02/26/2019 -Teaching deep culture in the elementary school

Teaching deep culture in the elementary school sounds like a challenge for most teachers. On the other hand, it is a great chance to us as teachers to have different worlds in one same class, there are many opportunities to take advantage of this situation.

By having different culture students in one same class, we can create and offer different activities for them that will help them to acquire and internalize each students experiences or customs.

To mention an example, let´s imagine we have a classroom where we have different nationalities students, we could have an activity related to their own independence day, so students could make a project explaining their indpendence day and share important features to the rest of the class, you know, dates, how did independence occur?, how do they celebrate this holiday in their own countries? and then invite the rest of the class to ask questions they are interested in. It sounds great, isn´t it? because we as teachers will also get information about different countries´independence day, and if you are a history lover just like me you will be so excited to do this activity in your own classroom.

Or even better you could talk with your school authorities to show a cultural fair, where different countries students could show what are some of their attractions, typical food, celebrations and so on. Thinking in this activity really excites me, because students will feel proud of their own roots and cultural identity and I´m sure they will love to share their own cultural information to all the assistants.

Having this model of activity will be a complete success  as an English teacher because I will not only apply english course but also cultural teaching and it really excites me.

Parents will love to see their children explaining and sharing about their own personal cultures, I can imagine their happy proud faces. It will be a real success. 

Mexican parade, where people shows typical dances and colorful clothing.

Peruvian typical food

Different Venezuelan beaches








As we can see I have shown just three examples of what students could show in the cultural presentation. A Mexican student could talk about their different dances and customs, music could be a nice topic here, as well. A Peruvian students could talk about their food, bring some samples to let the public taste and a Venezuelan student could talk about beautiful beaches in their country. 

I will definetely propose this activity for this coming school year, I know it will be a memorable event.

What do you think about my ideas?, Do you have any other ideas about how combine culture into our english classes? I would like to read about them.

02/21/2019 - Culture and Psychology

It is very interesting how culture intersects with personality psychology.

Just to mention an example, there are some irrational elements in my home culture that are irrationally causing students self steem goes down. The elements that appear in my mind are:

*People from the andes area are more hard worker with their hands but don´t have enough ablities to understand school subjects. (It´s hard for them to understand school subjects because they are from the andes area)

This situation happened during one of my classes, a student from the andes zone was always excusing himself about his low grades in different courses, because in his own words:  "he was born in the andes and not in Lima (the capital city)" The first time he excused himself this way during my english class I was really in shock, I couldn´t believe what I was listening to, I didn´t know how to act or what to do, so I wait until the bell rings and decided to talk to him in private, I told him that inside my body I have blood from the andes side and from the coast side, too, but that it had nothing to do with my learning development. That I felt proud of my both side roots, but at the end it was only myself: "Yanira" the one who was there during my school time classes, it never mattered if I was born here in Lima or if my mom is from the andes side and my dad is from the coast side. That He had to take that chip away from his head and avoid that excuse, I`d rather listen to you telling me: Miss, I didn´t study than excusing yourself because you were born in the andes. After that I tried to use psychology to work on his side, I told him that some of the best soccer players and runners are from the andes area, that andes people is excellent for typical handycrafts and that many people from all inside Perú would want to have that gift. I  could finally notice He felt proud of his roots when I saw a proud smile on his face. 

Psychology in our brain is so powerful that can motivate or unmotivate us

So, I believe the key here to work with culture and psychology is to always motivate students by letting them know how special their "weakness" are, and when I say weakness I refer to the things that discourage them.(race, religion, roots, etc)

We must be aware that most of time; cultural factors influence on human behaviour. 

How would my home culture affect students in a TESOL classroom?. Fortunately I am a "always happy teacher" (even if I have a bad day I never show it to my students). I`m always happy to be a peruvian teacher, I`m a very friendly person, easygoing and I always like to show love by encouraging words, by a smile or by a hug if necessary. That`s a plus of being an elementary school teacher. 

During this lesson I learnt that I have to be very respectful and tolerant to other cultures, because my students won´t be culturally uniform, and that is great because having a cultural diversity class means I´ll have a whole world in just one classroom and it sounds great, isn´t it?

  

02/19/2019 - Differences in manners

What is appropiate or valid for some cultures can be inappropiate or invalid for some other cultures. So, we as TESOL teachers, being aware that we will students from different cultures, different from our own culture, should be very careful. 

And when I said careful, I  refer to: if you are traveling to a country from middle east for example or an arab country, you should investigate everything related to that country  to know what is considered appropiate or inappropiate there to avoid uncomfortable situations with your students. This investigation will demonstrate that you really love teaching english because you won´t want to make your students feel uncomfortable about any situation.

