Um, I don't think I get it?

In the land of ESL, you have to be prepared for anything. You especially have to be ready to recast speech, speech that is said by a student, but needs correcting because the idea isn't understood. I do this all the time. On this particular day, I thought it was more of the same...boy, was I wrong!


Two weeks into our second semester, a male student came up to me after class. He said "I want to buy girl." Oh, I said, you want to buy something for a girl, sure, what do you think would be nice to buy a girl? He scowled at me, "No, I want to buy girl." I nodded my head smiling, "Sure, you want to buy something for a girl, I understand." "No", he said sternly. " I want girl for sex."


"Where can I buy girl."


Now, it hadn't hit me that a young man would actually have the courage to come up to a female professor and actually ask her where he could "buy" girl. It also hadn't hit me that a student would feel so comfortable with me in class that he felt he could ask me such a question. After I realized what he just asked for, I could feel my face change. It started twisting and my eyebrows quickly had knit themselves together. I took on a different voice. "I am going to answer your question with two statments, " I said calmly "First, men do not buy women, it is against the law here, and if you try to "buy" a woman for sex, you will be arrested and sent home." I gasped for air, "Second, I am a professor, I am also a feminist, I am against this behavior because it harms women and it treats women like animals, we are not animals, we are humans, with rights." I stopped talking, glaring at him. He calmly looked at me and said " OK!" he turned around, grabbed his bag and out the door he went.



It took me several weeks to figure this out, but my analysis of this whole sorrid story came to this; There is a line in each classroom and culture defines that line, where it is, and why you should not cross it. Foreign students in American classrooms do not know where that line is. A smiling, warm, teacher is enough to throw this whole idea into disarray. Students have no idea what they should or should not say and how they should or should not act. It's like walking through a penny candy store with a trash bag and no clerk to take your money! Whatever these students feel like doing, they do it!

I realized that I was in the land of no boundries and I would have to set them, something I wasn't entirely ready to do yet at this level. However, if it meant saving some young Chinese man from trying to buy girl, it's on!

I have no idea what you just said!

It had come to my attention that after one semester of teaching that I was no longer a teacher. I was a councilor, a keeper of secrets, a clown, a pleading being, a giant pair of ears, a social worker, a housing advocate, a cultural Dr. Phil, Oprah (but without the money and the fame), a storyteller, a perplexed Bostonian trying to explain our bizarre behavior, and an eternal optimist.

After Valetudinarian changed his name to Miles, it became quite clear that he was....unusual.
He was rather odd, showing up to class very early, sitting at attention, looking straight ahead, as if there were some mind altering abyss to peer into. He was very formal, always greeting me and always looking off into the distance.

Our second week had started and true to form, I had the students grouped and engaged in work that they would present at the end of class. Miles would sit on the outside and peer into the group he was suppose to be involved in. When asked to join in, he stood up and starting yelling in Chinese at the girl who merely asked for his participation. Immediately, my student who had been shouted at, got up, screamed at him and bolted into the restroom.

I just stood there. What the *#! just happened? No teaching seminar, no amount of graduate training can prepare you for this. I gave the class the mandate to carry on and told Miles to sit down and keep his trap shut! I raced out the door to find my student in the girls room crying her heart out. She interpreted his remarks and now I understood why she reacted in such an explosive manner. He had told her that she was stupid, silly and had no business telling him what to do. I was stunned. So, I grabbed the verbal bull by the horn and talked her into coming back to class. I would deal with Miles! Her eyes glistened at the thought of Miles getting his! Oh, did I mention that I had to be a psychologist as well?

She believed me, she calmed down, she followed me back to class. She opened the door and raced back to her group. I asked to see Miles out in the hallway. You could hear the crickets, I swear to god! I took him in another room and ripped into him. He tried to stick up for himself, but thanks to my inablity to tolerate injustice, I shut him down.

