Cultural Issues For ESL Students

Although the personality of two individuals in one country can vary much more than the average personality in two different countries, having some knowledge of how cultures vary from each other can at least give teachers a starting point in knowing how to approach a student or class until teachers get to know the individual preferences of the class. Here is a by no means exhaustive list of some cultural differences that can come up in class.

1. Body language and gestures

The list of gestures by the teacher or students that could be misinterpreted or even found offensive is huge- in fact the number of totally universal human gestures is very few. You can fairly easily research the typical body language and gestures of the country your students are from or are interested in, but particular things to look out for in the classroom include pointing at people, gesturing “okay”, and holding up various fingers to illustrate numbers etc. The main point to note with any of these is that people do not stop finding a gesture offensive just because they understand that it means something else in other countries.

2. Dress

This could be a matter of avoiding even brief and accidental showing of parts of the body like shoulders and belly, or could be more a case of certain clothes such as bright colours or overly sturdy shoes being taken as tacky and/ or unprofessional. Other things to bear in mind include avoiding holey socks if you might have to take your shoes off. There might also be issues with students wanting to keep on head wear that blocks eye contact and so makes communication difficult. Students might also use dress as a clue to try and work out the financial position of foreign teachers, with negative reactions to both seeming too poor and too rich being possible.

3. The teacher’s role

Different cultures can show different attitudes to the teacher admitting they couldn’t be wrong, letting students make classroom decisions, pairwork correction, and pairwork more generally. For native speakers, there might also be issues of differing reactions to your knowledge and use of the students’ L1 or lack of.

4. Asking questions/ saying you don’t understand

To give an example, in a Japanese company it is normal for a subordinate to say “Yes, I understand” to any instructions from the boss, and then find out from elsewhere whatever they didn’t understand. Some people can show the same reaction to grammar explanations and game instructions in the classroom.

5. Making mistakes and correction

As with most of these, the embarrassment at making mistakes and being corrected varies more from person to person than culture to culture, but general national characteristics can also be discerned. There might also be issues with how much correction they expect, if that correction can come from other students, and if it can be in front of other people.

6. Status

Students might feel they cannot interrupt or correct people who are older, in a high status job, are male etc, or may be shocked when the teacher or another student does not pay attention to such distinctions.

7. Gender roles

This is mainly just one subset of “Status” above- if students think that women (especially younger or other “lower status” women) are lower in the ranking, that will exagerate any negative reactions they have to being interrupted, corrected, told to do things in the classroom that are unfamiliar etc.

8. Food and drink

In Islamic countries you might have to take account of low blood sugar levels and varying break times during Ramadan. In other places there might be a taboo against the teacher taking in certain drinks or drinking straight from the plastic bottle, or indeed drinking anything if that is seen as rudeness towards students who do not have drinks. There might also be strong reactions in various places against smelling of or admitting to liking certain foods.

9. Taboo topics

A very much less than exhaustive list of taboo topics in various places included female family members, dogs, politics, social classes, certain periods of history, the Royal Family, the police, the underclass, being mixed race, and homosexuality.

10. Eye contact

The frequency and length of eye contact changes a lot from country to country, as does the times when eye contact is and isn’t considered suitable. One frequently misunderstood example is that East Asian students often close their eyes when concentrating.

11. Small talk

There can be cultural differences in the amount and timing of small talk that is expected in the classroom. For example, Japanese meetings tend to start and finish with quite a lot of small talk but have a clear transisition, whereas British managers (and me in my lessons) will often try to move cleverly and smoothly between the small talk and the start of the first lesson topic. Other cultures might expect small talk to be shorter or even absent until the end of the lesson.

12. Silence

In some countries, most famously Japan and Finland, silence between conversation turns and when thinking is quite normal. The danger is that the teacher or another student might jump in to fill the silence and so prevent them from speaking, or that they will make others feel uncomfortable with their silence. The best short term solution is to teach phrases to fill thinking time like “Well, let me see”, with the next stage being teaching sentence stems to at least get them started quickly, e.g. “I think that…”

13. Writing styles

Most of the things that native English speakers are taught in school are good writing style, such as a clear progression of ideas and one topic per paragraph, exist less or in different forms in other cultures. This can make the writing of even higher level students difficult to follow, and can also mean they are missing out on vital clues to what information is where when reading an English text. Guided planning and reading tasks that identify topic sentences to solve these problems (eventually) are fairly common in Academic English and IELTS textbooks.

14. Interrupting

In some cultures several people almost talking over each other is normal, whereas others will wait until there is complete silence before making their contribution. This can be a problem when you have students from different cultures working together or in EFL tests where the ability to split the speaking 50/ 50 between partners is assessed. Methods to tackle it include giving the one person who is speaking something to hold, making a third student judge each pair on the percentage each person talks, and teaching forms like tag questions that aid turn taking.

