students did not treat English as (studying) English.”
They learned English because it was fun. They didn’t study English for tests.
They learned it because it would be useful in their future. Whether there would be tests or not, they just learned it… Students in Cambodia didn’t have any chances to go into junior high school. But they were still willing to learn English and sang English songs with me.
Mill explained that he had encountered too many tests or exams in his English learning process; although he had become an English teacher, he still needed to pass the entrance exam to get into the graduated school. Learners in Taiwan always study for exams. Compare to the students in Cambodia, “they love useful English
information, like numbers and banknotes,” he said. When he taught them the conception of money, banknotes, numbers, including how to say buy and sell or anything that related to their daily lives, they were willing to learn. “They wanted to learn the phrase－ ‘Thank you.’ because they could use it.” Mill said from this experience, he realized, “If the students do not want to learn what teachers teach, and this kind of teaching is useless.” He wanted to give something useful while teaching.
“As long as the students think it is useful, they can learn it successfully.”
A depressive teacher－Teaching in X children’s English learning buxiban
Mill merely taught in Cambodia for one week; later on, he came back to Taiwan for mandatory military service. Afterwards, he began to work at X, a buxiban with both anchin department and children English learning department (“Anchin”,安親, is an after-school service where students go to buxiban for their homework, and their homework will also be checked by buxiban teachers.) When I asked why he wanted to become a buxiban teacher, he answered, “First, I wanted to make money. Second, school English education
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was excluded from my thought.’ He said, the flexible working schedule was also the reason. He emphasized, “[As a learner] I seldom paid attention to school English class because it was too boring.” However, during the first year working at X, Mill nearly lost his enthusiasm in English teaching.
I taught both anchin and children’s English learning class. In anchin, it was like a game called, “hitting the gopher.” What does that mean? When students began to talk, we (teachers) would punch them on the head. The students were prohibited to talk. It was a torturing job. In children’s English learning class, the students was asked to speak, the more the better. I called it the activity of “pulling the gopher.”
Every time when they dug into the ground, you needed to pull them out and made them speak.
To Mill, that was a torturing job because he needed to play two different kinds of character and he did not like that. Moreover, in the anchin class, he had a lot of
administration work. He had to pick up the phones and contact the students’ parents; he needed to monitor the students’ scores closely and he had to spend extra time teaching students after class. Not being able to adjust, Mill worked there only for one year before he changed to another buxiban.
An enthusiastic teacher－Teaching in Y children’s English learning buxiban
Next, he taught Y children’s English learning buxiban for five years. Compared to X, Mill said he approved the working environment in Y. In Y children’s English learning buxiban, the teachers were asked to teach in English. They were asked to pronounce correctly, speak fluently, and tried to make students understand English-only instruction.The main goal for teachers was to make students listen to English and speak English.
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I spent a lot of time thinking about how to make students understand while preparing for the class. I needed to express the meaning of the English words, phrase or
sentences through my facial expression or action. Sometimes the students did not understand, I needed to pronounce the words in a very exaggerated way or did a very big movement. I also spent time trying to figure out a way to make a reading passage much easier for them.
When Mill encountered any problems, he would reflect on himself first. For
example, when students could not understand what he was talking about, he would think
“I must have done something wrong, so they did not understand.” He cared about students’ feelings a lot and he would pay a lot of attention to those shy kids during the break or before class.
I would tell him or her, “You memorize the vocabulary really well.” “You read quite fluently.” “Wow, you’ve finished your homework and your handwritings are
pretty!” “Oh! Don’t be afraid. I’ll help you. I’ll help you for sure.” “It’s OK. You can whisper. I’ll listen to you. I’ll give you a sticker if you speak.” No matter what happened, I would tell the students, “Let’s do it together!”
“You need to stand in their shoes,” he said. Mill’s teaching style was enthusiastic and caring. Meanwhile, Mill’s oral ability improved a lot because he needed to co-teach with international teachers. However, he told me he faced some challenges while working with them.
Usually, the international teachers only taught what they wanted. They did not care about students’ thoughts. Seldom did them care. Seldom. I kept trying to discuss with them before class about what we were going to bring to our students. Those
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international teachers really didn’t care what they taught, and they just wanted to play games with the students. They usually played games, and picked up one or two things randomly to teach and then left.
In order to deal with this situation, Mill usually needed to prepare a lesson plan before class and then he would try to persuade them to follow his lesson plan. “Although I needed to overcome these situations, I was still willing to teach in Y.” Mill said,
“Teaching in Y children’s English learning buxiban matches well with my own English learning process. I like to learn English in a natural way [learning English in the English environment], so I was willing to compromise [to international teacher].”