Teaching English as a Foreigner in Panama

Summary

This video features a talk by Mrs. Mar, a Kansas State University graduate, who moved from the U.S. to Panama to teach English. She shares her insights on the differences between teaching methods in the U.S. and Panama, cultural experiences, and her personal journey with languages. Her passion for storytelling as a teaching method is evident as she underlines the importance of not only learning language structures but using language as a tool for sharing compelling stories. Throughout, she emphasizes the significance of cultural sensitivity and inclusivity in language teaching.

Highlights

• Mrs. Mar shares her background and passion for languages. 📖
• Differences in teaching styles between the U.S. and Panama are explored. 🏫
• Her fears about promoting linguistic imperialism are discussed. 🤔
• The cultural shock she experienced and how she adapted. 🌐
• The discussion about storytelling as a means to teach language. 📚
• Detailed exploration of contractions in English. 🔠
• Interacting with a culturally diverse student group. 🌎
• Handling a concerned parent about cultural loss while learning English. 🗣️

Key Takeaways

• Learning multiple languages opens up new worlds and perspectives. 🌍
• Being sensitive to cultural differences in teaching is crucial. 🎓
• Storytelling can be a powerful tool in language education. 📚
• Contractions in English can be fun and help in informal settings. 😄
• Emphasis on using real-life contexts to make language learning relevant. 🌟

Overview

Mrs. Mar's journey from a language-loving child in Texas to a passionate English teacher in Panama is a testament to the transformative power of language. Growing up, she was deeply fascinated by the ways language could be used to tell stories and connect people across different cultures. 🌟

Teaching in Panama has offered her a new perspective on education systems and cultural practices. She enjoys comparing these experiences with her own upbringing in the U.S., providing a unique view on how cultural differences shape learning environments. 🌏

Despite initial challenges, including cultural misunderstandings and her own fears of inadvertently supporting linguistic imperialism, Mrs. Mar has embraced the opportunity to create an inclusive classroom environment that values both the native language and new language acquisition. She utilizes storytelling extensively to bridge cultural gaps and make learning engaging. 🎤

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction of Speaker The chapter introduces Mrs. Mar, who graduated from Kansas State University in August 2011 and 2013 with a Bachelor's degree in Spanish Literature.
• 01:00 - 03:30: Speaker's Background and Language Journey The chapter introduces a speaker who is pursuing a master's degree at Latina University in P City. She teaches kindergarten and first grade at Jan Bilingual School, a private institution in P City. Although she is originally from the United States, she has developed a strong fondness for Panama, where she has had a positive and enriching experience. The audience is invited to welcome her warmly as she continues her language journey, particularly in learning English.
• 03:30 - 04:30: Teaching Experience in Panama The chapter titled 'Teaching Experience in Panama' begins with the speaker expressing excitement and honor about speaking at a Congress. The speaker acknowledges the audience for attending and plans to share personal experiences. Initially, the speaker intends to repeat a bit of the previous talk, indicating a continuation or elaboration on past discussions.
• 04:30 - 08:10: Differences in Education Systems The speaker shares their personal background, stating they were born in North Texas in 1992. They express a lifelong passion for language study, describing how they engaged with books from an early age, even pretending to read before they actually could. English is identified as their first language.
• 08:10 - 17:00: Using Stories in Teaching The chapter titled 'Using Stories in Teaching' reflects on the author's childhood experiences with language and storytelling. The author shares how their mother used to read them stories, instilling a love for language early on. They emphasize the power of stories to transport and affect people personally. This fascination with language led the author to study Spanish in elementary school, highlighting the integral role stories played in their educational journey and appreciation of languages.
• 17:00 - 27:00: Language, Culture, and Identity The chapter discusses the speaker's educational journey concerning languages and cultural studies. Initially, in middle school, the speaker chose French, believing it to be cooler than Spanish, which they later regretted. By high school, they returned to studying Spanish and continued this path into college, with Spanish becoming their major. The speaker also explored other fields, taking courses in French and theater during their college years, demonstrating a broad interest in modern languages.
