Culturally Responsive Teaching for ESL Students
Culturally responsive teaching is the idea that our students come from a variety of backgrounds, and have a variety of stories. To be a culturally responsive teacher, you must not only recognize this, but endorse it and make space in your classroom for unique behaviors and literacies (Gay, 2018). I am reminded of the importance of bending the ‘traditional academic classroom’ to benefit my students each day.
This morning, I was chatting with a fellow teacher about challenges in teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) students. This teacher, David, is frequently being pushed past what he considers polite or reasonable by their students, so we traded stories, ideas, and solutions. In this blog I will examine some common issues that are manifested in the classroom which come from globalization and the influx of needing to accommodate many students from many different cultures and continents in both our writing and teaching. Similarly to Dopson (2018), even though we aren’t talking about social media, we need to be clear, interactive, and current in order to be successful ESL teachers. By the way, David is my fiance (pictured below).
Our Teaching Contexts
David and I both teach at Northern Arizona University (so, adults). I teach at the Program in Intensive English (PIE), which is a sheltered instruction program for ESL students (sheltered instruction meaning that the students are ‘sheltered’ from American students and are in ESL only classes). I teach English 105, the freshman composition class, to these ESL students who are all from China. I also teach a reading support course for ESL students at the PIE. My class size is 14. In English 105, I have a strictly controlled course where I am given major assignments, rubrics, and my syllabus. I am required to follow these items, but the day-to-day teaching is up to me. In my reading support course, I made my own syllabus, grading criteria, calendar, and assignments. To learn more about my teaching context, please see my blogs 1 and 3. See a picture of the 100 year old building that I teach in below!
David taught in this same program last year, but is currently teaching a one-on-one tutoring class titled English 107, which pairs with the university freshman composition course titled English 105 that I teach. In English 107, David works for 1 hour a week with ESL students who are getting help for their English 105 courses. He has complete control over each lesson, and negotiates with the students on what the topic of the lesson should be. The goals of David’s English 107 class are to help the students succeed in English 105 and to build writing skills in general. David additionally tutor’s Chinese children online through a program called VIPKID in a very strictly controlled environment. Both of David’s contexts will come up in my blog.
In addition to the differences in our class structure, our main difference is that David’s students are not in ‘sheltered’ instruction; they are ESL students in classes with American students. This is because their test scores were a bit higher than my students, and David’s students were deemed able to perform with American classmates while mine were not. In theory, David’s students should be more prepared for English 105, and should have higher proficiencies. David’s Chinese children through VIPKID are a vastly different audience and customer.
As ESL teachers, we must adapt to a variety of global expectations and cultural norms to be successful and reach our students. Additionally, we have to constantly negotiate our roles in the classroom with our students as each culture has a vastly different definition of ‘teacher’, and how to treat teachers in general. I’ll discuss a few cultural issues that David and I have had and weave these stories in with class readings and outside research.
Story One: The Student Who Wants Too Much
Any time I speak to a new ESL teacher, especially one who is teaching students from China, Taiwan, Japan, or Vietnam, there is a common conversation that occurs. I call this conversation ‘the student who wants too much’.
The student could be from a range of proficiencies or grades. I’ll begin with my most current story and will bring in the story that David told as well.
Allie’s Story
I was at home, preparing for a nice Saturday morning. As a graduate student, I have tons of work to do and just thinking about it was making me anxious. I was thankful for the clause in my syllabus that I do not respond to student emails on weekends.
My phone buzzed with the single vibrate tone that signals an email. I check it quickly, as I still have to respond to other types of emails, and see a student name. The email is labeled “URGENT!!!!!”. I roll my eyes and open it. The email says something like this:
“Hello Ms. Clark, I need to meet you today to go over my paper. I am worried about my grade. We should get coffee so you can read my paper tonight at 6 PM”
I immediately get angry. I waited to respond to the student until I calmed down a bit. It’s not like I was angry, but I wasn’t happy. Perhaps shocked is the word?
Anyway, I told the student kindly but firmly that this is not appropriate behavior, and to NEVER email teachers with this type of request. I explain that I am happy to look at their paper in office hours. The student apologized profusely over the next week and brought coffee to my office.
I don’t even drink coffee, but it was sweet.
David’s Story (as paraphrased by me!)
I was getting some work done yesterday when I got a really frantic email from a student. They had attached their entire paper for English 105 and emailed it to me with a long list of instructions for what I needed to fix.