By this way, we will be understanding people we are going to teach, and as I always have said, "We must love people we teach", and to love them we must know them first. What do you think about this sentence?, Do you agree or disagree with me? I really would like to read your ideas. 

In this picture there are some features about people from different cultures. Knowing people you are going to teach is the key to avoid uncomfortable situations.

Now, I was thinking what would happen if I have the chance to travel to London, I have heard that people there is very punctual, and there is a paradigm that peruvian people is very unpuctual, so if I as a peruvian teacher work in London I must change that paradigm by arriving always early everywhere if I have an appointment or a date. But not only for these situations but also when checking homeworks or exams. If you are a fulfilled teacher you will win not only students respect but also appreciation.

02/18/2019 Cross-Cultural Students in the Classroom

We as TESOL english teachers, must be aware that we will teach students not only from our own countries, but we will also have students from different countries of the world. At first glance it seems like a challengue to us. But we can focus it as a great experience to develop all of our teaching skills capable to teach people from different cultures, languages and so on. 

Regarding to this topic there is one word that appears in my mind: "tolerance". We must show tolerance and respect to ALL of our students, because we will have one classroom with many worlds inside it. Until now, I have just private lessons to an arabic and  a japanese kid, too. I remember  in order to catch their attention I used to bring LOTS of flashcards for vocabulary, and for grammar rules as well, I just tried to make very attractive classes for them and as I knew I was not able to explain grammar or vocabulary with my L1 (spanish), I really had to find the ways to reach to them. It was a real challenge for me but it definitely worth it because I had to overwork on my methodology teaching.

Tolerance between cross- cultural students and between teacher - students is the clue for a harmonius class

Now that I watched the video, I remember when I was studying english at an institute, I  had a partner from Japan, his name was Ye Cheao, and as it says in the video, He was very respectful to our teacher, now that I think about it, whenever our miss asked him a question; He never looked at her, He just looked to the wall or to his book. He was no expressive at all, and our teacher had to deal with this cross-cultural classroom, in this same class, there was also an Indian girl, so our teacher had a challenge squared, by that time I never imagine I will be an english teacher studying for a TESOL certification but I really admire this teacher, Her name was Mrs. Thorne, she really knew how to teach us english, she really loved us, She was a real TESOL teacher. 

Now that I`m aware about this topic I wish I could develop all my abilities for a cross-cultural students classroom. 

But how do you think will face a cross cultural students classroom? I would like to read all your ideas, how would you manage a classroom with this feature?

                                 Cross-cultural students classroom is a great oportunity to develop our                     abilities as english teachers

02/14/2019 Attributional Tendencies

It is very  common to attribute our fails to bad behaviour we might have done during past situations. I remember I had this friend. Her boyfriend passed away in a car accident, so She was always saying that it was her fault, because they went together to the beach and He started drinking a lot of alcohol and she got mad about his behavior so she took a taxi and came back home, late that day when the guy was returning home, He was so drunk that He couldn´t even cross the highway, and unfortunately a truck ran over him and killed him. 

Remembering that situation is hard for me, too; because He was my childhood friend, we used to play a lot as kids. 

Now his girlfriend was always blaming to herself; always saying the typical: "If I had". So we, her friends; always heard things like: "it was my fault, If I had stayed with him we would have returned together and nothing would have happened", "I`m as guilty as the truck driver", or "God is punishing me because I stopped praying", She was always looking for a guilty one in order to decrease her sadness or maybe to vent, I really never understood his attributions but what I could understand was the sadness on her, there were no possible consolation words, I tried to share some gospel messages to her but she always refuses to listen, and she always said words like I want nothing from God because He stole my boyfriend. It has happen like 4 years ago but She`s still blaming herself attributating this situation to herself.

Now, to mention an example for external situation attribution, We could consider a very common example that most of the time We hear here in Perú; related to public and private schools. In my country there exists this attribution that private schools are better than public school, because in the first ones parents have to pay a monthly money so "their children will be better prepared at the end of school time" and they will be ready to apply to a university exam. Meanwhile it is said that students who finish their high school education at public schools need more preparation before taking this exam, because public schools are synonims of bad education. 

So regarding to this last example some attributions could be: "Your son didn´t approve the university exam because He finished high school at a public school, what did you expected?", or "Congratulations for your son, studying at a private high school helped him to approve the university exam"

I found these cartoons online about attributions:

In this funny cartoon Alvin attributs his test score to an amnesia problem. (very clever)

I

In this second cartoon, The left guy attributs his lack of interest about school to a back-up of his brain that He didn´t do. (very clever and funny one).