• 27:00 - 35:00: Challenges in Teaching English as a Foreigner The chapter "Challenges in Teaching English as a Foreigner" begins with the speaker reminiscing about their academic background in Spanish Literature, which they thoroughly enjoyed. Despite their literature background, they did not take any classes in education and did not initially see themselves as a teacher. However, after graduation, they were presented with the opportunity to teach due to the philanthropic efforts of the Rotary Club. The speaker highlights the unexpected path to their current career in teaching English, underscoring a journey shaped by both personal interests and external opportunities.
• 35:00 - 48:00: Dealing with Pronunciation and Accents In this chapter, the focus is on the importance and impact of learning foreign languages, with a particular emphasis on pronunciation and accents. The speaker expresses gratitude for a group that facilitates language learning, both locally in Panama and internationally. The speaker reflects on their own experience learning Spanish, describing it as an eye-opening journey akin to discovering an alternate universe.
• 48:00 - 60:00: Using Contractions and Informal Language The chapter explores the exhilarating experience of learning new languages. The narrator describes it as opening doors to new worlds, providing an alternate universe for familiar experiences. Through personal anecdotes, the narrator shares the joy and wonder of learning Spanish and French, and expresses a desire to learn Chinese to uncover yet another linguistic universe. The chapter emphasizes the transformative and expansive nature of language learning.
• 60:00 - 69:00: Engaging Students Through Fun Language Stories The chapter titled 'Engaging Students Through Fun Language Stories' highlights the transformative power of language, emphasizing how it opens doors to new and exciting worlds. The speaker reflects on personal teaching experiences and the excitement those opportunities offer. The chapter also discusses professional collaborations, particularly with a supervisor from the Panama Central Region, enhancing the teaching and learning environment.
• 69:00 - 77:30: Encouraging Language Play and Avoiding Meta Language The speaker talks about their experience visiting various schools in the Central Region, learning about the education system, and teaching English. Despite their short duration in the country, they find the experience educational and valuable. The focus of the chapter is on discussing the differences observed in the educational systems.
• 77:30 - 82:00: Integrating Culture in Language Teaching The chapter discusses the differences between language learning experiences in the US and those observed in a different context as a teacher. The speaker intends to share personal insights in a brief manner, focusing on language nuances and invites questions from the audience to tailor the discussion to their needs. The emphasis is on interactive engagement to address specific queries of the learners.

Teaching English as a Foreigner in Panama Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 I'm going to introduce uh Mrs Mar me she's uh a graduat from Kansas State University in August 2011 and in 2013 with a B in Spanish Literature and it's
• 00:30 - 01:00 currently working towards a master's degree T in at Latina University in P City she teaches kindergarten and first grade at Jan Bilingual School at private school in P City she's a native from the United States but loves Panama and has had a wonderful experience here uh let's just welcome her with a warm Applause please the learning Engish again my
• 01:00 - 01:30 experience is a okay that's your yeah my um hello everyone I am very very excited to be here in and to be I'm very honored to be speaking at this Congress today um I want to thank you all for coming to listen so first I'm going to share a little bit about myself repeat just a little bit of what was there so
• 01:30 - 02:00 that you know um about me in terms of my background and some of the perspectives that I have for for this um so I was born in north Texas in 1992 which was really not that long ago and language study has been my passion for as long as I can remember when I was growing up I read books all the time before I was even before I even could read I would flip through books and pretend that I was reading right I love language and English was the first language that I
• 02:00 - 02:30 fell him up with because it was my native language um my mother read to me all the time in a lot of my school Lang books reading stories um it was a big part of my life as a young child and it always just amazed me how language can transport someone and the stories that you can tell and the power that language has to affect us as individuals um so when I was in elementary school I started studying Spanish because it was a part of our
• 02:30 - 03:00 curriculum in Texas and I had a weak moment in middle school where foolishly I thought that French would be cooler to study which obviously was not the case so thankfully in high school I went back to Spanish and um in college I actually started that was my major there was I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do in college so I took a lot of classes I took French Classes I took theater classes my major was Modern languages
• 03:00 - 03:30 with anasis in uh Spanish Literature and I loved that and I'm glad that was what I got um but I actually never took any education classes I never imagined that I would be a teacher that I would be here today so um when I graduated though I had the wonderful opportunity to come here and teach because of the philanthropy of the Rotary Club I don't know if you are familiar with it but
