. When specifically talking about developing countries, it is unavoidable to include Laos among those with a strong cultural background. Although Laos can be considered a fairly small country,it surprisingly contains more than 45 different ethnic groups, most of which, boasting their own tradition, culture, and language. This is a peculiar context that certainly needs to be taken into consideration when talking about education development. In a country like Laos, where old traditions and beliefs are still strongly followed by the community, the education system tends to absorb many of the local customary rules. Here the official language is Lao, but more than 30 other different languages are present on the territory. This wide variety is undoubtedly a cultural treasure, but it means that Lao is, for the majority of the community, the second language, and English would be the third one. A further challenge usually comes from the fact that most of the ethnic groups, excluding the three majors, do not have any written tradition. As a consequence, if located in rural areas, people from these communities are likely to have never had any contact with any type of alphabet. In this context not only the new language is a great challenge, but also the sudden approach to a written tradition is an important factor that must be taken into special consideration. In this environment it usually takes a long time to get the students confident enough to communicate and interact with their peers. Also, this challenge becomes even greater when these communities face the first contact with the English language.Teachers here have the fundamental role to accompany the student not only to the actual language learning process, but also through the development of their manipulative skills. Having a glance at the Lao community as a whole, it is possible to find a shared cultural sensitivity. The fear of losing the face in the community, can be considered as one of the main cultural issues, that has a great impact on the education system. This constantly leads the students to avoid to expose themselves in front of their peers, and to avoid to question their teachers when in need. Considering that the main aim of teaching is the student’s understanding, if the student themselves is not willing to collaborate with the teacher, it becomes harder and harder to provide an effective teaching strategy. This behavior triggers a general confusion in the actual learning process of the student. As a consequence, it leads to the general tendency to copy and cheat during any activity, exam, or homework. The students tend to give more importance to the score, instead of the actual understanding, which is actually what the community look at in the end. For this reason in Laos the act of copying from classmates is not generally considered as actual cheating, but instead, it is seen as a communal help between friends. The teachers themselves normally allow this behavior. This results in being an issue for foreigner English teachers, and volunteers in this community. For foreigner teachers, coming from western countries, the strict code against coping during exams is almost a matter of respect.. This strong part of the culture has also a great impact on Lao methods of teaching and learning. This, if compared to western methods, is at the opposite extreme of the stick. Students here are mainly required to memorize parts of the text book, and time to time to copy them in their work book. Evaluation tests are also mainly made of multiple choice or short written answer as to avoid public humiliation in case of mistake. This teaching strategy for the students, when in contact with a western method of teaching, causes confusion and frustration. They are not generally exposed to open conversations. While In western schools an active communication with the teacher is usually encouraged and supported, in Laos their personal opinion is never required in classrooms, nor is it in the community. This is particularly evident in public schools, where the critical thinking process is not even taken into consideration as part of personal and mental development. When working in this country as an English teacher a radical change in the EFL teaching method is required. A step by step process to lead their own reason to develop through critical thinking is of great importance for their future personal and professional goals. English teachers and volunteers have to bare in mind this fundamental difference in culture, and develop new creative methods to encourage the students to slowly expose themselves in order to build their confidence, and make the English lesson as effective as possible. The cultural issue in the education system is much wider than exposed in this passage. The role of women,and children as a work-force in the rural area, and the young age of marriages are also relevant issues with regard to education. In this place, a general exposition of the cultural influence on Lao education is sufficient to provide reliable information on the situation in this country. Slow progress have been made in the past decade. The hope for the future, can be seen through the positive evidence with the quality of education and its access slowly improving, and public institutions making an effort on this direction.