A little more on 2nd language learning
Hello peeps. Your inconsistently updated non-favorite langblr here. :) Isn’t English fun? I was responding to a comment on my most blown up post--which I am lucky enough to have 0 regrets over (other than some wording.. which actually works to drive the point about accuracy and fluency home). And I was thinking about my students from last year.
I had this kid, we’ll call him Super Shim (one of his actual nicknames) or SS for short. SS was maybe 8 or 9? Korean ages are calculated differently. Anyway. This kid spoke English at a level higher than most kids his age at a native level. He was fantastic.. but he was also bullied a lot, had a bad habit of screaming at the top of his lungs, and in general... could be a handful.
He also got told he was stupid.
Until this precocious little kids who I adored.. believed it. :/ I mean yes, some days I wanted to scream right with him because his behaviors were frustrating.. but usually SS and I got along great.
This super advanced kid who spoke better than some of the Korean staff I’ve worked with in teaching English--thought he was stupid because he made a mistake. Things that even native speakers have trouble with (a/an, other things like that.. past tense, verb agreement, ect). Shit that I, someone with a master’s in linguistics, sometimes mess up.
So.........I started encouraging him to point out when I made mistakes. And boy did he and his other two classmates. They were little butts.. and add to the fact that I was the fat white teacher lady, they thought it was so fun to make fun of me... but then.. we started working on some creative stuff when classes were wrapping up early. We started working on things like 5 minute stories where you had to just write as much as you could. (SS always finished early so I’d tell him to illustrate it or correct it or give him a chance to just talk about whatever his lil mind wanted to--as long as it was in English). Sometimes I’d encourage them to explain Korean to me--in English.
It was.. really cool to watch that whole class go from being uncomfortable in English... to picking on their teacher.. to being able to discuss works like Matilda. Which.. the first day I made them slog through. We read that intro and they hated it. They cried and complained. Made them do it anyway.. then we get to the part about how Matilda, who was about their age, wanted to read books that she didn’t understand.. and the kindly librarian told her.. to just read it anyway, to just enjoy the words as words.. and that it was OK if you didn’t understand everything.
They just finished the book a few weeks ago and are now reading Charlie & the Chocolate factory. I still have the letters that they wrote me. :) They’re good kids. I miss them... and I honestly think it was that class that made me realize that just maybe.. I’m not a horrible teacher. My “worst” class because they sure as hell were difficult and drove me crazy some days. My “worst” class because the director thought I wasted time. My “worst class” .. that showed more progress than any other class I taught. My worst class.. where the sassy little girl went from insulting me in Korean to insulting me in English lol. My worst class where same girl went from only being able to write 2~3 sentences because she was afraid of making mistakes.. to being able to write 5~6 and sometimes even finishing her assignments. Her mom was a teacher, so she was afraid of messing up big time. My worst class, was probably the best one ever. Lil jerks, I miss them. :)
I have lots of stories like this.. but really, I hope that you keep doing whatever it is that you’re not good at. Because sometimes, you just need more time. Sometimes.. you’re so hard on yourself because you are too close to it and cannot see the progress you’ve made.
So, if no one else has said it--I’m proud of you for all the effort you put in. You’re so much more awesome than you know. It’s OK if you take a break or don’t understand it all. You’re great! How do I know? Because you tried!
