ESL Cultural Differences/Expectations Tutoring Techniques

Not Fitting In Think about the non-academic challenges your ESL students face. Often they experience the following: difficulty setting up their utilities, being taken advantage of by a landlord, not understanding how to get a checking account, feeling like their classmates will think they are stupid if they talk in class because they can’t express their ideas as eloquently in English as in their native tongue.

Discrimination Some students may feel discriminated against for various reasons. (Think back to 9/11 and your students from the Middle East—did they feel like they were treated or even looked at differently?)

Stereotyping Sometimes a student may experience stereotyping. Chinese students struggling in math sometimes express their frustration that their classmates go to them for help assuming they’re good at math. Japanese students sometimes express resentment that they are expected to be working hard without any recreation. Indian students sometimes express anger that they are expected to be able to solve any computer problem.

External Issues In addition to all this, these students may be experiencing homesickness or poverty. Many of our ESL students can’t afford to return home for many months or sometimes several years. I recently had a graduate student who hadn’t been home to China in over 10 years! Many of these students have restrictions on how much or whether they can work while they are here so they may not have any source of revenue either. They are sometimes ineligible for financial aid or loans too.

Returning Home All of the preceding examples serve to show how international ESL students may not feel like they fit in while at their college or university, but what happens when they return home on their first summer break?

Not Fitting in at Home Many ESL students return from their first trip home feeling out of sorts. They feel they no longer fit in back home. Have you ever returned to your parents’ home and looked at your family from a new perspective? Sometimes certain aspects of American culture (or cultures) may inspire international ESL students to look at their home in a different way. I’ve heard some students say their family says “Oh, you’re only saying that because you think you’re American just because you go to school in the U.S.”

Neither Here Nor There If the ESL student isn’t quite American nor quite a member of their native land, how do they self-identify now and how does this impact the tutoring session?

The Impact on the Tutoring Session When ESL students aren’t supported emotionally or feel like they don’t fit in, like anyone else they may start to feel depressed. A depressed student is one not as eager to learn.

Forming a New Identity While the tutoring session’s primary goal is to improve the ESL student’s English, we are in a unique position to help them with the cultural issues they are experiencing. Both goals can be simultaneously accomplished through techniques such as storytelling.

Storytelling During ESL tutoring sessions, one technique a tutor may employ is to have the student tell a story about their experience. While they tell their story the tutor stops them after something doesn’t make sense, demonstrates how to speak the phrase or the proper grammar, has the student repeat this, then asks the student to continue telling their story.

The Story About Home A tutor may have the student describe what home is like for them. If the student gets stuck the tutor should ask leading questions such as “Did you attend a strict high school or one that was very relaxed?” or “Tell me something about each member of your family.”

The Story About School Another story idea is to have the student tell a story about something that happened since they’ve been at school. For example they can talk about what they’re learning in one of their classes.

Shock v. Exchange What’s in it for the student: they are practicing speaking English, listening to English and conversational skills. This will help build confidence for speaking aloud in class and for understanding the professor. They are also sharing part of their cultural identity with their tutor. This can help them feel like there is a cultural exchange—not just a culture shock.

DVDs & ESL Students generally love movies. A great exercise for building cultural understanding while working on ESL skills is for the tutor and student to watch a DVD together. (If you don’t have a standard DVD player and TV, many computers now play DVDs and many DVDs offer an English subtitle feature so the student can read along.) As cultural or linguistic questions arise, the student can pause the movie and ask the tutor. The tutor can pause the movie as well to ask the student to mimic a particular dialogue. Obviously discretion is recommended for appropriate movie selections.

Role-Plays Often it is helpful to role-play a particular scenario with the student. The tutor can role- play as a bank teller, a professor, a patient (useful if the student is studying to become a healthcare professional), etc.

Music Song exchanges are a fun technique for both tutor and student. The student plays a recording of one of their favorite songs in their native language and explains what the song is saying. The tutor then plays a recording of one of their favorite songs and asks the student to interpret what the lyrics mean. Instead of just listening to what is being said, the student has to think about meaning.

Poetry Poems, like songs, can be an interesting way for students to work on their English processing skills. Through reciting poems the student can work on prosody and through interpretation they work on multiple meanings of English words.

Reading Tutors may have students read magazine articles out loud, correcting them as they read. Magazines are a great way for students to learn about contemporary American culture— the good and the bad. This can then lead to a discussion which reinforces conversational skills.

Idiom Books A note on the use of idiom books: when tutors use these with students they can ask what expressions the student uses in their native language. This usually leads to an interesting cultural knowledge exchange and keeps the session fun.

The Same, the Different, The Good, and The Bad Another discussion topic for tutor and student can be the similarities and differences of their home culture and their school culture. Sometimes students realize there is more in common than they initially thought. This realization can be comforting to someone who feels like they don’t fit in.

Forming a New Identity Above all else, what’s most important is that the tutor supports the student in whatever they express regarding adapting to a new way of life. The tutoring session may be the only opportunity for the international ESL student to feel such emotional support. This will hopefully help the student form a new identity for themselves.

Conclusion Tutoring sessions provide unique opportunities for ESL students to engage in cultural knowledge exchanges. Tutors can help the student feel emotionally supported while at school and can help build their confidence when out in the real world. Be creative and come up with your own techniques both in tutor training and tutoring! Good luck!