Teaching Tips to Engage and Empower Non-Native English

Students and their Teachers

Panelists:

Shiao-Chen Tsai (Taiwan)

Renka Ohta (Japan)

Tanti Sari (Indonesia)

Janice Jung (South Korea)

Panelists Introduction

• Educational background

• Learning experiences

• Teaching experiences • Contact e-mails:

Shiao-Chen Tsai (tsai.239@osu.edu)

Renka Ohta (renka-ohta@uiowa.edu)

Tanti P. Sari (sari.3@osu.edu)

Janice Jung (jung.360@osu.edu)

Outline • Goals

• Contexts of the Discussion Today

• Three scenarios in American and Asian

settings & Three teaching tips

• Six teacher-empowering strategies

• Q&A

Goals • To provide a better understanding of non-native

English students from Asian backgrounds in ESL or

other subject area classrooms

• To suggest some teaching tips to ESL and other

content area teachers of non-native English

speaking students

• To share ways that both native and non-native ESL

teachers can empower themselves

Contexts of the Discussion Today

• Settings: ESL settings in primary education (K-12) &

higher education (college/university)

• Students: ELLs and/or ESL students…with special

focus on those with Asian background

• Teachers: In-service or pre-service teachers who

engage with ELLs and/or ESL students

(whether native or non-native English)

Part 1:

Engaging

Non-Native English Students

Asian Countries

A little more understanding about Asian students…

• Diverse countries and cultures in Asia: China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia,

Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand…and more!

• General/Common educational situations &

Particular situations and characteristics

• Individual differences found in any student or

language learner

Scenario 1: Classroom Events and/or Discourses

• American settings

- Teachers ask both ‘known-answer’ and discussion

questions

- Students do not volunteer to answer or share ideas

• Asian settings

- Less teacher-student classroom interaction

- Transfer of knowledge as the main process of T&L

Teaching Tips (Scenario 1) • Explicitly address to the students about…

- different kinds of questions

- the value of different ideas and opinions…and

sharing them in class!

• Parents as a source of information about student

personality traits and prior schooling experiences

• Keep in mind of

- students' expectation of teachers

- students' previous experience with teachers

Scenario 2: Teacher-Student Relationship • American settings

- Homeroom teacher

→ academic support

- Guidance counselor

→ issues related to school and career guidance

• Asian settings

- Teacher-Student interaction outside the classroom:

• academic issues

• out-of-school issues

• guidance counseling

• positive and negative feedback on students

Teaching Tips (Scenario 2) • One-on-one interaction outside classroom

• Culturally relevant teaching o See students' knowledge and culture as valuable resources of

classroom knowledge (Gustein, et al, 1997)

• Cooperative learning activities o provide as many interaction with other peers

• pair-work is preferable with careful grouping

• Connection with students (counseling) o Immigrant students tend to have psychological problems but they are

not likely to utilize mental health services (Yeh & Inose,2002)

Scenario 3: Peer Pressure and from Others

• Asian students are often thought to be higher achievers in class and bear greater academic pressure from teachers’ expectation.

• Peer pressure make the students afraid to express their opinions in

class.

• Sometime, they are worried about the correctness or their answers or their English oral proficiency.

• Duff (2002):

(1)Students only speak when they feel that their contribution will

be considered valuable.

(2)They allow others to speak instead of them in several situations.

Some Asian students would prefer to listen to teacher’s talk rather

than other classmates’ talk .

Teaching Tips (Scenario 3) • Avoid Stereotyped images in Media

• Face-saving talk strategies

• Minimize peer pressure, jealousy, comparison, the

effect of “teachers’ pet”

• Don’t generalize one person as a representative of

the country and culture

• Self-Prophecy effects

• Do not evaluate students’ participation mainly on their

talk in the whole class setting.

Part 2: Empowering

Their Teachers

(both NNESTs and NESTs!)

Strategy 1: Maximize your advantages

• Expand the potential benefits from your

previous and current experiences as a

student , a teacher, a researcher, and any

non-academic worker

• E.g., A non-classroom working experience in

your resume can become a relevant

experience to your future employers if you

focus on its influence on your development

of strong interpersonal skills

Strategy 2: Catch up with latest trends in job market & educational settings • Join multiple group e-mail lists of your

interests

• Read e-mail news daily to make sure that you do not miss any good opportunities for developing your professional skills and applying for professional job/grant

Strategy 3: Improve public

English speaking skills

• Talk in English as much as possible

• Seek feedback from both native English

speakers and non-native English speakers!

• Attend spoken English course or get

intensive training from professional English

speaking tutors

• Prepare every presentation as formal as a

conference presentation

Strategy 4: Build up good interpersonal skills

• Allocate your time with different groups of people based on your short-term and long-term career goals

• Observe how other teachers talk in class and bear in mind what you should do next time if you were him/her, but don’t give direct comment or suggestion unless you are invited to do so

• Watch your word choice and make sure there is a “sandwich structure” in your written and oral feedback (1. a nice comment of the good things, 2. further suggestions for improvement, and 3. some encouraging words or another nice comment on the good part)

Strategy 5: Develop Professionalism • Reflect on your teaching

• Work collaboratively with peers and/or form critical friend groups

• Seek professional advice from more experienced teacher or mentor

• Join a teacher support group/teacher association

• Continue to improve content and pedagogical knowledge and skills (e.g., by attending seminars/workshops and conferences related to English language use and English teaching)

Strategy 6: Build up confidence

• NNESTs can be as professional as NESTs

• NNESTs are proficient in another language or multiple languages! They can help NNESTs to communicate with students coming from the same linguistic and cultural background

• Reference: Sandra Briggs (2007, 2008)

Q& A • You are welcomed to ask questions to

a specific panelists or to all of them

• We will share some readings and

references based on your questions

and interests

References and Resources • Pollock, M. (2008).Everyday Anti-Racism. New York: The New

Press.

• Howard, G. (2006). We Can't Teach What We Don't Know:

White Teachers, Multiracial Schools (2nd edition)

• Campano, G. (2007). Immigrant students and literacy: Reading, writing, and remembering. New York: Teachers

College Press.

• Duff, P.A. (2002). The discursive co-construction of knowledge,

identity, and difference: An ethnography of communication in the high school mainstream. Applied Linguistics, 23,3, 289-322.

• Williams, M. & Burden, R. L. (1997) Psychology for Language

Teachers : A Social Constructivist Approach. Cambridge

University Press.

References and Resources (Cont’d)

• Harper, C.A. & de Jong, E. (2009). English language

teacher expertise: the elephant in the room. Language

and Education, 23(2), 137-151. doi:

10.1080/09500780802152788

• Gutstein, E., Lipman, P., Hernandez, P. and de los Reyes,

R. (1997). Culturally Relevant Mathematics Teaching in a

Mexican American Context. Journal for Research in

Mathematics Education, 28(6), 709-737

• Yeh. C. & Inose. M. (2002). Difficulties and coping

strategies of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean immigrant

students. Adolscense, 37(145), 69-82.