• 03:30 - 04:00 more it's a wonderful group and they do really wonderful things um here in Panama and internationally so they're the reason that I'm here I'm really thankful for that um I said a lot of these things already in the in my introduction so I just want to say that I believe that learning foreign languages is the best experience that you can have I remember when I first started studying Spanish and being able to really understand and read it it was like this whole new alternate universe
• 04:00 - 04:30 had opened up to me like this door was opening into another world I already knew the whole world as it was experienced in English and then all of a sudden all of these things that I knew they could suddenly be experienced in another language in Spanish it was like this wonderful uh alternate universe it's very it's a wonderful experience and a similar thing happened when I started learning French and I would really like to sombody start learning Chinese because I I just want to see what's behind that next door right what
• 04:30 - 05:00 new world is out there for us because that's what language does it opens doors to other alternate worlds it's really exciting um okay oh in addition to all the experiences that she's mentioned teaching here and I'm also studying at B I've had the wonderful opportunity to work with M last who is the um supervisor of the Panama control English Network yeah the Panama Central Region sorry we go um anyways and he has given
• 05:00 - 05:30 me the opportunity to visit a lot of the schools here um in in the P Central Region which has been wonderful to get to learn about the the um the educational system here and so I don't know a lot because I've only been here for a little while but um I have really enjoyed what I've gotten from Lear about the educational system here and the English teaching system here in this country it's been really educational so what I'm going to talk about today is a couple of the differences that I've seen
• 05:30 - 06:00 between the way that things were done in the US when I was learning as a learner and the things that I've seen here as a teacher um and I'm also going to talk about some fun language stuff as say but I believe I'm gonna try not to talk too long because I believe that the way that I can be most useful to you is to answer questions that you have I think that you know what you need from me more than I do so I'm going to talk for a bit and then I really hope that you will have questions things that you might want to ask a speaker because I believe that's
• 06:00 - 06:30 the number one qualification that I have for being here in speaking today is that I'm a native speaker um so I hope that I can be of service to you in that capacity before I move on I just want to share with you I'm going to be kind of open and honest about something I want to share one of my greatest fears as a teacher here in Panama when I first got here I started looking for on the internet community of other Americans or
• 06:30 - 07:00 British people who had gone and as foreigners were teaching English in other countries and I found one man in particular who had written a Blog that was really worrisome to me because he talked about he had he had taught in China and he developed a very strong opinion that anyone who goes as a foreigner into another country and teaches English is supporting A system that oppresses the the native language
• 07:00 - 07:30 of that area and basically that is promoting linguistic imperialism and this is a very strong opinion that stated very powerfully and it it Disturbed me I I worried that I don't want to be a part of that I don't want to be a part of a system that is telling people that their own language isn't valuable and as I was thinking about it i' I've heard people I I heard a quote from a 12-year-old girl in China who was studying English and she said that if
• 07:30 - 08:00 you don't speak English it's like you are mute and deaf and that is not true I don't want to be communicating that idea that your own language isn't valuable because it is all of the languages in this this world are so valuable for communication and they open up doors to us every woman we can learn that speak communicates and it has this beautiful thing to it so I don't want to be a part of that and that is my greatest fear
• 08:00 - 08:30 coming here as I don't have a lot of experience here in p and mostly I'm just an American who speaks English and I want to share that you know the experiences that I've had from that but I don't want to say that that English that you have to learn English to be successful because that's not true lots of people here in Panama don't speak English and they're successful so I just want to put that out there and be really honest with you guys um that that's one fear I have and I want to be sure that
• 08:30 - 09:00 that's not something that I'm promoting that Spanish is a beautiful valuable language I love it I think it's wonderful it's opened up doors to me so when I first got here to Panama I had this idea in my head that somehow I was too educated and too experienced as I've traveled before to experience culture shock I now know that that was a sign of the lack of experience I have because everyone can experience culture talkot on some level and I'm going to share with you some of of the things that I
• 09:00 - 09:30 experienced here that really surprised me and startled me or made me a little bit uncomfortable even so um one of the first things that I experienced that really startled me um was when I heard I started teaching and I heard how the teachers would interact with the students there's very different social codes in here as opposed to here as to in the us um about how about the words that we use and a lot of times I would hear things in Spanish and I would
