quietlyradical

How Teaching ESL Sometimes Requires the Sleuthing Skills of Sherlock Holmes

I love language – reading, writing, grammar, spelling – it all just makes perfect sense to me. So after a 26-year detour working in Corporate America, in 2010 I took the plunge and returned to school for a master’s degree in Education with a certification in Teaching English as a Second Language. After quitting my corporate job in 2012 to begin teaching ESL, first at a local community college and then as an independent online private tutor, I have never looked back.

I’m often asked, ,”What makes someone a good English teacher?” Here’s an answer I gave to that question on Quora back in 2019,

“I think the most important qualities for any type of teacher are: patience, flexibility, and a genuine desire to help students learn. Understanding the technical aspects of English is important, but it is also important to have creativity in order to explain difficult concepts in a variety of ways. Not all students have the same background or general knowledge, and sometimes they need examples that relate to their everyday lives. Finally, I think that great teachers don’t take themselves too seriously and they remind students that learning should be fun.”

Five years later I would still stand by that answer, with one small addition. Sometimes, when English learners are struggling to express themselves, it helps to have a combination of detective skills and “Spidey-senses” in order to decipher what it is that students are trying to say. While thise can be challenging at times, it is also what I think makes my job tremendously fun.

One thing that has helped in this regard has been in studying a foreign language myself. I have been struggling along with Spanish since about 2006 and although my spoken Spanish is TERRIBLE, the endeavor has exercised by brain (and is, hopefully, warding off dementia!) and helped me to understand the mistakes that my students make, gives me clues to understanding them, and most importantly, helps me in finding ways to explain the often non-sensical rules of the English language in an understandable way. Quora has an “Ask to Answer” feature where people asking questions can ask so-called “experts” in the field to answer. Since my profile shows that I am an experienced English tutor, I get a lot of questions in the English and Grammar sections.

Technical Questions

Some questions are purely technical and are understandable if you know how the student’s first language works.

For example, a native English speaker would say, “I went home.” However, some English learners will say, “I went to home.” This makes sense, though, if you understand how other languages work. In Spanish, for example, we would say, “Fui a casa,” because the verb “fui” (I went) must be followed by a preposition “a”. But if you try to translate it literally “a” is translated as “to”.

At other times, the ESL learners’ questions serve as a reminder of how sloppy we native speakers become with our pronunication. For example, I was asked to answer this question:

“Why do I only hear “looking the” but the subtitle shows it should be “looking to” in the line?”

This question stems from the fact that most native speakers don’t say “to” clearly (as in rhymes with “shoe”, but instead say “tuh” (as in rhymes with “the”). So, when a native speaker says, “I’m looking tuh buy a car,” an English learner migth hear that as, “I’m looking the buy a car,” since “tuh” isn’t really a word and “the” is the word that sounds the closest to what they are hearing.

Unwittingly Funny Questions

Sometimes being an ESL teacher requires one to develop a good poker face since students will often ask hilarious questions without realizing that the question is hilarious. Here’s one example:

Which one is correct, “My patient screwed me up” or “My patient screwed me this morning”?

(I very diplomatically replied that either could be correct, depending upon the situation!”)

Another question that made me chuckle was,

“What is the purpose of a comma splice?”

The questioner apparently didn’t know that “comma splice” just means that you have placed a comma where one doesn’t belong.

Once I had a student who said,

“I like to club.”

At first I was afraid that this person had adopted killing baby seals as a new hobby, but after some careful questioning, I came to understand that they had confused “to club” with “clubbing” and what they were actually trying to say was that they liked going to nightclubs.

Another time, when I was teaching ESL at the community college, the girls in class were asking one of the young men what he had gotten his girlfriend for Valentine’s Day. He replied,

“I got her flowers and poo.”

It turned out it wasn’t some kinky sex thing; he actually meant “Pooh” as in “Winnie the Pooh” and he couldn’t understand why he classmates looked so disgusted when he was really just talking about a cute yellow bear.

I also got a kick out of this Quora question,

“How do I remove my English speaking inability?”