They gave me a due date of 6 PM that day, and emailed me the paper at noon. What, do they think I am an editor? This is outside of my job and I don’t get paid for weekend work.
I get that they are stressed about this paper but it was just so rude and condescending that they would even try this. The deadline made me so angry. Why would they treat me like an employee? I am their teacher!
I haven’t replied yet because it made me so upset. I’ll reply later when I can be a little nicer.
How Globalization Impacted and Informed Our Reactions
In both instances, our students performed what we call a high cost of imposition (Geoffman, 1975). The students had asked for something that was very last minute, very time consuming, and outside of our job descriptions, all while adding no mitigating language or options for us to refuse. This type of communication gives the requestee a feeling of anger, as it violates our cultural norms and is seen as rude in America.
With an American student, this would have indeed been rude; they should know better. Even if they didn’t, there would be a very different response from most teachers. However, both David and I had this interaction with Chinese students who had only recently immigrated here for university. We knew that something was up.
As people who have taught ESL for about 5 years, we discussed the cultural differences and calmed ourselves down. We always begin with the little emperor syndrome that is pervasive in Chinese college students in this generation. These students are all only children, remnants of the now repealed one child policy, and their upbringing was very different from many other international students. They are used to being spoiled.
Another issue that we discuss is that in China, parents are highly involved in their children’s education, even into college, and many schools are forbidden from giving failing grades. In college, students are all but guaranteed to graduate as a cultural norm (although this is shifting).
Finally, we discuss the immense respect that teachers receive in China, which was the highest of any country in the world in 2019. We know that most of our Chinese students would never intentionally anger us, so our anger was likely stemming from our own cultural values clashing with Chinese cultural values.
Socio-linguistic relativity (Folse & Vitanova, 2006) is the idea that what we consider polite and appropriate is culturally created, changed, and situated. As teachers, we must be aware of this phenomena. This doesn’t mean that we cannot consider interactions outside of our own ‘accepted’ ideas to be rude. This is an intrinsic and nearly unchangeable cultural phenomenon (Wardhaugh & Fuller, 2015). However, teachers must be aware that students do not intend to be rude, and to respond to situations like this as a teaching moment rather than an offense.
The next day in class after this email, I did a 10 minute activity with my Chinese students. They listed everything (verbally) that was appropriate to ask a teacher to do, comment on, or answer, and I wrote these on the board. I then crossed out the speech acts that were inappropriate for American teachers and had them write these down. This semester, I integrate appropriate conversation into my lessons and haven’t had a problem yet!
For David, he is addressing his issue today. He is going to talk to the student in person, and will write down a list of his obligations as a teacher/ tutor. Then, he will give this list to the student so that they can keep it for future interactions with other people.
Although we were both initially quite angry, some global perspective really shifts our opinions. Ryder similarly states; “when communication is set up right on the business’s side, it should encourage audiences to engage and return the favor” (Ryder, 2017). As teachers, if we can communicate effectively and kindly, our students return the favor. Even more, if we can turn ‘rude’ moments into teachable moments, our students benefit greatly.
Story Two: The Student Who Has Never Failed
David and I frequently come into contact with another type of student; the student who has never failed. This student is typically shocked at any grade below their standards and takes the time to argue with teachers about their grades. I’ll tell a story from only myself this time and reflect on it.
Allie’s Story
I am getting angry. I have told my class easily 10 times that the assignment they are doing today is worth points. I have explained its value in understanding their next essay assignment. The students should know by now that I don’t assign busy work; every assignment is intended to build understanding and knowledge.
So. Why. Aren’t. They. Doing. The. Assignment.
I consider making the assignment homework. But, I don’t like using work as a penalty. My class is difficult for them and I want them to focus on essay writing rather than punishment. I know that the students are used to punishment in their Chinese schools for not completing work, like jogging, standing against walls, and detention. Even though these punishments are illegal in China, they still happen frequently.
As I’m thinking about what to do about this behavioral issue, I vividly remember the Occasional Papers (a 3 minute personal story read aloud to the class) my students have read about being beaten by teachers. Even though I couldn’t do anything about this, as this doesn’t fall under my jurisdiction since the beating happened overseas, I think about how each student ended those stories by saying how much they liked American teachers. They didn’t like being punished. They loved the freedom.
