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Teach English in Zaolin Zhen - Xinzhou Shi

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What have I learned from teaching English in Costa Rica? (topic 88: Personal Teaching Experience) By Manuel Fonseca Carballo TEFL Summative Task July 11Th. 2019 Introduction Teaching a foreign language may be a long journey to find many different adventures with fascinating people, hungry to learn their favorite language. I have to admit to myself that this journey has given me a lot of experiences with students of all ages and all levels of English. Living in a Spanish speaking country can be an advantage if you have decided to teach English to your likes. The English language represents a big challenge to a huge majority of Costa Rican people. Although, as we are part of the three Americas, more specifically, Central America, we do not have that contact of the English language into our everyday lives the way some countries in Europe do, indeed. Obviously, Costa Rica is not as close as Mexico is to the United States, and however, we can see something more or less similar for Mexican people with regard to the acquisition of the English language. For three decades or so, I have observed in my country an increasing necessity of English as a second language. This concept of “ the second language” has been widely misunderstood by our population. I have seen over and over again people frustrated after a job interview in English. They always thought they had a good English command, but the moment they faced a real and authentic conversation in English they simply realized their English was not enough to accomplish with the minimum English required by the employer. So, the question for these people is finding out why their English command turned out in something helpless according to the employer´s interests. Fortunately, I have had the opportunity to talk to some of them and, believe me, those conversations have made me ask myself many more questions than they have likely asked themselves about the reasons regarding the complexities of acquiring a high command of the English language. “English learners usually translate English into Spanish when they have a real conversation” Patricia Viquez, B1 English student at CNI (Centro Nacional de idiomas) Heredia, Costa Rica, July 10, 2019. The above quote is a repetition heard from hundreds of English students whose goal is to achieve a full command of the English language to be able to get a better job. This affirmation cannot be just ignored. Behind this situation, we can list a lot of circumstances that English learners face every day. Some make a great effort to afford the best English schools in the country, but unfortunately, few can surpass the barrier of “translation” while using English. At expensive English schools, students have the opportunity to have access to English native teachers. As a matter of fact, this should benefit students to be 100 percent exposed to real English, pronunciation, fluency, intonation, idioms, and interaction. The total exposure to English makes the students absorb the new language more easily. Some might find this exposure to English very frustrating though. It has been noticed that some students struggle to grasp the new language, but inside their heads, there is a high brick wall that stops them all from comprehending what is going on in the classroom. They see some of their classmates enjoy the conversation with the teacher, while others simply are beholders of such a frustrating moment. They ask themselves why they are not able to participate in whatever conversation in the class while others not only use their English skills but seem to enjoy every single word coming out from their mouths. Yes, that is frustrating, I can´t deny it. I once was there. As a Spanish native speaker, one day I asked myself one powerful question: “What can I do to make things easier for English learners to grasp English as a second language more efficiently?” Well, this question sent me to sit on the driver´s seat. I started a complete recreation of the days when I was a beginner in the English language, I recreated the moments of chaos, moments of complete frustration, but I never gave up. I learned that the art of learning a foreign language goes beyond the classroom, the teacher, the fears. I came to a fantastic conclusion. All I needed to grasp the new language was to simply accept a different way to communicate with others. Bingo!!! I found it, but I didn´t know how to materialize it. So I tried to look for answers. During the years I spent at college and a little time at the British School of Costa Rica, I had not been just studying English. I was studying, observing the way my teachers used to teach, explain English. I was so fortunate to study with native teachers, however, believe it or not, I always questioned the way they valued my classmates´ participation, and of course, mine. There were moments they definitely did not get what we really wanted to express in English, they simply smiled at us as though they did understand our conversation. What would it have happened if they, our teachers, had had some Spanish knowledge to be able to identify our existing disabilities to use the correct English structures, ideas, or even our thoughts? At that precise moment, I came up with a crazy idea. I planned a strategy. I said to myself, “ If I was able to identify one of the barriers English learners face to speak English, why not teach English in a different way? What if myself would pretend to be an English teacher to native Spanish speakers, but being aware that I might likely listen to some pieces of conversation in English using Spanish structures, and of course, I would have been ready to not only to correct them, but I would also have taught them what made them make their mistakes in English. I thought this way they, the English learners, would gain more in terms of using English structures and stop building such Spanglish Monsters. From this experience, I started to deal with different types of issues about the acquisition of English as a second language. All of them seemed to do with poor listening, poor writing skills, poor talking quality. I listened to hundreds of complaints about these issues. In addition, the demand for bilingual English-Spanish labor was increasing. This represented more opportunities for all those with a high level of English. I still do not know whether the students´pressure just fell on my shoulders or I just became as worried as those prospects who expected to be hired at any call center down here in our country. So I formally started teaching English as a second language. I have always procured to teach English through the school´s textbooks, but very often, I used extra material taken from different sources in order to make my lessons more interesting. I noticed how much my students enjoyed those materials, they were fresh, innovating, more realistic. I used to focus my attention on all new vocabulary, new phrasal verbs, new structures so they were able to digest every single part of it. I insisted. and I still do, on how this new material should be pronounced correctly. I had them listen to authentic English conversations, and later, we broke down those conversations and analyzed the HOW and WHY they were spoken. If ever they didn´t comprehend some phrase or expression, I usually prompted to find a Spanish version to compare and find a similarity in between. Conclusion: During this long journey, I realized that it is possible to help students to acquire English as a second language. I think teachers have the most important part of the process of learning. I discovered that the knowledge of the student´s mother tongue is a great plus to English teachers so that they can always have the possibility not only to understand better but contribute to building real English structures with no Spanish spots at all. Teaching English is a lot of fun, but more importantly, making people think in English is the biggest prize a teacher could ever receive.


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