This was a very interesting topic. Due to my experience teaching at schools, I remember I had a student who always curse during classes, Once I decided to talk to him at the end of the class I told him that He was a beautiful boy that I didn´t understand why He was always cursing to his classmates and that He doesn´t have to curse, because his mouth is like full of garbage, his answer shocked me, He said, Miss I just repeat what my older brother says at home to his friends. Now that we are taking this subject I can realize it was his attribution in order to excuse himself for his behaviour. So, after talking to my student I talked to his tutor teacher, I told her what was happening during my classes and she decided to set an appointment with his parents to explain the situation during classes because it was not only during englih classes but also during arts and physical education. There was a commintment by his parents side to start an educational psychologist treatment. But his parents told some attributions too, like that their son watched too many violent cartoons or movies on T.V, and that these were the sources that He learnt these kind of words. The tutor talked to the school psychologist and they together started an anger managment treatment with this boy, it worked,  and little by little He stopped cursing. I would like to read your opinions, how would you have reacted to this situation?.

Most of time, we are not only english teachers, but we also have to be friends, psychologist, and even take mother´s role, being a teacher is so complex, we really must love what we do because we can leave a positive print on our students life.   

02/14/2019 - Personal Space Differences

While I was watching the videos and the readings, I just remember a funny part of the  80´s movie: "Gods must be crazy", where the main character "Xixo" hunted an animal at a protected area and he was sent to jail by this behaviour, by this example He was abruptly invading a private space set by others. 

This is "Xixo", if you don´t know or remember the movie we are talking about.

Another example that appears in my mind are houses in the U.S. in a neighboorhood, they are separated one from another, they really care about their personal spaces but in my country, Perú, our houses are closer one from the other. I bet this happens because we are living in a crowded city where we need to save living spaces. Ans just yesterday a friend of the family from another country told us that we as Peruvians are the most friendly people He has ever known, and that is why we build interpersonal relationships easily, So He made me think about that.

As we can see in the picture, every family has its personal bubble space, they keep their autonomy among their neighboorhoods.

This is a typical neighboorhood in Lima, we can notice  the difference about space between houses, each house is close to one another, maybe because we are very friendly people or for lack of space on streets, 

Now, related to body language, what is fine in some cultures; can be disrespectful in some other ones. I have a personal experience about this. I am a very friendly person and whenever I greet somenone I always like to give hugs, once I was at church greeting everyone and an older sister told me: "sister Yanira your hugs are like energy for me, they comfort me so much, they are like a battery charger for me".  But there was this moment when elders introduced me a couple that has three children, elders introduced me to them and to the children as I was the primary president. So I offered them a warm hug but this kid didn´t want me to stay close to him and his mom told me that He has asperger syndrom and that typicall social or love demonstrations are difficult to face for them, until that day I didn´t know a clue about this syndrom I didn´t know how to treat this kid so his mom joined us to primary classroom, He did all manual activities we prepared for kids but he wasn`t socializing to any other kid, but He did understand everything that the sister explained during the class, it was unbeliavable. Now I know a few about that syndrom. So by having this subject about personal space differences, we as teachers must be aware this topic. So, how do you  think a teacher should manage these situations in class? what can we do if we realize that one of our students needs a dramatic personal space?, think about that situation when working on pairs or groups. It seems like a challengue, doesn´t it?.

I found this funny cartoon online about personal space, It`s a good way to learn about it through a smile.

02/13/2019 Individualism Vs. Collectivism

During my experience teaching english at different schools, I have found different kind of students. Just to mention an example I remember this student I had on third grade, He was very curious, always asking questions related to grammar or vocabulary, he was always asking me: "miss, how do you say "____" in english?, whenever there was an activity,  He always wanted to finish first or second; but most of the time, he wanted to be the first one in class, the first one making questions, the first one giving examples, and his hand was always raised. He was a very confident student, always secure of himself. I really loved that he was so participative during english classes; so, now by watching the video and the reading activities I could say He was an  individualist student. On the other hand, in this same class, there was this another boy, he was more shy, he was most of the time in silence, he never raised his hand to participate, I had to call him in order to make him participate by offering examples to the class; but, when we had group works, He was always the leader of the groups, He was always teaching his partners and explaining thin them how to create sentences or to do the planned group activity. I could realize of this because on each group work I used to walk around each group to see their development. So now, by showing these facts, we may say that the first student preferred to work alone in order to achieve his own personal goals, and second student felt more comfortable, being part of a group, and it was inside this group that He was the leader of it, He was always motivating his partners to do their best in order to show a good work, He has a sense of belonging when working in groups.  

