Impact on Future Students and Changes to Teacher Identity

dobrý den, sbohem (Czech)

     Throughout my inquiry project I have gained valuable knowledge and have realized that some of my ways of thinking have changed. I have made some changes to my teacher identity will have a different approach when it come to teaching newcomer students and EAL learners. Some strategies that I have learned and ways of thinking that I have been exposed to have helped shape how I think about immigrant and refugee education.

     Previously, when I thought about EAL education, I thought of teaching pronunciations, teaching vocabulary, and making sure the student was learning correct English so that they could be understood. When I was learning Czech, that is the approach that my teacher took. When I took French though it was more about immersion and getting the correct tense (feminine, masculine, singular, plural, etc.). Now after learning more about what helps make newcomers comfortable and how to have successful language acquisition, my thinking has changed. I understand more that teaching English is more about putting things in context. Even if a student has studied English in their home country, words and phrases may have different meaning in Canada (for example, phrases like "hang up" and "pick up" when talking about phone conversations - these may make sense when the phone was actually something that you picked up, but now with cell phones it is important for these phrases to be explained to new EAL students). The following videos were very important when it came to my changing thinking around EAL education...  

 David Crystal - World Englishes

David Crystal - The Biggest Challenges For Teachers 

     I viewed these videos in my Current Issues in EAL class and they had the biggest influence on the shift in my thinking and teacher identity this term. These videos have given me insight into how I can change my mindset to become an effective EAL educator. Other things that I viewed, read, and discussions I had reinforced my thinking towards EAL education but these videos really allowed me to see how globalized the English language has become. In the first video Crystal talks about the concept of "Englishes" which is not something that I had ever thought of before but it is a great one to be aware of. Throughout English speaking countries and other countries where English is taught around the word, there is a lot of difference. He talks about how in South African English a "robot" is what we would refer to as a traffic light. This immediately made me think of Saskatchewan and how we call a sweater a "bunnyhug". There is difference across even English speaking countries that new students need to be made aware of. In the second video Crystal talks about the biggest challenge for teachers being the globalization of English and how fast the language is changing. This presents problems because teachers may find it hard to keep up with the changing of the language - even from generation to generation the language may be different (the students may know language that the teacher does not and vice versa). How does this fit into making student feel comfortable? Well, if we, as teachers, are aware of these changes and the concept that not all English is the same and that's okay, we will be able to facilitate meaningful learning for our EAL students and not get so hung up on the technical stuff (pronunciation for example). As long as the students know the context of Canadian English and can appreciate these differences they will be able to effectively communicate in Canada and feel comfortable doing so. For example, as long as a student from South Africa knows that in Canada a robot is something very different, they can avoid that confusion. These things may not be something that you can look up in a book but if you are developing positive relationships with your students and having conversations about these types of cultural differences (and English differences) we can learn to effectively communicate with each other.