My own teacher training was unconventional
– in that I became a teacher without the formal teacher training usually
required for my job, but learned everything I know about ESL teaching from that
first job. I didn't “know” what a participle was, not sure I do now, but my
mentor taught me how to ‘teach’ grammar.
More than that, my first students were from Japan – one of the most
unlike American students around.
My students were JAL employees’ children. I
had to learn how to pick up on extremely subtle verbal cues, and how to read understanding
without looking someone in the eye. It
is an extreme example, but it taught me so much about the fundamentals of
teaching, so much so, that to this day I still recall some of the advice I
received back then more than 25 years ago.
From this immersion by fire if you will, I chose to go to the knowledge
wasteland. I moved to Gaza,
Palestine. Not exactly the knowledge
capital of the world. Back then, you couldn't even order books – it wasn’t allowed.
If you wanted text books, you brought them with you and copied
them. Yes, I know I was breaking
copyright laws, but it was the only thing available. When I got an email/internet connection in
1995 it changed my life and primarily, my students’ lives. I became the ‘queen’ of the search. If I didn’t know something, or wanted to
explore an idea, I would search for it.
Most of you
don’t eve know what this logo stands for….for me it was for freedom….freedom
from Internet Explorer (which I still despise), freedom from those who would
keep anyone from education. The internet
literally opened up the world for me and my students. It would be years before the whole of Gaza
became ‘connected’, but for me and mine, we could go anywhere, and know
anything. My students were so starved of
general information that any and all were consumed voraciously.
This time around I didn't suffer too much culture shock because I was more interested in being assimilated
rather than keeping my own identity. I “went
native” to coin an American expression. It means to become like the people you
are living amongst (if they are different than you.)
When I
finally did go back to school to get my “formal” training to be a teacher – I was
lucky enough to find a program that fit my idea of what a teacher should be,
and not the other way around. I’m not
sure what I would have done if it had been the other way around. Which raises the point of what do students do
who don’t necessarily agree with the teaching style, manner, or delivery of a
course. What are their options? We as teachers strive to incorporate the
different learning styles, but cultural differences are a bit trickier in my
mind. As I have been reading these
articles an idea that I can’t seem to get rid of is….Is there a generic
teaching method? A truly one size fits
all way/method/style of teaching? And
would we want that? Do we want McTeaching?
Hi Adria,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your apt reflection! You have made very good questions at the end of your post! I hope that you will keep these questions clearly in your mind during this module. We will return to them for many time and at the end of out journey in January. It's important to reflect freely what does the research of quality multicultural teaching and learning bring to our discussion. I'm very interested in the following question: Can we together find some essential aspects and methods of teaching and learning which can benefit us in working in multicutural e-learning situations?
Best wishes,
Irja
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