As we can see in this picture, an individualism student fosters independence and individual achievement; but, a collectivism student fosters interdependence and group success. Now, that we as teachers, know all this information; we should apply different activities to achieve goals for our individualism and collectivism students, because we will definetely find them in our classes.

 I was thinking about some disadvantages about these two types of features by taking my two previous students as examples. For student A, it was a little difficult to interact with other, his social life at class was not so developed.For student B, some of the members of his groups tend to be a little lazy, always waiting that this student makes everything, which was not fair. 

How do you think as teachers, will deal with these two kind of students in your classes? How could we make them work together without violating their spaces? will it be possible? I would like to read all your responses. We as teachers, must be ready to face any issue or situation inside our classrooms. 

02/11/19 - Differences in Emotional Expressivity

When talking about emotional expressivity, one first thought appears on my mind, emotional expressivity between genders, I mean we all know that most women tend to be expressive with their emotions. The next picture expresses in a clear way what I try to say. This is not a rule; obviously, but it applies to most women. 

Now, talking about cultural differences in emotional expressivity. I would like to mention some good examples that always occur here in my country: Perú. As you may know, there are different regions inside Perú, we have the jungle side, the coast side and the andean side. Each of these regions have marked features. Just to mention an example: people from the jungle side is very talkative and easygoing; meanwhile, people from the andean side is close and they don´t like to speak a lot, they are like always shy. I remember I had a student in class, His parents and him were born in a city of the andean region, so they decided to move to Lima, and he was signed up at the school where I was teaching english, He joined the class after middle year vacations. During english classes, He always showed angry for everything, he fairly speaks, he never wanted to participate, so once after classes I decided to talk to him in private, I asked him why was he always mad at all, He always showed a pucker frown, his only answer was, that it´s the way I was raised up in Abancay (the city where he was born), during our whole conversation He always showed himself on the deffensive. So I dettected we had an issue here, which now I know was a difference in emotional expressivity, I realized he wasn`t know how to express his frustration when He didn´t understand any english lesson and that was why He always looked with an angry face during the whole class. On the other hand, in this same class I had this student from Venezuela, She was the opposite face, she was extremely talkative, she always wanted to participate in any board activity or game that I had for the class. 

So, by this point I had two opposite people in the same class, each one with their own high or less emotional expressivity. Whenever we had pair work activities I tried to make them work together, at the beginning as you may imagine He had his pucker frown face during the whole activity, but she could make him participate on the activities, her happiness was so contagious, once when I asked for volunteers; He pleasantly raised his hand and gave to the whole class his example. I was really in shock, so since that opportunity I tried to make this pair work together during pair work activities, and it definitely works, because little by little I saw how He was growing up not only in english area but also in other subjects because I talked to his school tutor teacher and she told me she will apply the same technique in her subjects. Now that I can share this personal experience I feel so proud of myself and of the way I did face this issue at class. What would you do if you have a similar situation in your classroom?, I would like to know maybe you have a different method or way to face it. We are here to teach one another. I´m anxious to read your comments.

Another example that appears on my mind is how men greet to another men in France, they kiss on the check, here in Perú, it would be transshipped, here men greet to another men by shaking hands or if they are relatives they offer a hug but they never kiss on the check, you know we live in a male chauvinist society so, that is not considered like a man way to greet.

Cultural Miscommunication 2/08/2019

By watching at this video, I could remember a past experience I had, before working at a school I used to work as a private english teacher, and I taught to an egyptian - peruvian kid. His name was Ahmed, He was like 6 or 7 years old, so after I taught him his lesson, his parents asked me to join them with an egyptian meal, so I pleasantly accepted, they served a kind of bread wrapped in natural yogurt or something, and fresh vegetables, and a beverage, so suddenly I realized that the parents started to look at me with an angry face, I felt really uncomfortable because I didn´t know what was wrong, and the dad raisoed his voice to me and told me, don´t eat with your left hand (I had the bread in my left hand) and the beverage was in my right hand. So He started to talk in arabic and the only word I understood was shayta`an (I know this word means the devil) I didn´t understood anything but I was feeling so uncomfortable I thanked them for the meal and told them I must go back home, so the wife told me that his husband is muslim and for them it is forbidden to eat with left hand and I was eating my bread using that hand on their table and it is a sign of a disrespectful behaviour. I told her that her husband really over reacted because I wasn`t being disrespectful, I am not a muslim person, I`m just a simple human being who doesn´t know anything about  that culture or religion, since that day they never called me back for english lessons again. But now that I think about that it was a cultural miscommunication, we were three people sat in the same dining room, happily enjoying a meal until I decided to eat the bread with my left hand. 