• 09:30 - 10:00 just translate them into English but they're not the same you know and I will give you an example of that I heard one of my teachers and this happens all the time actually now but the first time it happened it really startled me one of the teachers of the school referred to as student as C and I was like because in my head I translated it to Fat okay in English we do not say fat we do not call people fat it is it is an insult and it is rude and we do not call children fat and my instinct was to run
• 10:00 - 10:30 to the child and be like no that's not true you're not fat don't worry don't believe that it's not true you're perfect just the way you are and silly things like that right now I know that that's not what Goro means Goro it can be turn it's something that everyone says to each other right but don't call me f but not that so um one other thing that I
• 10:30 - 11:00 experienced the US is a very uh politically correct place there's a lot of worrying about being gent the child's feelings and part of that you know the and um always being positive positive you're never allowed to say anything negative I have a friend who works at a uh a preschool and there they're never allowed to tell the child no you can't tell the child don't do that you can't tell the child stop you have to use other words you have to say
• 11:00 - 11:30 um we don't write on the walls of crowns we don't do that oh no no they can't even say that crowns are for writing on paper that's the way they have to phrase everything that way in a positive way and so that's the culture that is coming from this is very like it has to be positive it has to be 100% that way and I heard one time teachers the teachers here are very upfront with their students and they'll say things like this work this is just not good this is this is ugly they'll say this is
• 11:30 - 12:00 this is not good I expect better of you right and it really struggled me to hear teachers be so honest with their students but I really think that that is a valuable thing that we are lacking in the US that kind of honesty and it creates this idea that oh I can do anything and it'll be fine like I don't have to put forth more effort what I have exactly without any try is fine and that's not true so I really that's something really valuable that I've learned from the culture here that being honest can um cultivate this idea of working harder
• 12:00 - 12:30 and trying harder and doing more than just the best that I can do right now in this moment without cying because you can always do better so I think that was a really cool thing that I got um one other difference that I found I didn't before I came to Panama I hadn't really ever thought of using dictations in an English class I actually didn't really know what a dictation was we don't go L
• 12:30 - 13:00 and there's something here that is also a lot less common that we use all the time in us which is storytelling bols reading story things classes that's a huge thing reading stor and so I think it's interesting this dichotomy of the the um I keep want use this the dictations which are much more oral and um it's about hearing it and knowing exactly what you're hearing right whereas the focus in the US is more
• 13:00 - 13:30 reading and um it's about looking at it and being able to see and write more visually so I thought that was really interesting and it's definitely something that I'm going to take in my future teaching experiences I want to be able to use things like dictations for students that are more um oral and want to hear that kind of so I'm really excited about learning that and I also want to share with you because you guys know about thetion so I want to share with you kind of what we do in the US
• 13:30 - 14:00 with reading and stories and why I think that that's valuable too so maybe I'll take dictations and maybe you can get something out what I have to share too um in the US you cannot walk into an elementary school without find like piles of books everywhere something that we do now books here are kind of expensive and they're hard to get a hold of and something else that I found really interesting is that when people talk about books here in Panama any like using the word Books A lot of times they
• 14:00 - 14:30 mean textbooks this is just a linguistic difference for me if I mean a textbook I say textbook if I mean a book if I say book I mean story like a story book right and so that's just kind of a linguistic difference too and I think it's reflected in schools we talk all yeah we use books you know they need text books and I think stories are really valuable for us as language teachers I'm going to tell you why um to me the purpose of language is storytelling
• 14:30 - 15:00 everything that we do with language is storytelling right now I'm telling you a story I'm telling you my story and when we come home from work and we talk to our wives or our husbands we tell them stories right we tell them oh this crazy thing happened at work today this person was being terrible one of my kids cut off her hair at CL in class and I almost cried right it's a short story but it tells a lot that's how we communicate
• 15:00 - 15:30 and so I think when we use stories with our children in class we're communicating to them that this is the purpose of language this is why we're learning English it's not you know it's not just so that we can get a good job and just so that we can you know move up in life it's so that we can tell stories and so that we can communicate right this is the purpose of all language in Spanish and English I believe so I think a big part of the
