According to the experience of studying in urban areas and the years of teaching in aboriginal schools, the researcher found that there are similarities and differences between aboriginal areas and urban areas.
For the differences, it is obvious that the urban areas have sufficient resources in learning English. They have diverse resources like cram schools, online teaching assistance, language learning context and even tutors to expose them in English learning, while in the aboriginal areas, students depend on the school and little learning resources are provided after school.
In the aboriginal schools, students tend to be more distracted by the school activities. We have small population in aboriginal schools but many activities require to find students to attend. As a result, one student may have to participate in activities like performance, sports competition and field trips, which makes them have lees time and energy in the academic work. In contrast, the urban areas have more people so students could take turns to attend the school activities that are required so they would stay more focused on the academic work.
For the parent expectation, the aboriginal parents would more respect the children’s willingness and not push them hard and not emphasize on the academic work. Aboriginal parents tend to be open to accept children to choose what they would like to do. On the contrary, in the urban areas, parents usually like to push their children to be more competitive and lead children to be what they would like them to be.
In terms of the similarities, the aboriginal and urban students all suffer from the tiring activities that the schools or parents require. For aboriginal students, in addition to studying, they might have to sing in a choir, play in a school band, run for a competition or participate in the local activities, which make them so tired. For the Urban students, they may not have to attend as many activities as the aboriginal students but the parents would ask them to go to the cram schools or attend diverse courses in the fear of their children might be less
competitive with other people.
One thing in common between the aboriginal and urban students is that they suffer from the inappropriate English learning policy. Deficient sessions for the English class, less exposure of English learning, subject-oriented teaching and inappropriate evaluation make both the aboriginal and urban students frustrated while learning English.
Suggestions
The present study intended to explore English learning predicaments of disadvantaged elementary school students in the aboriginal areas with regard to disadvantaged background and English academic achievement, and the relationship among them as well. According to the conclusions above, suggestions are made as references for practical use and for future research.
In accordance with the findings in the study, students appeared to have the most
predicaments with regard to parent expectation and involvement, and some of them appeared to have difficulties in the instruction of teachers and school learning environment when we did a descriptive analysis. When the researcher did a difference analysis, the significant difference existed among different English academic achievement levels and disadvantaged backgrounds. Hence, suggestions are made as reference respectively for teachers, schools and parents.
Suggestions for Teachers
The suggestions for elementary school teachers in the aboriginal areas are as follows:
First, the content of the English class should be modified according to the disadvantaged student comprehension capabilities. Based on the statistical result, students with low
achievement had predicaments in the content and course and this indicated that they have problems figuring out the material in class. Furthermore, from the open questions of the questionnaires, students with low achievement reported that they need to practice many times and this suggested that the content seemed not to easy for them. Therefore, revising the material according to the student abilities is helpful to the disadvantaged students.
Second, increasing the exposure time and slowing down the speaking during the instruction might be very helpful. According to the statistical result, the aboriginal students have learning predicament in the teaching and many of them reported that they didn’t have enough time and were unable to follow the speed of talking in class. Thus, the teacher could slow down the speaking in class so that students can comprehend easily. Besides, the teacher should increase more time to help them with practice and to expose them in English so that students could get adept in the content of the class.
Third, it is necessary for teachers to include the cultural input while teaching the language in the class. According to the statistical result, the economically students and low-achievement students had predicament in the cultural factor, which indicated that they had difficulties accepting the foreign culture. Therefore, the teacher could contain more cultural issues in the course to ease the unpleasantness caused by the less of cultural input and strangeness of the students.
Finally, it is necessary for teachers to take into account the students life conditions and the disadvantage backgrounds while giving the assignment. These disadvantaged students may not have more time for practice back home so the teacher could be more creative and flexible when giving the homework. Slowing down the teaching schedule when necessarily for the slow learners might also help.