I went back to the office that day stunned that this kind of behavior could take place in MY classroom! After I dragged myself into the office and threw myself down into the chair, I spilled my guts to my colleague. Ah, colleagues! What would the world be without them! She had more experience with Asian culture than I did. After she heard about the incident, she filled me in on the very real world of intimidation, bullying and harrassment within this culture and told me that I was in for more of this, as many of my students felt it was perfectly fine to behave in this fashion while in class. Huh? Why did they feel this kind of behavior was acceptable? The answer was simple.

There is a line in a classroom and most American students know not to cross it. What I was experiencing was a lineless classroom. These students did not know where the line was! A friendly, warm, smiling teacher meant that you can do and say anything without any kind of repercussions!

Looking back on this, this was the day I developed my Jean Claude Van Dam teaching persona!

Summer Session Group 2

As the first semester came to an end, I looked forward to starting my second semester with the program, and true to form, it was not boring!

The first day of my first class, I had the students state their name, where they are from and what (if any) English name they have chosen. My first student, a rather dower looking individual lights up and says "My name is valetudinarian". I stopped dead in my tracks looked at him and said "I'm sorry, can you repeat that again?" He did. Six times. He told me he loved this word, it was his favorite GRE word and he wanted it to be his name.

I spent the next two days trying to convince him to change his name. After I found out that his favorite word valedudinarian meant a person of a weak or sickly constitution ( I had no clue what it meant) I really kicked into overdrive to get him to change his name. I used every excuse in the book, including the one that Americans will have no idea what it means, let alone actually be able to pronounce it! Finally, with sadness, after two days of cajoling, he changed his name. He was now Miles Dyson. I had to ask where he got that name, he told me off of a website that sells cleaners.

yup, we're off to a beautiful, predictable start.

I know I said that I wanted to write this blog chronologically, but I can't help interrupting myself here. We are six weeks into the semester (Fall 09) and many of the teachers are now telling stories about their students. Here are a few of the English names that the students have chosen.

First, we have a student who has insisted on taking the name Caesar Salad, that's right, as in the Au Bon Pain $6.95 lunch. When the teacher pushed him to change his name, he remained firm stating that he liked the name, it had poetry to it, and he was completely satisfied being called Caesar Salad for the next four years.....pass the croutons!

Next, we have a student whose name is Cheese Wang. (No, that's not a typo). When pressed to change his name, he simply stated, I like cheese and I want to be called cheese. My advice to this young man is to stay away from heat lamps and watch out for giant bowls of salsa, someone might get the wrong idea!

Now back to our regularly scheduled semester!

Stop hurling yourself in front of other students!

After teaching several months, I had begun to notice that many of my Chinese students had this annoying habit. I would ask at the end of class are there any questions about homework? Nothing but crickets filled my classroom. "OK, see you all tomorrow". I would turn to erase the board and upon turning once again, I would see at least ten of my students at the desk with questions about (what else?) their homework! So I would patiently explain the homework assignment again...and again...and again. That wasn't the annoying part.

The annoying part was when a student would hurl him or herself in front of another student who had already started asking me a question. I found this rude, I got aggrevated and finally, after many days of witnessing this behavior, I asked! "Guys, why do you do this?" Why can't you wait until your fellow classmate has finished talking to me." We are China, too many peoples, you need important ways to make peoples understand important ways." Huh?
I asked again, so they explained again. Turns out, after several attempts to explain it, I got it. They come from a land of 1.3 billion people, this is the kind of behavior that takes place there. Pushing, shoving, interuppting, cutting lines, cheating, all in the name of getting ahead of someone else...not only is it accepted, it is encouraged!

The next day I decided I needed to address this, so I did. According to the cultural rules of the U.S. if you try any of these behaviors in an American classroom, you'll be thought of as rude, you'll be shunned and if you really pissed someone off, you might get a swift kick to the family jewels.... I suddenly realized that I used the phrase family jewels. "Great", I thought as I turned around to write on the board, "how do I explain this one?"

New words in the English language..brought to you by young, confused foreign students!

Below, for your English dictionary pleasure, are words that are being spoken and written by students who are trying to use this language. These words have appeared on tests, quizzes and other tools used to gauge whether or not a student can use the word functionally.

