How to teach English to children and teens that think that their lives don't have any future and that don't need learn a foreign language because they don't have a computer in their houses, don't have food, live in favelas [Areas with poor quality housing and amenities]? But they have competence and I want to help them... Many times I give music to them, interesting texts but I need something that shows how it is important and wonderful to know the world where we all live.....
Do you have any advice and ideas for Edna? Have you worked in a similar environment?What can learning English bring to her students living in such difficult conditions? Contact us
This question is from Edna Aparecida de Souza Nardo, Brazil
Comments
rebecca2
Dear Edna,
You are a heroine of our times!! First of all, my respects to a highly motivated lady who is a total inspiration to some spoiled teachers like me who work in fully tailored classrooms. Your message made me feel sad for I live in a poor country but teach to wealthy students who sometimes do not take the advantage of what they consider they should always take for granted.
I've never worked with such little resources, but I think that you could try to make those students fight in order to make their dreams come true. Why don't you try to contact USAID, the British Council or any other international organization that might be eager to help you in your achievement. Why don't you ask them for a grant, or a trip to the best student in class? Think high, sometimes all we have to do is try to knock the right door, and maybe a miracle can happen. These kids need a reward in life. Unfortunately, they have been born in a nasty environment; but fortunately you've been chosen to be their Teacher (Yes!, but capital letter), you are much more than an instructor or professor; you are a master ("maestro" in Spanish) a person who cares, and is trying to give her very best not only to teach English, but to teach most importantly respect to life, and ambition to reach better standard of living. All the best dear Edna and keep the excellent work going! ! Blessings.
Mariana Mourente, Brazil
It's natural for your students to feel unmotivated: they probably don't see any immediate application of what you're trying to teach them.
It'll help them a lot if you focus on the practical importance of English. Sometimes just changing the context in which certain vocabulary or structure is taught makes a big difference.
Example: in many coursebooks, students are taught how to introduce themselves by seeing the characters of the book meeting friends in a party. This will hardly raise any interest among poor students: they don't go to parties where English is spoken. Try teaching them how to introduce themselves in a formal way, in a job interview, for instance. Then they'll have a reason to learn what you're teaching: if they do, they'll have better chances to get a job.
Good luck with your students.
Nina Koptyug, Siberia, Russia
Here in my school in Siberia, I have very bright students who will continue their education at the local university, they wish to become scientists, researchers, many of them want to get a good education and to leave the country.
There are also rich students who are sure their parents will buy them a place at the university, later a position in a firm, or just support them forever. Some of the rich kids are also very good students who have clear aims in life and who work a lot to attain them.
And there are students who are not interested in anything, or those who do not see any future for them, so they don’t even try.
We have to teach all of them. The curriculum is the same.
What can we do? Even if you can help only one good student, do it. Bring interesting materials to the class, try to stimulate them in any way you can. Fortunately, today it is easy to find people who are ready to help you. Go to IEARN, www.iearn org, to the European Schoolnet, www.eun.org. Ask IEARN-Brazil for help.Tell us about your problems. Even if your students are too poor to have computers and Internet at home, you do have access. Ask your students to write short letters in English to their peers around the world, e-mail them to world teachers, you’ll get replies, which is maybe what your students need. This is how a Pakistani teacher started some years ago, at first she was the only one in her country, now there are many more.
It is very difficult to be a teacher today, but you are not alone!
Sue McIntosh,ESOL Principal,ESOL International (Christchurch) Ltd,New Zealand
I have taught in a similiar environment, the kids need to identify for themselves the need to learn another language. To allow them to self-discover the reasons why would be the ideal, try this:
1: Find out each kids dream
2: Use the "what if I had the money, I would do, be, want..."
3: Then make a flow chart to show the process of acheiving the dream.
b: At the top of the paper write each kids dream
c: Ask each child what would he/she need to have to get there
d: Go through a guided questioning session to establish each process
e: Write (or better still, get the child to write) down each step in theprocess of achieving the dream and ask for a translation of the wordinto English (use dictionaries)
f: Beg, borrow or acquire magazines to use as graphic demonstrations of the dreams
g: Make a collage of dreams, then choose the most realistic for your class
h: Make the exercise fun, exciting, adventurous, attainable
i: Offer a small prize - perhaps a pen, pencil or coloured ribbon for effort
j: Good luck and best wishes!
