The PD Session

At a recent Professional Development session I was handed an article dealing with vocabulary aquisition written by an academic at the local Universiy, a world renowned expert no less. Being the kind of person I am, I promptly lost the article - I basically resent PD sessions for cutting into my prep and coffee drinking time.

But this article was a reminder of the academic hierarchy of TEFl teaching, people I don't quite understand, because the general consensus on TEFL teachers is you just need a pulse, a 'foreign' looking face and perhaps some patience. All this putting things in files, creating student feedback forms etc. seems superfluous to me - just go in there and teach, as a particulary militant Australian boss of mine was want to say. Anyway, if any of those academics were to stumble over here - I have a good idea for a PHD thesis - 'The difficulty of teaching a classroom composed of Brazilians and Koreans'.

A couple of months ago I asked a Korean girl in an intermediate class a question - she looked at me blankly - I was about to repeat the question in a different way, it being a question along the lines of 'What are you having for lunch?' when a female Brazilian student yelled at the girl 'say something!' Wow, don't say that I thought, they'll really go into their shells. But I was also gratified that somebody had vocalised my very thoughts.

Another incident was not so pleasant for me. Due to school policy I had to deny a young Brazilian lad from going up a class. He had been a happy and vocal member of an otherwise stony faced Korean dominated classroom. After learning he wasn't going up, he refused to talk apart from the odd swear word and emotional outburst. The atmosphere in class was tense, the Koreans felt the tension but didn't seem to comprehend what it was about - they of course then refused to speak - leaving me to fill three hours with my own voice. I felt rather bitter about this, the Brazilain so influential, messing up my job out of misplaced spite. Weeks of nurdling the Koreans to speak in pairs and offer ideas....destroyed

Generally Brazilians are great students - talkative, fast learning and not grammar grunts. However, obviously it doesn't pay to get caught between them and their shock at being stuck in a classroom with a bunch of very impassive types. The passionate Brazilian is no match for Asian reserve, he will crack in no time. It's an interesting cultural phenomenon to observe, the Brazilains I'm sure not having thought about being in such a circumstance before arriving here. The Koreans? Well I have no idea what they think...probably about something to do with TOIEC and transative verbs...