Idiocratic- a word used to describe a person who is completely incapable of doing anything while claiming to work for a large government agency. Ex- He's so idiocratic, it's beyond me why they don't fire his butt!

Innovention- this is a word used to describe something that has been thought of, brought to life, and then bought up by Microsoft. Think of your own example, there's a ton of them!

Dramastic-a word used to describe a drama queen.
Ex-Oh, god, why is she so dramastic, I mean, really! Can't she just get a grip!

I'm going to write a compare and contrast essay.....about you!

I schlepped my bag into the office and dropped it down as if it was 3,000 pounds. I slumped into my chair with a groan. My colleague looked at me with a look of chagrin. "What's wrong?" I said reluctanly. She breathed in "Peter Pan is writing an essay about the two of us!" "WHAT" "NO"
"He can't be?" "Oh, he is", she stated with certainty. My colleague and I both taught him, she had him for Reading and Writing and I had him for a class called Culture and Communication. "This can't be good", I moaned. She continued "I guess the other students tried to talk him out of it, but he couldn't be pursuaded." Sure enough, two weeks later, the essay appeared. Here is an excerpt:

"The first teacher I want to talk about teaches me Culture and Communication. She is American but with the Italian blood. What a tall and slim lady! She is passionate. She speaks with great fervor. She put her words into vivid movement. She is enthusiastic. She is cordial and makes you excited about what you are learning. She was that kind of teacher who can easily draw your attention and loaded everything needed into your mind (including the way of her teaching) right away. I remember in the class, she videotaped our presentation in order to prove our speaking skills; she held a debate to help develop our critical thinking; she also gave a lot of assignments which required us do some investigation in or outside the campus. All these make you exciting and meanwhile brought about pressure on your academic studying. In Diana’s class, she might first help you discover yourself then lead you to discover what she wants to interpret. She is fire and she makes you feel the fire."

How exactly do you interpret that?

Sneezing is a laughable offense

It is true that one man's habit is another man's amusement. Case in point: sneezing. Yes, sneezing. The act that every human, animal and amoeba are forced to engage in when something has clogged the ventilation systems.

We were in class and not too long before all my students came down with an illness or two. The first three weeks are always the worst. They are eating strange food, injesting water with weird microbes and generally partying till they puke, which at some point within the first three weeks, comes back to haunt them. The sneezing starts around this time, so this is when I start with the "God bless you!" At first, they just collectively laughed every time I said it, out loud, with an obvious tinge of amusment. Then, slowly as it kept happening, it became somewhat of an irritation to me. So, getting up my nerve, I asked one day. "Guys, why is it every time I say God bless you after you sneeze, you all laugh?" Robin Hood, King of English forest stated dryly, "It's because we don't do that after someone sneezes, we don't believe in God, we are communists. It suddenly hit me, my god, they are communists! There is no God according to this ideaology, so of course this is going to be outrageous to them! I proceeded to then explain the whole sneezing story, as it had been relayed to me. They listened in amusement. Nothing much was said after that. The chuckles continued now and again after someone had let a good one rip, but the mystery of sneezing had lost its allure. Like all other cultural differences, eventually the difference becomes the norm...and we all just reach for a tissue!

Cause and Effect Essay Writing-Not what you think it is!

I like to give my students the freedom to choose the topics they are going to develop into an essay. This, I feel, gives them more control, keeps them interested in what they are trying to do, and generally, I'm happy to report, it works.

The cause and effect essay that we were getting ready to write was going to be tackled by one of my more modest students, who was painfully quiet, but seemed to enjoy class. I received his first rough draft, and proceeded to have a darn good belly laugh. His topic was "Why Couples Divorce" and as every red blooded American knows, there are too many reasons to actually list. His take on the whole mess wasn't revolutionary, per se, but it was amusing. He stated...and I quote " Many divorce take place because of the sexy life". After I read that, I said to myself wow, it IS because of the sexy life! After all, there are grown men running around this planet conducting booty calls and then they are getting dragged into court and roundly divorced, because of the sexy life. Internet adultery is on the rise because of the sexy life! More problems arise because of the sexy life!