In another opportunity I was teaching english to a japanese boy, and his mother asked me to join them on the table for a hot soup because it was a really cold day, at first sight it was a weird soup, it was a big plate of soup with two long noodles on it. So I ate the soup and I asked for a fork to eat the noodles but they told me I need to sip the noodles, and they showed me how to do it, and the sound that they were doing weren`t good, at least not on a table, I believe my face wasn´t showing any happiness because they gave me a fork to eat the noodles. 

In these two experiences that I faced there was a lot of cultural difference, my culture and the muslim culture and then the japanese culture, there wasn`t any kind of miscommunication, but there was a lot of  culture shock. Now that I watched the video about this topic I realized that we must  get used to face this kind of situations in our daily lifes, just like the T.V spots showed us, we should never understimate the importance of local knowledge. This is why we must know students we teach, know their differences and individualities and learn to deal with these differences and the most important TO HAVE A DEEP RESPECT OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES. 

So, how do you think will you react when finding cultural differences in your classrooms?, or even in daily life? just as the examples I mentioned.

02/07/2019 - Cultural differences concerning time

The first thing that appears on my mind when referring to time issue, is that We as Latin Americans have a paradigm that are always late for any appointment. I once watched a video about a guy who was comparing people from Colombia and people from Japan, when He referred to time, He mentioned that when Japanese people have a jobI interview they always arrive before the appointment time, so this let   them get ready if any circumstance appears, but, Colombian people arrive to job interviews after the appointment time which obviously disqualify them to get the job because of unpunctuality. By watching this video I though about my own country. Unfortunately Peruvian people are know for being unpunctual. There is even a saying whenever we set an appointment: "Peruvian time or British time?" (unpunctual or punctual?).

Now related to teaching at schools, we as teachers; must be very punctual, not only when arriving on time to our classes; but also, when checking homeworks, and giving back checked exams, quizzes or homeworks. I remember a parent once told me, Miss I like that you always take time to check homeworks that you give to our kids, we always encourage our son to do his english homework because we know it will be checked by you on the setted time, so hearing these words really motivated me to continue checking homeworks on time. Do you, as teachers; agree that we must check homeworks on the setted time? I know this may look challenging because sometimes We have no time to check homeworks during classes, but I can give you a tip. For my first grade students I always give them worksheets about class taught and while they were solving their papers and after giving instructions I start to check their homeworks in the notebooks, and all homework checked had a seal with the date. This was what parents look at home and what this parent congratulate me for. 

Remember that we are models for our ,students, their answers will always be, "but miss why do you want me to arrive on time to class, if you always arrive late? Children see, children do! We have to be their models. 

Cultural Paradigms 05/02/2019 - Week 5

It was by watching the videos that something inmediatly appears on my mind. I was giving a class about insects, and we (my students and me) were playing a flashcards game on the board, I wrote different insect names on the boards and one by one they had to paste the correct picture on the board, in this 3rd grade class I had a blond student from Venezuela, she was always a very participative student and she always loved to share experiences abut her life to the class, then  when it was her turn to look for the flashcard and paste it on the board she just didn´t do it correct, and the rest of the class started to make jokes about that, so she said touching her hair, "Students, look: I`m a blond girl and I am from Venezuela, what did you expect?" When I heard that, I was in shock. At first I didn´t know how to react to her sentence. So I stood up in front of the class and ask students to stay in silence because I was going to talk, then I talked to the whole class and told them: "What Victoria has just said is a "saying" I didn´t use the word paradigm because It was going to be hard to explain. There are some people that say that blond girls are not smart girls, and that people from some countries are less intelligent than others, but that is not true. I believe that Victoria have just said that because it was the way you wanted to defend yourself,  Your hair color or your nationality will never determine wheter you are smart or not, it was just a mistake that you had today you  on your answer but I assure you that you will never have the same mistake ever and you will know what a grasshopper means in spanish. So I remember she showed a shy smile and thanked me and by the end of the class, when all students left she talked to me and hugged me and thanked me and she said that she didn´t think all blond women are not smart, but it was the way she could defend herself. I once again told her that we do not have to classify people because of their hair or skin color, neither their nationality. We all are beautiful people and We all have brains and for learning something deep inside us, we must make mistakes.

So, what would you have done in a similar situation during you class?. We need to take out that paradigm chip from our minds. If we are going to be part of a group of students (in my case, elementary children). We must be ready to deal with this kind of situations during our classes.  Did you ever expected to face a paradigm situation during your classes? because, I honesty was never aware of this issue until now; that we are talking about this subject.