When I first read this question, I imagined myself in the front of the classroom casting out English epeaking inability “demons” like some sort of faith healer (Billy “Grammar”, perhaps?).

Clueless American Questions

Probably the most disheartening questions are from native English speaking Americans who should know better, (but sadly do not.)

“Why do people from Mexico have such horrible accents when speaking English. I don’t mean the ones that have just learned. I mean the ones that have been here like 20 years or so?”

This person apparently thinks that an accent should just “disappear” after a certain amount of time. The fact is that people who learn English after about the age of 12 or so will always have a bit of an accent. Additionally, modifying or reducing accent falls more under the category of speech therapy rather than language learning. While ESL instructors can help their students by insisting on proper pronunciation, this isn’t the same thing as reducing an accent.

This one is probably my top contender for the “Cluelessness of the Century” award:

“Since English is the easiest language in the world to learn by far, how long does it take a non-native to achieve a native level? A few months? 10 months?”

Oh my…there is so much to unpack here. First, English is not the “easiest language to learn by far.” While it might be easier that Japanese, Chinese, or Russian, English is actually thought to be one of the more difficult languages to learn because of the large vocabulary, quirky grammar rules, and words where the spelling doesn’t seem to match the actual pronunciation.

Next, why would it take only months to achieve a nativel level? Even American children, born and raised in the United States, often make grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary errors up until about age 10. If a person living in the U.S., speaking and hearing only English can’t perfect their mastery of the language in fewer than several years, why would we expect a non-native English learner to do so? I often have to remind my students that they were probably about 4 or 5 years old before people outside their own families could consistently understand what they were saying in their first language. Therefore, they probably shouldn’t expect to become fluent in a second language in less than that same amount of time.

Finally, there was this doozy!

Have blacks thought of speaking in their native African tongue to whites so that whites have to hire translators at Walmart to understand them thus increasing black employment?

I generally try not to be too snarky, no matter how ridiculous the question but on this one I couldn’t resist. Here’s my answer:

“I’m assuming the person who asked this question never read the book or watched the TV mini-series “Roots.” Descendants of African slaves would have no idea what their “native African tongue” is since erasing their African-culture was often the first order of business among slave owners.

Second, Walmart and other large retail chains have implemented self-checkout and it is often almost impossible to find ANY sales associate when you need help or have a question.

Third, I have lived in areas with large number of Spanish-speaking customers, but have not noticed a large number of Hispanic employees in those stores.

Finally, if a person were educated enough to be fluent in both English and another language (African immigrants usually know not only their native language but also French, Spanish, or Portuguese, and some English as well) why would they settle for working as a translator at Walmart? A job with the Foreign Service office or the United Nations would make a lot more sense.”

Some Light at the End of the Tunnel

Thankfully, however, for every crazy and clueless question, there are a few reasonable and thoughtful ones as well. Here is one of my favorite questions along with the answer that I wrote:

What are some common mistakes made by people who learn American English?

“It depends on what the learnr’s native language is.

Spanish speakers tend to put an “eh” sound at the beginning of words that start with “sp”. So they will say, “eh-spanish” or “eh-special instead of just “spanish” or “special.” They also have trouble with the ch, sh, and th sounds.

Portuguese speakers tend to reverse the “r” and “h” sounds. So the “hide” becomes “ride” and the word “rather” becomes “hather.” They also tend to place an “e” sound at the end of words that don’t need it and drop the “e” at he end of words that do. So, “like” becomes “like-y” but “lucky” is prounounced “luck”.

People from India tend to mix-up the “v” and “w” sounds. Russian speakers leave out articles like “a”, “an”, and “the”. Asian speakers have a hard time with the “r” and “l” sounds.

English speakers learning other languages have similar problems as well. I’ve been learning Spanish for over a decade and I still have trouble with word order and prepositions. But learning another language is really good for the brain since it forces you to think in different ways.”

So, despite there being so many misconceptions about English and English language learners, acquiring new languages continues to be fascinating to me. The best part is, with free apps like Duolingo.com, anyone can “try out” any number of languages and perhaps increase your understanding and empathy for people from other countries.