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ilovebdt1 · Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 5:32 am Post subject: Mexican Students learning English

Hi Guys

As you know I am planning to come and teach in Mexico and I was wondering how Mexicans are used to being taught English?

I currently work in Korea, where my students are used to the listen and repeat method of learning. I am gradually introducing group and pair work and getting them to think for themselves.

What sort of teaching methods are used in Mexico?

Ilovebdt1

grahamcito · Joined: 11 Sep 2004 Posts: 90 Location: Guadalajara

Hi Ilovebdt1,

Quick question: what�s bdt?

ilovebdt1 · Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 7:08 am Post subject:

If I tell you will you answer my question?

They are my cats at home in the UK. Brandy, Dandy and Toto.

Very Happy

grahamcito · Joined: 11 Sep 2004 Posts: 90 Location: Guadalajara

That�s very cute!

Mexican students love to talk, participate and be involved, so pairwork and groupwork can be used easily and effectively. The difficult part is keeping them �on task�.

Rote learning bores Mexicans. It�s not so much that they question the methodology, more that they want to talk naturally.

A bit different from Korea/Japan, eh?

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

I've found that Mexican children are taught Spanish grammar by congujation table...repetitive - like French. While Mexicans do like to talk, I think many have great difficulty with loose nature of English grammar.

hlamb · Joined: 09 Dec 2003 Posts: 431 Location: Canada

I've found that most of my students, especially the adults, want grammar rules first. They want a rule and examples, then are happy to practice the structure and make up their own conversations. They do have a tendancy to copy, however. The teenagers LOVE to talk but the difficulty is encouraging them to stay somewhat on topic and in English. Sometimes they get so into whatever the topic is that they are off and running in Spanish. I also find many of them expect me to be a living translation dictionary.

canadiense · Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 13 Location: Mexico/Canada

My students love their classes to be dynamic; the more fun, the better they like it. We have a set text to build a course around, but there's plenty of time to add fun activities for practice.

The students want to learn more than the textbook can teach: idioms, daily culture, and how to handle red tape, like entry declarations to whatever country you come from.

Students love it if you bring realia to class, maybe some menus from your hometown, or news froim another country's point of view. Best of all, students enjoy talking to you and getting to know you. It's one of the best ways to test their current level of English.

cwc · Joined: 16 Nov 2005 Posts: 372

dixie · Joined: 23 Apr 2006 Posts: 644 Location: D.F

From my experience in Honduras (gr.2/3 classroom teacher) and Mexico (gr. 6 classroom teacher) the students like learning similar to all students....interesting, real and hands-on. Do it from a book (which I had to do in Mexico) and add hormones into the mix....and it's time well wasted! They learn..but no one has too much fun...teacher included! However, they definitely do enjoying talking so if you can get them interested in the lesson, talking (mostly) in English isn't too difficult, although like all of us....when we really have something to say it's easier to get it out in our first language!

....dixie

ilovebdt1 · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 1:50 am Post subject:

Wow Guys

Thanks for your replies.

Sounds like I am going to get quite a shock when I get to Mexico.
But, it sounds like it'll be fun and a challenge to think up activities to keep their brains going.

Thanks

Ilovebdt1

MELEE · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 2:33 pm Post subject:

I'm a bit slow getting in on this one. I think someone coming to Mexico from somewhere else needs to keep in mind that we are talking about a fairly large country. Much larger than a place like Korea, and so its not surprizing that it is more diverse. Many students in the larger cities have recieved education very similar to children in the US or England. In rural areas the teachers are sent in from the outside and among other problems (like thinking "indios" are stupid Shocked

) have a habbit of running out on their jobs leaving the kids with out a teacher for months at a time. Some schools are very modern and kids are used to "discovery" type teaching, others are very traditional and the teacher is the one and only unquestionable source of information.

Most Latinos are very talkitive and outgoing, most indiginious people are more reserved and wary of strangers, I'm in a unique situation where I have both in my classes. My biggest problem in class is them chatting in Spanish. The second biggest problem is them accepting explainations instead of translations. There are smaller problems that are not as hard to overcome such as instilling the idea that sometimes there are multiple right answers. That sometimes I will ask them to tell me, rather than tell them the information. That sometimes I don't know the answer to their questions, but have the resources to look it up.

In my particular teaching situation, my students are BUSY, BUSY BUSY BUSY! I would never enroll here as a student, no way no how, 7 hours of classes a day, projects, labs, homework, and they are at the age where humans like to meet each other and pair off. My biggest obstacle is that the students barely have time to attend my class, let alone do outside work.