Job Discussion Forums

[shaner]

Hello. I wish to vent. I teach at a school in Guadalajara, Mexico and I really like it. The problem is that we had a couple of Mexican English teachers who taught all thier beginner - intermediate classes in pure Spanish or sometimes.....Spanglish for months at a time.

Now....my personel nightmare is I have recieved this person's old classes. I as a rule only speak English in class. The students I have can read and know grammar, but they cannot speak a word of English nor can they understand anything I am saying to them.

Any opinions about this?????? I am trying my best, but it really frustrating.

[Guy Courchesne]

Do you speak Spanish? Definitely sounds frustrating...and probably just as much for your students too, to have to switch from something comfortable to something difficult.

Can you break them in? Start slow, use some Spanish then ween them off it, being sure to let them know you expect them to move with you to an English-only class.

[sarliz]

Do you have equipment to play music on? Maybe doing an excersize where they can read and listen to the lyrics at the same time could be useful. I do this frequently, leaving some blanks in the lyrics that they have to listen for and fill in. Then give them some questions to answer in small groups, then as a whole class. You can look for a song with relevant grammar structures, depending on your class level. It seems like using written materials in conjunction with you speaking could be a good weaning tool.

Also, maybe just to asses the damage, you could do a dictation excersize where you tell them several sentences (slowly), and they write down whatever they think they're hearing. It could be a good way for you to really understand the extent of the problem and for your students to understand that they have some work to do, listening-wise.

Oooh, one more thing. Maybe start with a few words, verbs or vocab or whatever, and make sure that they get the pronunciation down pat in class. Then have them go home and say the words out loud to themselves 10 times each (explain that they will feel like morons but it's important), so they get familiar with how they sound out loud.

Good luck, sounds crazy frustrating.

[MELEE]

I teach at a university and our students have had 2 to 6 years of English prior to arriving at the university (a few have had 0 but in extreme cases, like they went to a private school that taught German instead of English, or are from a tiny village where there weren't any actual teachers, just a "telesecundaria"). But most test into beginner level. I usually start off with a conersation (in Spanish) about why after those 2 to 6 years of English study they can't speak any English. Why do they think it is so, and then why do I think it is so. What were their previous English classes like? What did they like about them (if anything) and what didn't they like about them? Then I talk to them about what I have learned, from experience and from readings in Second Language Acquisition about what makes for sucessful language learning. Then in the first week I make classes that are almost entirely spoken--no reading or writing on my part or theirs, entirely in English (as if I were teaching Japanese speakers or some group whose language I can not speak, and often a little below their level, but the point is to show them that they can speak English. At the start of the second week we have another conversation (again in Spanish, so everything is really clear), about how they and I felt about the previous week and their progress, which activities we did did they enjoy the most? the least? What do they remember the most, which things seemed to really stick in their minds. Then we lay out the goals for the semester, most are from the set curiculum, but I stress that they should set one or two personal goals as well, and get on with the course.

One thing that is different in your situation is that your students haven't changed schools, where as mine are at a new school and have a certain expectation that this is going to be very different from their previous studies, they are first year university students after all.

Good Luck, what ever you do.

[ls650]

[cangringo]

Hey shaner, I am having a similar problem except that it's a much smaller class. I mean some very small classes but the old teacher left and I have one class who should know how to speak some English but they just stare at me with that deer in the headlights look...I speak a tiny bit of Spanish but sometimes they still stare at me.

I teach all my other classes solely in English so these ones are tough. I have had only one class with them but I plan to do some review next class. I don't care if I have a certain time to get through the lessons, I can't move on if they can't complete the lesson in English.

[hlamb]

I can sympathize with this. I worked at a school last year where the director, who also taught, spoke mostly in Spanish to the students. When I got his classes, they couldn't understand me or reply to anything. Some had been at the school for five years! I was told that if I spoke to them in Spanish they would understand me and that would be better for everyone. Huh?

I will say that after many months with me, trying to break them of the Spanish habit, they did much better and were able to converse, but it was a hard process-for me and for them!

I'm now at a school where we don't use Spanish, except with complete beginners to help them feel comfortable and to explain the expectations. We move to English-only very quickly and my students here can speak much better. It's a nice feeling.

[ls650]

When I came to Mexico I couldn't speak any Spanish at all. The students were pretty shocked that I was an English teacher and yet couldn't understand any Spanish at all.

Three years later I can speak Spanish at a low intermediate level but avoid doing so in the class. I occasionally throw in two or three words here or there to make sure students are staying "clued in" (Ex. "He went to the wedding last night. Where? Una boda.") but the class is 99% English. When students ask me a question in Spanish I pretend I don't understand and ask them to repeat in English. The students tend to be a bit annoyed by this because they know by now that I understand their Spanish questions just fine.

Spanish ability can be somewhat useful in class, for giving precise examples of a concept or quickly translating a word without pausing in the lesson's flow, but it isn't required. You'll be doing these students a big favor if you wean them off of Spanish dependency in the classroom.

[cangringo]

I think today I will get them to write on the board...conjugations and things like that so I can find out what they actually know. I realize this would be difficult for a bigger class but should work for mine. I know they know how to say a few things so we'll see how she goes.

As for my other students that have been taught solely with Spanish translation, they can speak a bit and if I speak very slowly they understand a bit so I slowly break them into telling me definitions in English and things like that.

I must admit that most of my students are happier with the only English in class so that's a good thing.

[El Gallo]

The problem is that, if the students are taught English in Spanish, they are trained to wait about three seconds after the teacher says something in English for the Spanish translation so why bother learning English. The toughest school in which I worked regarding no Spanish, has the best speaking students. After three weeks of basic, no Spanish, period - in the lobby in the halls in front of the building. Teachers and secretaries reported those speaking Spanish and their grades were affected. The teachers hated to be the disciplinarians but it was very effective.