• 15:30 - 16:00 reason that teachers here don't use stories a lot is um they don't really feel like they have their resources because books are expensive right but stories don't have to be in books right so I want to tell you I want to give you just a few of the resources that I've used here because I can't go out by a library tool of books either a few of the resources that I've used here to tell stories to my children and one of them is um we give books.org which
• 16:00 - 16:30 are books on the internet there's a lot of sources of children's books on the internet with pictures and they're really fun we give books.org is a really great one they have a lot of good children's books out there and you just sign up it's totally free um and you can find books that fit the lessons that you're teaching I was teaching my kids about animals very young kids right kindergarten in first grade I was teaching them about animals and I found a book on weed books it's the story of how the elephant got his trunk and I
• 16:30 - 17:00 don't know if you know the story but the elephant uh didn't have a trunk and one day he went to sleep by the river and the crocodile jumped out and grabbed him by the nose and all the other animals helped pull him back to save him from the crocodile and his his no he this trunk right it's a really fun story and I've told it to the kids mostly in in Spanish and I have the pictures up here CU I have a projector things I put up on my computer and I showed the pictures and the kids would get so excited when
• 17:00 - 17:30 they saw the the elephant's trunk growing they were all just like oh my goodness oh my goodness and in the book it says longer and longer right so that's a word that they know so I read them that part in English longer and longer and they were just like so excited so that's one resource that you can use to tell stories and you can mix it up do some Spanish so they understand and some english you can do it all in English whatever you think is most valuable um there's a few other websites if you want talk to me afterwards I can tell you some of the resources that I
• 17:30 - 18:00 found to find books on online um but say that you're doing a unit on something that you can't find a book for anywhere on the Internet or you have a story that you want to tell maybe a hand reading folklore something like that um that you know that the kids already know and you want to relate it to them in English right but you can't find that on the internet what I would encourage you to do is actually build a PowerPoint with some pictures so that you can show them
• 18:00 - 18:30 and just tell them the story right that just went through it and tell them the story in English man if you want to do it um one time same that we were working on animals I was in kindergarteners they're so small and they're so easily distracted right it's hard to keep their attention and so I was flipping through the pictures and we were trying to like we act out the animals and I told them what it was called it was and um they had told me that they wanted to learn how to say unicorn right so I included unicorn in our animal unit I know that's not technically correct
• 18:30 - 19:00 but I included unicorns and I found this picture on the internet of a unicorn that looks really realistic they just like took a horse Pi a picture of horse and put a corn on it it looks really great like it's a legitimate unicorn so um I showed him this picture and I don't know why but it just occurred to me the moment I was like Hey kids I took this picture I took this picture of a unicorn I met a unicorn got guys this unicorn saved my
• 19:00 - 19:30 life I was like this unicorn saved my life and they were all like their eyes got so big and they were just like what tell us the story so I was like I was walking in the woods I told him SP I was walking in the woods one day and I was looking at the beautiful trees and the flowers and suddenly out of nowhere a bear appeared this huge scary bear appeared and it started running at me and it was going to attack me and the kids are just like right they're so excited they're so interested and I was like but out of
• 19:30 - 20:00 nowhere this unicorn came and I was like acting out I was like this unicorn show up and he ran at the bear to charged the bear and the Unicorn attacked the bear and saved my life and then I took this picture as it was running away right because that's what I was worried about if I just got ATI my be and the kids were so excited they had these huge eyes and the next day we were I was looking for this picture we were asking them out and when we got to unicorn they
• 20:00 - 20:30 were like tell us the story tell us the story about the unicorn and now all they never forget the word bear and they never forget the word unicorn they're going to know those words forever so that's one way that you can use stories to um even if you don't have books stories can be oral and stories can be panaman they can be um cultural and you can give them in English and say English relates to you where you are um English can be a part of culture who you
• 20:30 - 21:00 are so yeah um that those are the two main differences that I wanted to share with you guys and now I'm going to talk a little bit about some questions that I've gotten about English while here I talked to a lot of people of varying English levels and English and I found that the most common questions I get are about contractions because contractions are really fun right when I was learning Spanish they told me that Spanish is Liv hard because a lot of times the vowels