15. Directness

Students who prefer to get straight to the point in L1 often find it easier to communicate in English, but there is a chance of them or other students who don’t have the language level to be polite seeming too direct and offending people. They also might miss polite requests to stop doing things etc, for the same cultural, personality and language reasons. This can also be an issue when writing student progress reports, when the same constructive criticism to two different students could offend one and seem like a compliment to the other. Teaching functional language and asking them to judge the politeness of different forms are two good approaches, as is giving realistic reactions when students are rude or overly indirect in class.


http://daniel-j-stone.blogspot.com (C) 2009-11

Teaching Methods

• Circle errors and allowing the students to determine how to correct them
• Directing the students to read and write silently to herself to correct the errors
• Instructing the students to read the writing to the class for peer editing
• Reading the writing to the student and allowing her to listen for errors
• Achievement assessment- may include evaluation of mastery of content, cognitive and affective gains (e.g., general knowledge, skills, attitudes and values, behaviors
• Proficiency assessment- the process of documenting the ability of an individual to speak or perform in an acquired language.
• Diagnostic assessment- provides instructors with information about student's prior knowledge and misconceptions before beginning a learning activity.
• Placement assessment- the process of documenting the ability of a language learner before starting a language program.
• The Linguistic approach- Linguists are interested in explaining what kinds of rules people unconsciously follow, regardless of the social status of their speech.
• Language Experience approach- First, the learner tells a story or recounts a personal experience, and the teacher or another helper writes down everything he or she has said, word for word, including every sound and without trying to fix anything. Second, this original transcript becomes the text for the teacher to go over together with the learner, focusing on grammar and word choice, leaving the paper marked up as needed. Third, the learner writes the text again, taking care to incorporate all the changes and corrections. Fourth, the learner reads the revised text out loud to the teacher, experiencing what it is like to express him or herself with enhanced clarity.
• Basal-reader approach- are textbooks used to teach reading and associated skills to schoolchildren. Commonly called "reading books" or "readers" they are usually published as anthologies that combine previously published short stories, excerpts of longer narratives, and original works. A standard basal series comes with individual identical books for students, a Teacher's Edition of the book, and a collection of workbooks, assessments, and activities.
• Sight-word approach- Sight words and the whole-word approach to reading are a significant teaching technique considering 65% of the population identify themselves as visual learners.
• Bottom-up reading strategies- analyzing relationships between words in a sentence and deciphering the meanings of individual words in a sentence.
• Audiolingualism- Utilize drills and pattern practice frequently; play a tape of two students talking about buying clothes, then distribute a page with the taped dialogue written out, then ask the students to repeat the dialogue several times as the teacher models it. Lastly, for homework, the students memorize the dialogue for class the next day.
• Direct Method- Second language learning should model first language learning in that it should be learned 'directly'; grammar is taught inductively with no explanations, the learner's first language is not used in the class, and new vocabulary is introduced by demonstration.
• Suggestopedia- Rather conventional, memorization of whole meaningful text is recommended; learning occurs through suggestion when learners are deeply relaxed with baroque music is used; learners are required to master prodigious lists of vocabulary pairs with the goal of understanding not memorization; a passive state and allow the materials to work on them.
• Community language learning- Learners in a classroom are considered not a class but a group. The social dynamics of such a group were of primary importance. Group members need to interact in an interpersonal relationship in which students and teacher join together to facilitate learning in a context of valuing each individual in the group. In this case, members lower their defenses that prevent open interpersonal communication. Anxiety is replaced with support of the community. Teachers are not received as a threat but to impose limits and boundaries as a true counselor and center the clients/group members on their needs. Defensive learning was made unnecessary by the empathetic relationship between the teacher and the students. CLL’s principles of discovery learning, student-centered participation, and development of student autonomy (independence) all remain viable in their applications to language classrooms.
• Project-based learning and portfolio assessment
• Self-directed study in independent learning centers
• Visually rich classrooms and a focus on familiar experiences are good for ESOL students with limited formal schooling.
• Self-monitoring strategies- A metacognative learning strategy (think about what one is learning) that could be modeled for ESOL students.
• Performance-based assessments- “Students will be able to>>>”
Used for formative or summative evaluations, include demonstrations/artistic interpretations, and used in place of multiple-choice assessments.
• Behavioral objectives
• Informal assessments
• Communicative Language Teaching- integrative test in which students are asked to write a letter to a friend; encourages interaction with others in the target language
• The Writing Process: 1- Brainstorm, 2- First Draft, 3- Peer Review, 4- Revise, 5- Proofread, 6- Submit Final Draft
• Beginner language learners that make mistakes in conversation should only be corrected when it interferes with communicating meaning.
• Discussing a student’s prior experiences related to the topic at the beginning of a unit is a good way to identify semantic (meaning of words) and syntactic gaps (order of words).


