TEFL Pilgrim Gardens Delaware

Cultural Sensitivity in the classroom (27) Reflecting Back On My Summer Time Teaching Working at AMIDEAST Oman teaching young kids english during and after the summer happened around the same time I was doing the tefl online course which came in handy especially with having to make daily lesson plans to educate these kids in a fun and creative manner, instead of them staying at home the whole summer doing a whole bunch of nothing. The outline of the summer camp was teaching kids about the different continents in the world, the animals, pressing issues like global warming, deforestation etc… with the help of Nation Geographic books (which I personally think made the summer camp a success). The students we taught ranged from ages 7-14 year olds, both females & males but while teaching them we had to always be culturally sensitive about the visual aids we'd use, the YouTube videos to mention but a few. To the extent of making sure the videos/educational cartoons do not feature kids/adults of the different sex coaxing one another (which deep inside I'd find absurd, but then I'd have to remind myself that we are teaching young Arab kids). Being a bilingual teacher, having to teach these young kids was exciting at the same time challenging because I learnt from the tefl course that it's always best to stick to the english language even if you are tempted to use/say some words in their mother tongue to make them understand further. To avoid such instances from occurring, I'd make sure I would use various techniques of instruction and engagement. When I write about cultural sensitivity in the classroom, I believe it should apply to both teacher and students alike in all honesty. We teachers would be aware of what it is we are teaching them, even the words being used would have to be in check but one fine day, we had just started the class for the day with a game of classical Hangman as an ice-breaker before starting the actual lesson. The kids had to guess “River Nile” and out of nowhere a little girl says “Nigger” and there was pin drop silence in the classroom because for a girl as small as she was, to be exposed to using the “N” word was a shocker Teaching english in Oman takes a lot of patience because the students generally have this “inshallah” attitude, when translated means “God willing” attitude, which means that even when you are teaching them a really interesting topic e.g. about Machu Picchu in peru, the National geographic books had vocabulary and grammar to go over and to put in extra effort to make them understand, we'd relate examples to Oman when possible, and when you finally think they've understood what it is you are teaching them, they would be like “inshallah” which would really test you but then you'd remember that these kids were in fact forced to join the summer camp by their parents (perfect example of young learners) instead of really wanting to learn or improve on their english. Another culturally sensitive aspect to teaching in the Middle East is the classroom dynamics & how a teacher should be dressed in class. Though we would explain to them how we'd expect their behavior to be, they'd be fine for the first ten minutes then it all goes down the drain from there so it's very important to be stern and clear with your expectations of each student. Gender is also a very sticky topic, although you set out the tables in order mixing the students around accordingly, the girls would sit on one side and the boys on the other (it's as if they bite?) same applies to when trying to divide them into groups (they wouldn't want to stand next to each other). All in all I loved every minute of it because I would be able to apply what I learnt from the tefl course into my daily work and even though there were culturally sensitive issues, the kids were amazing & Oman is too.