It took everything within me to sit him down during our conference and correct his English. I secretly wanted him to keep the language and continue with it, but I knew that would just be plain wrong and a bit too selfish. So, the sexy life was corrected. It then read, "many couples divorce because of the lack of a healthy sex life." Booorriinngggg!!!

I AM English.....

My student, Peter Pan, was much more fluent than the rest of my students. This caused him to jump in and automatically correct his fellow classmates, laugh out loud at incorrect verbage, and frankly display other various obnoxious reactions to his fellow classmates. So, it was time to pull him aside and have "the talk". You know, fellow teachers, exactly what I'm talking about. You dread it, but you know you have to do it.

So, after class, and after a particularly condescending session with Peter Pan in rare form, I put an end to his comments. I politely told him that I will be the one in class to gently correct the students when they make English mistakes and that it was not necessary for him to get involved. As I was diplomatically laying this out for him, he interrupted me with this statement.
"But I AM English, I FEEL English, these people do not!" With this, I simply didn't know where to go with it. I stopped and decided to play along. "Yes, Peter, I know you're English, but I could have sworn you were Chinese". He started laughing. I smiled and put my head down, this wasn't going to be too bad after all.

Chinese English ....or Chinglish

Sometimes my students are just plain more expressive and creative with my own language.
I have moments of pure awe....and some moments of pure confusion, but mostly of awe.

I was teaching a Reading and Writing class and the assignment was "Please write a paragraph about our program and how it will help you in your quest for a masters degree." I got the standard paragraph response- To make the life better, So I can learn the English more to make the job. The best response, hands down, was from a very distracted student, later I learned why he was so distracted. His response was typical, but he ended his creative writing exercise with "I hope I am able to complete my program and meet my destiny girl."

Wow, destiny girl! Immediately I thought "why don't English speakers talk like that"? How romantic, how gooey, with sappy love drippings hanging off these words...destiny girl! My next question was, why aren't I someones destiny girl? I came home that night and read it to my companion. He immediately agreed that, yes, our language doesn't give us gals props and two, he would adopt this new way of speaking when he addressed me into our every day language.

Now, thanks to this student, I am now know as my companion's Destiny girl!

Starting Out....my first semester in my new program!

Ah, culture and language! Can't separate the two, and to be honest, would you really want to try? The richness of my experiences and the stories that I go home with on a daily basis prove to me over and over again that various humans from around the world, herded into a classroom and forced to speak a lingua franca can make for some very amusing stories!

My first class was a listening/speaking class. I had twelve students, all from China. Being the responsible teacher, I asked the students to introduce themselves. It is a well known practice that many Chinese students take English names, so being in the know, I procedued to ask for introductions. I should have known this was going to be interesting when the first student introduced himself as "Peter Pan". As I moved around the room, I got more interesting names, like Magic. The best, however came from Robin, who asked me to call him....and I quote "Robin Hood, King of English forest."

Then there was a girl who wanted to be called banana. I asked her to clarify why she wanted to be named banana and she simply stated, " I like the way it sounds". I came home quite amused with this bit of information and told my companion about it. A few days went by and my companion returned with some horrifying news. "I have some colleagues at work who are Asian American and they informed me that banana is a slur." "What?" I exclaimed in horror! I had no clue about this bit of rancid news. In any case, I was determined to go into class the next day and get banana to drop her name. "But I like that name" she said innocently. " I know you do, but banana is the name of a fruit and frankly, Americans will react surprised when you introduce yourself as banana! "But I know people who name is Apple". Thanks to Gwenyth Paltrow I was having a much harder time making my case. "I understand", I said gingerly, but to be honest there are much prettier names you can take in English."

Truthfully, the slur was terrible in its own right, but all I could think of was the obvious connection of the very phallic fruit and my feminism. I just couldn't let this beautiful young girl walk around calling out banana, banana! I cringed at the thought. Luckily in the end, she decided to change her name. This was the start of a very long and interesting first semester