• 21:00 - 21:30 blend together the same things like um and they just two A's just p in right together so when you're learning it can be hard but um I think in English we have something even more strong which is the contraction because with a contraction you can take out a whole like almost the entirety of a word right you have a whole word like not that means a negative all of that meaning of negative is in the word not and you can take away almost the entire word and all
• 21:30 - 22:00 of the meaning that was in not suddenly exists in the sound right all of that meaning is now reduced to the sound which can be very very difficult to hear but it's also a wonderful thing the contraction it makes things very effective and English speakers love contractions we like to invent new ones just to confuse you um and so a lot of the ones that I use they're not they're not technically correct right but if
• 22:00 - 22:30 you're speaking with native English speakers I can guarantee that you'll hear some of these contractions so one of them that I use a lot is gim I use this a lot with the students um give me that give me that which is give me and it's just the the V getting dropped ites give me give me that give me that give me that um and it's not really a conscious thing it's just they flow together like right um G is another one I'm not exactly sure
• 22:30 - 23:00 how GNA ended up being what it is but that's going to I wanted to put these up here for you but I don't have an adapter for my computer to right but gun g n n is how we would spell that so let going to this is one of my favorites because it's actually a contraction of a contraction I'm a say it like I'mma do that later yeah I'm I'm G be there soon
• 23:00 - 23:30 and it's I'm going to so it's like two contractions that got smashed together have you ever heard anyone say I'm do that yeah they're difficult it all just get that's like four words that just get smashed together into you hear I'm I'm going to be late I'm going be late I'm sorry I'm G be late I'm g go
• 23:30 - 24:00 over time I don't know um this is one of my favorites and it has a lot of variant you know say I don't know I don't know don't ask me I don't know and I tends to say I know but there's lots of people who will just say know right have you ever heard that that's a pretty good one I have a friend who will say like that with an L instead of the D
• 24:00 - 24:30 I don't understand what that is but that's something that'll happen too and my personal favorite is y'all yall ever heard that one y y'all Y y'all right okay so in English we don't have a plural U right which is we don't have an in which is a really terrible thing it's a it's it's really um cumbersome to lack a plural you um problematic and we used to have one but just disappeared someday
• 24:30 - 25:00 and so we've done a lot of things to try and fix that people will say you guys guys you all and in the South where I'm from we say y'all which is you all and then push together right y'all you got to say kind draw y'all how y'all doing so um those are a few fun contractions I just thought it'd be fun to share with you guys because as I've been here those
• 25:00 - 25:30 are the things that I have gotten the most questions about is contractions just words getting smashed together so it's been a lot of fun being here in Panama and learning about pananian culture and learning about teaching English and learning about English learning about my own language has been a wonderful experience for me and I really want to thank you all for coming here and listening to me and I hope that what I can do is answer any questions that you have that I can just make
• 25:30 - 26:00 myself available to you for education related questions right and English related questions um for anything that you feel like a native speaker would be able to help you with so that's what I want to do right now is just open the floor to any questions you might have question what I'm telling my here that I hear that when you said g you call it inform she talk that way about friends yeah you say G you don't got it informal well I say that they're
• 26:00 - 26:30 contractions because they are essentially taking two words and putting them together they're definitely not formal contractions and I said that at the beginning they're not correct usage but they're things that if you speak with native speakers they're going to use and I say that they're contractions because essentially they are you take out bits of words and you push them together and the meaning that used to exist in a whole entire word now exists in just a sound like but I don't know if it's um I mean we have spelling
• 26:30 - 27:00 contest we actually have cont in the whole country and when the pronouncer was saying the word uh sometimes the word the way he said it is not the way I learn it so in that case like if I have my my student and I was teaching him the word this way but then the pronouncer said it his way he got lost confused yeah and then um it
• 27:00 - 27:30 happened with a word that I actually don't know if if if it was okay A little girl said the word was diamond diamond and then he he didn't say that they diamond and I was like where did he get this from yeah with a te at and the boy was looking and then and then I was like that's not the way knows it so he got confused so what
• 27:30 - 28:00 can you tell us about these kind of mistakes can we call them mistakes M don't I don't like to call issues mistakes because English is at this point in the world spoken by more second language speakers than by native speakers we probably know that um and that's changing the way we speak it um there's more I'm trying to remember the statistic there's more English speakers in Asia than there are in I think it's