[ontoit]

May I suggest. . .

taking about 10 minutes to explain the goal of the day's lesson and the language concept you are teaching that day in Spanish followed by a variety of exercises and activities in English designed to provide practice of that concept for the remainder of the class period?

[Patrocleides]

Some Spanish-speaking teachers simply can not be weaned of the habit of teaching Spanish in English, no matter how much damage it does to the students' English learning and acquisition. After I left one school (which shortly thereafter went bankrupt), I was replaced in my advanced classes by an old biddy who spent most of the time in Spanish because, as she confessed, she was unable to understand the authentic English examples I had been using a week earlier. The students sneered at her and asked each other, "How was your Spanish class?"

One of the most common excuses used by Mexican teachers for not using English only in class is that they "...don't want to pressure the students." Rubbish. It's themselves they don't want to pressure, so used they have become to making life easy on themselves and so lazy they've gotten about improving their own (usually) seriously inadequate English. A respectable school won't let them get away with this twaddle. Some "teachers" will try, some will always try to get away with it. This after all is M�xico, a country noted for a culture of denial and excuse-making.

Beginners or advanced students, they will be grateful to you for switching the class to English only. Yes, there are exceptions, people spoiled by this absurd practice, who will try to manipulate you into falling back on Spanish, a trap that allows them to get their way, do no work, and you (if your Spanish is not adequate to the task) to making all sorts of mistakes so that they end up losing respect for you and learning nothing. You may end up knowing a lot more about Spanish usage, but that's hardly what you're being paid for, is it?

I've had classes who've suffered from this sort of thing, English-speakers laboring in Spanish and Spanish-speakers avoiding the labor of using English as the sole medium of instruction. However I've done it, it only takes between two to six hours of instruction in English before all the students grasp that it's a lot more enjoyable and a lot more efficient to do it in English. Once they begin to get used to even a little listening and speaking and realize that they are indeed learning something and making progress, their confidence increases and so does their interest and satisfaction. It's irksome, I admit, for a few hours, but patience is the essence of method. Yes, you may have to improvise more than you planned on as one horror after another gets revealed, but, once you've been through it, the next time is easier.

I'll confess I've given them a little booster speech in Spanish explaining why I only use English in class, and, if it is just too much of a waste of time trying to explain some difficult term like "however" in English, I will use a dictionary-grammar quick translation and simply move on. And, yes, if they have an adult grasp of Spanish grammar, sometimes a little "comparative linguistics" can clarify a point when the task is to explain the difference between "modal auxiliaries" and the Spanish subjunctive or to illustrate the logical identity of Spanish and English conditionals. That's of course easier to do once the expectations are firmly set that the classroom instruction will be in English.

For "false start" beginners, you have to establish rapport with them, set your classroom rules, give them something useful and amusing (like reworking their no doubt execrable pronunciation) and move forward, helping and correcting as you go, trying to catch them up to where they should be. There are as many ways of doing this as there are ways of introducing English to students who have never been mis-taught English in the first place. It's always Hell having to start over again with what shouldn't have been done in the first place. Have faith that your students will thank you for it and that the next teacher whom they get who falls back into Spanish is going to run afoul of students complaining about using "Spanish in class." If there's any justice, they'll complain to the administration, which, faced with losing tuition fees, may discover that English only pays.

Of course, if they are students from preparatorias, you can only expect the worst. Hardly any of those "English teachers" should be even let into a classroom. The students themselves sneer at that, and complain (correctly) that they "learned nothing" and had "bad teachers."

Don't let a few rough hours and a little sweat discourage you. You'll have your students' respect more quickly than you'd believe. Way deep down, they know you're right. The real difficulty may stem from you stepping on administration toes and stirring up resentment among Mexican teachers who simply can't do what you can. This is, after all, a culture in which the "authority of position" over-rides the authority that should come from competence time and time again. It might make life easier if you limit your job searches to schools which only employ native speakers--they are usually what a smart student should look for anyway and you won't have to tip-toe around respecting the supposed skills of "bilingual" teachers who simply are not and avoiding any implied criticism of owner-administrators who are only in it for the pesos.

[El Gallo]

At one private school I worked at where Mexican teachers taught English in Spanish, the owner took hours away from me because, even though the gringo coordinator told me not to speak Spanish, the parents complained that I taught only in English. This school had a policy of promoting all students without repeats or failures. After three years of English taught in Spanish, students in "proficiency" couldn't speak or write a complete English sentence. The owner didn't care because he got their money.

[EverReady]

I teach all my classes in English because that is the way the school wants it. But is there anybody out there like me who would prefer to be taught by a bilingual teacher? I eould not pay for classes in another language if the teacher did not speak English. For me, it is much faster to learn the grammar of another language just by having someone explain it. I have always wondered if English only is just a crutch made by the people at CELTA because they would lose money if they required the students of the CELTA program to be bilingual. Or is that just me?

[Phil_K]

I agree with you to a certain extent. When I took Spanish classes, I didn't feel the need to speak English, I fact I didn't want to, but at advanced level, I think sometimes a comparison is valid. At beginners level. for the reasons already mentioned I think it is a bad idea. Also, it depends on the desire of the student to really learn. One thing I hate is an (adult) student that has the mentality of a schoolkid, i.e. all you have to do is come to classes and you will learn English... yeah, right.

What bugs me me are those students that just won't stop using Spanish.
e.g. You are teaching "take advantage of" and you use you best technique, but the student finally says:

"Oh yeah, aprovechar!

I often say something like, maybe, but give me a sentence as an example.
...and then he does the same thing next time. Also one student whispers the translation to another.

I would be interested to know how other teachers deal with this situation.