Over time the child/ren will begin to see and identify processes, vocabulary and possibly a valid and interesting reason to learn another language. My class was a great place after about two weeks, each child, except maybe three children, were eager to get down to work. Paper and pencils, bits of string to link processes, newspapers and magazines were cut up and used for colour, scraps of all descriptions, material from old clothes, shoe laces, foil from cigarette packets were all used. Nothing in this world is rubbish, it may be junk, but useful junk! Computers were not in my class, no whiteboard, no desks, just kids and an old hall - we made our own resources and had a ball doing it.
Farahnaz Jafari, Dubai, UAE
This is on how to motivate language learners, who think learning a foreign language is of no use for them and is a waste of time. One of the things that really works, is to build a great relationship with your students (especially kids and teens). They should love you and they should love coming to your class. This can be done by building a very close relationship between you and them not as a "teacher", but as a good friend. Then they love to listen to you and would want to make you happy and make you as their model in life. (This really works!) Another thing is to show them how their future can change by learning English. They should come to realize that if they know the language (English) they would have job opportunities abroad even if it is as a simple labourer. Without English the doors are closed for them. After all, learning a new language is opening up a new horizon!
Luis Miguel, Cuba
First, I would like to introduce myself. my name is Luis Miguel, I am an English teacher in Cuba and most of the time I have been working with students that do not care very much about the classes. I recomend you should first analyze what sort of students you are working with, then try to learn about their likes and dislikes. After you learn about this you will be able to work with them easily since you are having a sort of feedback on them. Then, after they are engaged on the class try to continue motivating them as much as possible because it may fail again.
faithfully yours,
Sujatha, India
I have come across similar sets of students. These students too come from a very poor background where they have to work in the morning or evening to support their families. The schools in fact try to work around the student's timings. First thing to do would be to influence the parents and change their attitude. Children are not cynical. they love learning new things. If they are shown how education would change their lifestyle and future they would start changing. but this is not a overnight process. The school I am talking about had a dynamic principal and NGOs helping with infra structure. But a lot of counselling to children and parents helped. In our country, particularly South India, learning English is very prestigious. this reverence helps the teachers. To some extent this helped in influencing the parents. But still it is not easy because parents lose out money by sending the kids to school. Our governments have noon-meal schemes for children. so poorer section sends their kids for this food. Both the law and teachers counselling has helped a lot in tackling this problem. But still we have a long way to go for 100% literacy I don't know whether my suggestion is helpful or not but I just wanted to share this with you.
Sarah, Malta
I used to teach some children living in the same conditions you describe; I found it sad that they could not see a future and frustrating that I could not give them a future! Instead of trying to teach, Ii decided to try and stimulate dormant imaginations by bringing pictures of beautiful places to class for them to describe and spending time looking at maps. When I could I organised small excursions for them. At least they could smile and behave like normal children for a while and one or two even decided to try attending school.
Adam Gyenes, Japan
While I (regretfully) don't have any experience in a situation like yours, Japanese kids for the most part, being born with a silver spoon in their mouths, I do know that (depending on age) children become very interested in things like nature, science, and geography, and if you have access to english books or other materials on these subjects, they might inspire your kids.
Perhaps you want to start some kind of project with the class, for example give every kid a seed to plant, and develop a project around it- they can get lots of useful vocabulary (sun, water, grow) and learn about the importance of nature (in a country where the rainforest is being destroyed).
One thing I did with one of my classes (maybe not practical in a large class) is bought all the kids (cheap) disposable cameras, and gave them a list of things to photograph (house, family, friends, pets, toys). Then we made photo books together and wrote something under each photo. Maybe impoverished children would really appreciate the gift (more than Japanese children!).
Hope this is useful
Lupi Paola, Italy
I think that it's a very difficult situation, but, you have to realise that now we have more and more children that come to school but at home they have littleof what in the west countries is called "rich". I think that we must tell them "English is very important for their future, for their job. English is an international language and they bwill have the possibility to find a job in other countries perhaps richer than theirs.
Shannon Cole, United States of America
I bet you will find that their other teachers are also having difficulty with student motivation. I would say to first ask what those other teachers are doing to motivate these students to achieve. With my students, I demonstrate that learning English can help you gain an air of respectability and power (although it's only a language) with those who hold both power and purse strings. Therefore, if they study hard and set goals, they could be the ones to change the circumstances in which they find themselves now. I would love to hear other ideas for motivation as well!
Marcus Gohar, UK
In answer to the question from Edna Aparecida de Souza Nardo, just learning English is unlikely to significantly improve these childrens lives, at least in a materialistic sense. To use English to find a better job they need other skills. True, learning a language may well improve ones competence in ones own language, but if Edna really wants to help, her students also need to be studying other subjects demanded by employers. Not easy when you don't have a computer, but that's the way it is.