• 28:00 - 28:30 Asia in the Middle East than there are in England and the US so the majority of English speakers don't speak English the way I do um and so to say that pronouncing it you have to pronounce it the way an American does or you have to pronounce it the way a British person does um isn't exactly right now these kinds of things happen these confusions happen but it's not necessarily because one person is pronouncing it right and the other person is pronouncing it wrong it's just
• 28:30 - 29:00 that we're not really familiar with the language enough yet to say um to know those little differences you know and so the child is sure of this words it's pronounced diamond right and so when they hear that little difference a native speaker will hear that that difference and they'll say oh that's diamond right because it couldn't be anything else but the child is still learning and so they hear that and they get confused but that's not necessarily the fault of the speaker it's just something that we're all learning and we need to
• 29:00 - 29:30 be open to those variations and as you're learning it's a lot easier to learn one variation right when I was studying Spanish I couldn't understand Cubans Cubans are impossible to understand still for me I have trouble understanding Cubans but they speak Spanish wonderfully right they speak Spanish correctly there's nothing wrong with the way they speak Spanish um and so it's a delicate thing but I really want to encourage you not to get hung up on pronunciation and details like that and because it ends up being something that people bite about and they say no
• 29:30 - 30:00 this is the right way to say it this is the right way to say it um and the important thing is that we communicate and if we're if it's really difficult when you're first starting to learn but it's better not say this is the right told me but do you have an accent like yeah accents are fine I have an accent accents are great things they're fun they add character to the way that we speak um I love Spanish accents when people
• 30:00 - 30:30 speak English and I mean Antonio bandanas he's famous for his accent that's like why he's famous in the United States he has an awesome accents are wonderful and don't let anyone ever tell you that your accent is a bad thing um they act they're who they're a part of who we are so the the end of the story is that the boy got kicked out of the contest because so the spell B that he got like confused so in one way the teacher his uh uh coach was mad because he said that's not you know and then it
• 30:30 - 31:00 was kind of like a difficult situation because we we were like assist in the contest and they like do something I cannot do anything you know like and I definitely I understand people getting frustrated about it but the truth is the person who pronounced the word diamond with the T at the end didn't pronounce it wrong you can't say that's not the way work um and so the student just wasn't at the point where they could understand that and that's UNT because it's a low like you're at a lower level
• 31:00 - 31:30 you're still learning so that's unfortunate but it's not really the pronouncer fault I believe person
• 31:30 - 32:00 encouraging us to use contractions as
• 32:00 - 32:30 much as possible I want to ask what about those questions I mean those words that comes from phrases used to take us the first or two first word letters I mean on those word like as soon as possible say as uhhuh um well I'm not necessarily saying that you should use contractions as much as possible I'm saying these are contractions that English speakers use
• 32:30 - 33:00 and we like contractions but if you don't there are a few people they've actually done studies that um firstborn children use contractions less than than like later children is that interesting so there are some people who will say I cannot do that and like say out the whole thing and that's okay if you prefer to speak that way um but I definitely think it's good to give your students EXP exposure to both kinds of speaking you know and give them
• 33:00 - 33:30 exposure to um contractions and things like that that aren't necessarily correct and let me think about the question exactly about using things like ASAP um I think that's really up to you especially language like that you're going to hear it a lot in television things like that and muchal um yeah it's definitely more
• 33:30 - 34:00 informal like ASAP but I think that our students should should get exposure to informal language as well as formal language um that they should get to hear both of that I have a friend who I'm talking to um who has been studying English for a long time and he wants to be a doctor so he's studing English and but he hasn't ever heard like any of the slain terms that I use so he'd always be like wait what does that mean what does that mean and after I've been talking to him for a
• 34:00 - 34:30 while he said man English is so much cooler when you use those words and so I think it's something that you can give your students as like this is a fun thing to say right this is something that you can say that's fun and so maybe like let them know that you know saying ASAP isn't correct but you can let them know this is the fun way to say and maybe even like now I'm getting excited you could even have like a unit of like fun language and let them know this is the language you use if you're just talking with friends if you're on the internet right internet language in
• 34:30 - 35:00 English because did you know 80% of the of the material on the Internet is in English I just learned that recently an enormous amount which surprises me because everyone contributes to the internet but an enormous amount of the material that's out there is in English and so it's really helpful your students that play video games a lot of them probably play video games online with people who speak English and to maybe find some of those terms and say these are fun like fun terms that you can use if you're talking to someone um in an
