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I Am a Teacher

On Monday a new schoolyear starts. The main change for me will be that I will be teaching Econs to Sec4 students in English for the first time.

It is quite challenging, and I feel excited about it. But at the same time it is triggering some fears inside me. I don't fear the chance that some day I cannot find some word, and I stay dumb, looking like a fool in front of the class. What makes me afraid is how I may react.

Will I just take it as one of the mistakes all humans, even teachers, make now and then, or think I am not capable of teaching in English and I should have never taken the responsibility? I am afraid the latter may happen.

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novembermoon · 51-55

I'm reading this again and the thought that comes to mind is that I consider it a blessing for people who are able to teach in their mother tongue AND/ OR another language.

As I've told you before, no one will appreciate having a Chinese person teach English anywhere in the world (other than in the place where I am now). I often feel like an anomaly. I do not think I can teach any subject in Chinese at all with my qualifications in English. And at times like this, I feel like a failure when I think about it.

Cierzo · M

@novembermoon In my opinion, the widespreaded preference for native Anglo teachers is not justified at all. English has become the lingua franca for people in the five continents, the diversity of accents is nowadays huge, and we cannot say that any of them is better than the others.

Besides, a person who is not a native speaker but learnt the language later in their life has another trait to be a better teacher. They know which parts in the learning process were harder for them, and which tools they used to overcome difficulties, therefore situations where students have similar doubts will be easier to solve.

Some years ago, when I taught Spanish language to foreigners, sometimes I was asked why a certain word or verbal tense was used instead of another. It was not easy to answer those questions since I had never mulled about them, the use of that word or tense was just natural.

novembermoon · 51-55

Thanks for this. You are always good at helping me to feel better. I do not understand why people here generally don't feel anything at all about losing part of their heritage, of which language is one, in the process of making a living. We are not like the HK people at all, whom I have the utmost respect, because they dare to protect what is theirs. @Cierzo

Cierzo · M

@novembermoon In the HK case, I think speaking Cantonese is a way to tell, first to English colonial masters and now to Mandarin-speaking mainland,that they are different. You don't have that situation there.

novembermoon · 51-55

LKY clamped down on dialects here when he was alive. English became the first language and Chinese became the second language. The disconnect between grandparents and grandchildren is real because it was not possible to communicate any more. Only after the man died did TV begin shows in dialect again. In the meantime, no one questions what we lost in the process. @Cierzo

Cierzo · M

@novembermoon He did it for practical reasons, but it is obvious that you lost something too. I hope grandchildren show interest in learning the dialects of their family roots.