A bit of a tangent...

Hello all!

These are just some thoughts I’ve had recently… a bit of a tangent from the text and what we’ve been talking about in class, but relevant to things we’ve been learning this past week in all of our classes. My next post will be more on topic, I promise!

Thanks for posting that article Doug. Is it possible that teachers just don’t know how to appropriately teach ESL students? As the article states, UBC teachers do not have to take an ESL class (unless of course you’re like us and take a keen interest in the subject). Maybe it has nothing to do with classes being over 60%, but teachers being stressed out with a huge number of ESL students and not knowing how to help them learn.

My thought process is this: I would guess if you had a math teacher with 60% of their class really struggling with math, a deficit would be felt by everyone. The teacher wouldn’t be able to go very fast, making the entire class fall behind and therefore not learn as much. On top of that, that math teacher isn’t trained on how to deal with students who don’t meet the ‘norm’. If only 30% of your class struggled, you could help them more easily one on one or recommend outside help.

Maybe they shouldn’t be worrying about the “threshold” of ESL students, rather worry about training the teachers more efficiently to deal with the variety of problems and inform them of different ESL teaching trends.

I haven’t read anything other than that newspaper article in regards to this topic, so I could be way off. That’s just my thoughts…

On another note, I have been thinking a lot about the ever-changing ESL teaching trends. Across courses, teaching is obviously evolving to include large amounts of technology. I have even used internet sources to help my day campers with phonology. Technology, in regards to computers, seems to be taking a great focus on how we are being trained as teachers… which makes me somewhat reserved in regards to posting on blogs and wikis.

We’ve only been in teacher’s college for a week and I’m already beginning to wonder about the future of teaching. As I sit here on my own personal laptop, I wonder if computers are just another way to differentiate classes. Are my neighbours who have recently immigrated from the Philippines, who do not have enough money to buy a computer for their five ESL children, being set up to stay in the working class? Maybe there are resources in East Vancouver schools that I am not aware of for their children, but I hope that the focus on internet and computer technology does not affect the future of my neighbours’ lives.

Obviously I can’t deny the technological evolution. I just hope that I can find an appropriate style to teach my ESL students. A style that does not cause them more stress than adapting to a new culture, a new language, new friends and an entirely new way of life. A style not based on an assumption that everyone has a computer.

Marin~