Throughout these three years that I have been working in the US teaching English as a Second Language, I have always repeated to myself: “I had no idea that EFL and ESL could be so different”. I have taught kids who (in their broken English) tell you how they escaped from war and hunger to find a better place; I have taught learning skills as well as Math & reading; I have fixed broken glasses until we could get a new pair through the nurse; I have arranged parent conferences and interpreted for the teachers; I have tried to talk students out of dropping out of school…unsuccessfully, most of the times. I have mediated between the “mainstream” teachers and my students, as these teachers have little or no training on how to teach a kid who is learning all subjects in their second language, and are as desperate and helpless as the students. I have seen how students whose papers are not “in order” have their dreams of college crushed because of ridiculous laws, and have seen my American colleagues at the ESL department do all their best to help refugees rebuild their lives. Most ESL teachers I have met are really wonderful people, who have a passion for what they do, who really care about their students. In a system that mostly cares about testing scores, what ESL teachers accomplish is many times remarkable. It is such a striking difference with most of the EFL world in Argentina!
This whole train of thought got started when I opened the TESOL program book to start posting about the workshops I attended. And then it hit me: would I ever see a workshop called “Acculturating Refugee parents through their children” in any of Argentina’s conferences program books? How about these ones: “Building a city guide for refugee parents and their children“, “A model for helping regular students welcome ELLs“.
Yes, EFL in Argentina and ESL in the US are really different. There is SO much that is NOT language teaching in ESL.The exact opposite of EFL, where we even have language academies that teach only the language, and only if you have the money to afford it. And yet, I am one of those EFL teachers that have chosen to teach for the most part in public schools, and i think that might have saved me. I believe that it is the skills I have acquired as a teacher in public schools in Argentina that have helped me the most when it comes to teaching ESL. It is not the skills I learned in when studying to become an EFL teacher in college (although I have to say my professors did a heck of a job with me; I’ve been praised on my English for 3 years!); it is not the methodology that you can use when you have all the resources available at a private school. It has been the passion I’ve learned from fellow public school teachers in Argentina what has helped me the most. Because even though in public schools in the US there is no lack of resources for the most part, not even all the textbooks and materials in the world can help you out when you don’t have your heart in the right place. I remember in Argentina a primary school teacher once saying “I don’t even know what I am supposed to do anymore: am I teaching or feeding and clothing my students?”. This is the way I feel many times in the ESL class. I don’t know whether I am supposed to help my students pass their senior project, or be a support to the parents that don’t know English and are clueless about their children’s school life, or convince my high school kids that graduating still makes sense even though they’re not able to go to college…and it is at those times that I look around and think: what would a good educator do? And I find the answer: it doesn’t matter if it is ESL or EFL, all that matters is that you’re trying to do the best for your students, helping them succeed and find their place in the world. Because the part of the story about my Argentine colleague that i forgot to mention is that she was feeding, clothing AND teaching. Yes, it is not the best case scenario; but all educators keep doing it because they know they are the last line of defense; the ESL teacher and the Argentine public school teacher are sometimes the only thing that stands between students and the abyss; between those children and a life of poverty lies education. It sounds naive but it is true: education is the only way out.
I hope that when I go back home in less than three months, I take these re-discovered skills back with me into the EFL classroom in my public schools, and use them to help students become successful world citizens, people who care about other people, people who care about what happens in the world, who are able to communicate and work collaboratively to do their best to make our world a better place. If there is one thing I have learned from the world of ESL is that “foreign” language teaching can be so much more. If we are ever going to become a truly civilized people, it is time we start getting our priorities straight, putting the people first, putting our students first. One kid at a time, for the rest of the 30 years of teaching I have ahead of me.Be the change you wish to see in the world, right?
Enough for one day of blogging. Pamela out.