http://daniel-j-stone.blogspot.com (C) 2009-11

Psycholinguistics

• Acculturation- The process of acquiring a “second culture,” usually as an effect of sustained and imbalanced contact between two societies. Members of the “weaker” society are compelled to adopt aspects of the dominant society.
• Code-switching- The practice of using more than one language to express a thought or an idea.
• Circumlocution- a style that involves indirect ways of expressing things
• Ethnocentrism- belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group, The tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture
• Phonetic Spelling/ Invented Spelling- - spelling a word as it sounds (love = luv). Primary students often use phonetic spelling (sometimes called “temporary,” “invented,” or “creative” spelling) as they begin to construct an understanding of written language. (spelling the word “elephant” as “elafunt”)
• Semi phonetic Spelling- In this phase children show a developing understanding of sound-symbol relationships.
• Precommunicative Spelling- is used to describe writing that only conveys meaning for the child who wrote it.
• Redundancy reduction- when two languages come into contact within the same psycholinguistic environment, the speaker is forced to solve the duplication of rules and functions in two languages and simplify the cognitive overload”
• Overgeneralization- A language practice used by children as they are learning a language in which they apply a perceived rule or use of a word incorrectly. For example, a child may say "mans" instead of "men" to show the plural form of the word "man".
• Phonemic awareness- The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words
• L1 transfer- Many learners expect that because they collocate something a particular way in L1, it will translate directly (and correctly) into English.
• Fossilization
• Pidginization- A "pidgin" language is not the native language of any speech community, but is instead learned as a second language.[1][2] A "pidgin" language may be built from words, sounds, or body language from multiple other languages / cultures. "Pidgin" languages usually have low prestige with respect to other languages.[3]
• Reduced speech- in casual speech, words are shortened. (would and other modals)
• Information gap- A situation where all the information isn't known by all the students. They have to use language they have been taught to complete the information gap by asking questions and giving information.
• New students are often reluctant to participate and require more time to participate orally and interacting with other students.
• Semiotics- the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols
• Semantics- is the study of meaning, usually in language.
• Morphology- the meanings or prefixes and suffixes, combinations of words to make new words and the inflection of nouns and verbs.
• the form and structure of words in a language, esp. the consistent patterns of inflection, combination, derivation and change, etc., that may be observed and classified.
• Inflection- the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, mood, voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case.
• Expose the class to others in the school who speak with an non-American English accent and hold a class about the value of diversity.


http://daniel-j-stone.blogspot.com (C) 2009-11

Linguistics

Linguistics: The study of natural language. This study has two divisions which are language structures and language meanings.
1. Language Structures consist of morphology, syntax and phonology/phonetics.
• Morphology is the study of the structure of words and their modifications. (prefix, root and suffix)
• Syntax is the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences, aka word order.
• Phonology/phonetics is the study of sounds and pronunciation as well as the study of sound symbols.
2. Language Meanings consist of pragmatics, semantics and discourse analysis.
• Pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning.
• Semantics is the meaning of words.
• Discourse Analysis is the analysis of language in spoken, written and signed texts.


http://daniel-j-stone.blogspot.com (C) 2009-11

Interlanguage

What is interlanguage? This is a developmental system based on first language, second-language input, language universals and communication strategies. It is thought to be a system that language users use to make sense of a new language. This system is an”inter” language because it has unique qualities based on such things as the speaker’s native language, language universals, and communication strategies. This can also be explained by the process of mastering a target language (TL), second language learners (L2) develop a linguistic system that is self-contained and different from both the learner’s first language (L1) and the TL.

http://daniel-j-stone.blogspot.com (C) 2009-11

Attitude

Your attitude determines the seasons you enter.

Do you watch car race to see who wins or to see who will have a wreck?  Are you fascinated in another man's life and treat them as an idol and cowardly call that man a liar from the comfort of your computer?  And if the truth were to be known, it was in fact YOU who was the liar and the very creditals that you dare to mock are items that you have only dreamed about but never had the courage to see materialize?  When challenged, do you rise to the occassion and seize the opportunity?  Your attitude and approach make up a lot of what the final outcome will be.

One of my favorite movies is about an American baseball player who four years prior was the MVP for the World Series Yankees. At the start the season, the aging veteran is cut and finds himself only wanted by one team. A team in Japan.

In an effort to salvage the season and end his career on a high note, he reluctantly goes to Japan and finds out that his slumping performance is due to many sloppy habits that he had developed over the years. The former slugger can no longer hit and his brash attitude in light of this finds him suspended from the team.

The Japanese manager pushed for the American slugger to come to Japan and must find a way to get the slugger back in the groove before he looses face.

The American slugger decides to cooperate and finds himself at a golf driving range hitting golf balls with a baseball bat. In frustration, he exclaims, "I want to hit baseballs!" The manager replies, "What did you say?" The slugger realizing that if he can hit the smaller golf ball that he will be able to hit the larger baseball replies, "I want to hit."

Remember, we must do whatever it takes to keep the dream alive! Do want we do. No explanations, no excuses. Plan for the worst, hope for the best!

http://daniel-j-stone.blogspot.com (C) 2009-11