• 35:00 - 35:30 informal situation like ASAP get there ASAP like that right so they're familiar with it and maybe they can know formal ter yeah because not a real story right no yeah I that what about kid ask after teacher is this true or because you know when you tell them something they go home and they tell their friends just
• 35:30 - 36:00 said okay well that's a good point it's not a true story and I didn't tell them that it wasn't a true story um I guess that's kind of a moral dilemma really more than anything because technically I am lying to them um I think that it's one of those things like I don't know you tell your children about Santa Claus or um things like that fairy tales and like they never no it's not really true but and as they get older they're like oh my teacher told me that when I was a
• 36:00 - 36:30 that's not true you know I think personally I think it's one of those things that's kind of harmless and I'm pretty sure my children know that unicorns are not real like I think that they know that um and so they should have a basis to know that this story is you know just made up that it's a fun story and then it's not necessar so I hope that they don't go home and just like devote their lives to hunting unicorns or
• 36:30 - 37:00 something I'll think about that maybe yeah next time we get back to classes I'll be like hey guys I got to call you something I have a confession it's a good um the bir be is something that we always be going to be using kids always
• 37:00 - 37:30 forget sometimes even you that's the first thing that you should give them to the class so what techniques or what methodolog would you use to teach the thpy okay I had a really fun class at Latina with Professor aloh Ruiz I don't know if any of you are familiar with him he's a wonderful professor and he talked about how to teach grammar and so I'm going to share with you his perspective um which is that we don't ever tell them we're learning the verb to be what we do
• 37:30 - 38:00 is we use it and we give them examples to use it and that it should be always very specific that um so for example in if you're doing a lesson about animals well you'll specifically Target we'll say this is a monkey and you'll have them use that this is a monkey right and you'll focus on the verb this is right a monkey and so so you give them chances to use it and then like these are
• 38:00 - 38:30 monkeys right and so they can see the difference but without ever telling them because his philosophy and a philosophy that is very prominent right now and that I personally believe in is that children and Learners language Learners don't need to know meta language they don't need to know things like conjugate they don't need to know what that word means um and they don't need to know what you know an adverb is or or even how like find um prepositional phrases
• 38:30 - 39:00 but they don't need to know that um and so they just need to hear it and use it right like nouns pronouns they when yeah they don't need to know metal language right and so there are some people who disagree with that I personally think that it's true that when you're first starting to learn language especially with young kids because they already don't have that metal language in there in Spanish right so but um so yeah that's what I would recommend is just use it and I think that learning language should
• 39:00 - 39:30 always be kind of like play it should always be kind of fun and um there's definitely like some you know Brokenness to it but there should be an element of fun and that's where you introduce things like Grammer the first time that they hear it shouldn't be this is the verb to be and this is how you conjugate it the first time they should hear it would be in use when you're using it and you're saying this is and these are you know so that is my perspective on that and some credit to
• 39:30 - 40:00 Mr so thank youcome I to find
• 40:00 - 40:30 okay what I would say in that circumstance is if you could find ways to show her and show the student that Elish can be pan that Elish doesn't have to be American or British English um things like connecting it to culture um teaching about Panama in English um telling folklore in English
• 40:30 - 41:00 and kind of talk to the mother about that because that is a legitimate concern that someone can have to say I don't want to lose my culture and I don't want my child to lose their culture by learning English so I think you have to definitely say you have to recognize the emotion that is there the the connection that is there and you have to um you have to respect that definitely and also try and communicate
• 41:00 - 41:30 that that is not your goal that you do not want to destroy that person's culture or to devalue that person's culture in any way you just want to help them open up new worlds to them as new ways of understanding their own culture as I've been learning Spanish and learning French I've learned new things about my own language I have learned English better by studying Spanish than I did by taking English classes because because it helps you the way that you learn it is just it's really good for
• 41:30 - 42:00 you so if you can try and kind of communicate that that it's yeah yeah definitely parents are one of those things that I think with new well I hope so I hope you can have to talk with her and respect she coming from and kind of may help see where you're coming from that's not your I
• 42:00 - 42:30 hope