So, I decided to do a check where students showed me how much they had finished. I decided that the best way to honor the students’ freedom was to leave them to their choices and grade accordingly. I gave 7 students zeros that day. Instead of thinking of some punishment that would require additional time and effort, I just gave them a 0 for doing no work. I felt that this was fair.
Several students immediately came up after class, knowing that they had gotten a 0 for today (maybe 0.3% of their overall class grade). They wanted to know why they hadn’t gotten any points.
“You didn’t do any work. Why would you get points?”
The students tried to bargain with me. “I’ll do it tonight! I’ll email it to you later”. Three students looked at me angrily.
“No”, I said. “I gave you 45 minutes to do this assignment today, in class. You made an adult choice to not do the assignment, and you are getting the adult consequence of getting no credit. Do better tomorrow.”
The students were generally shocked, and began muttering in Chinese. I reminded them gently that Chinese is my second language, and that I am happy to discuss complaints in office hours. The students begrudgingly accepted their zeros and never blew off class work again.
However, I found myself furious. Why did this conversation even happen?
How Globalization Impacted My Reaction and Thoughts
When I was reflecting on this issue, I discussed this day with many colleagues. I hated teaching this day. My students ignored me, and decided to just goof off. They couldn’t see the value in an assignment that I had assigned to many different students. To make matters worse, they had actually argued with me about getting points for work that they hadn’t done.
From my own background research and conversations with coworkers, I know that in China, lessons are teacher centered. Students are expected to be silent participants who receive information and then reproduce the information on exams. The entire idea that there would be work to do in class is foriegn and unusual to them. These students had somehow misinterpreted the class work time as a break and treated it as such.
Additionally, as I mentioned before, education in China is well respected but is also a service industry. Students are almost never given failing grades.
Finally, we have a few Chinese scholars at NAU this semester who teach in China. They told me that in addition to these issues, Chinese classes and exams are just different. Students are expected to study independently from 6-10 every night to do well in their classes. They just aren’t expected to go to classes in the way that American students are. Participation is never part of their grade, and the idea of many small assignments seems silly. They would rather learn the information and take a test. So, my class, which has 5 major assignments that are 60% of their grade, is a completely strange model that the students are not adjusted to.
The next class day, I put the grading breakdown onto the board. We spent 10 minutes of class time talking about what is different from and similar to Chinese university. The students participated actively, always excited to share part of their culture with me, and took notes about the differences. I explained the importance of attendance, participation, and completing assignments (30% of their course grade).
I made sure to say, “I’m not angry with you all. However, each teacher at American universities has different rules. Even if the rules are strange to you, you must follow them to earn a good grade. This is part of being a student here”.
Overall Reflections
In sum, teaching ESL students is a little bit of a battle; you want to be culturally responsive, but there is also your own culture to consider. There are behaviours that you consider rude or inappropriate, and your feelings are difficult to change. You will be confronted with your own desire to be culturally responsive and ‘oh no you didn’t’ moments. In these moments, you will grow as a teacher and as a person. You will have students who bring you gifts, something my American students never did. You will have students offer to drive you places, and treat you with the utmost respect in ways that you haven’t experienced. You will also have the students who have never failed and the students who want too much. That is the life of an ESL teacher (so far).
Outside References
Chen, Q. (2019). Chinese colleges want to fail more students (that’s a good thing). https://www.inkstonenews.com/education/chinese-colleges-want-fail-more-students-thats-good-thing/article/3034603. Accessed March 2, 2020.
Coughlan, S. (2013). Teachers in China given highest level of public respect. https://www.bbc.com/news/education-24381946. Accessed March 2, 2020.
Dopson, E. (2018). Social Media for Nonprofits: How to Make an Impact with Little Budget. https://www.sendible.com/insights/social-media-for-nonprofits. Accessed March 1, 2020.
Folse, K. S., & Vitanova, G. (2006). Sociolinguistic Factos in TESOL: The Least Teachers and Teacher Educators Should Know. TESL Reporter, 39(1), 48-58.
Gay, G. (2018). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. United States: Teachers College Press.
Goffman, E. (1975). Role-distance. Life as Theater: A dramaturgical sourcebook, 123-132.
Ryder, K. (2017) “7 Qualities of the Best Social Media Managers”. Sendible. https://www.sendible.com/insights/best-social-media-manager-qualities. Accessed March 2, 2020.
Wardhaugh, R., & Fuller, J. M. (2015). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Hoboken.
Xue, X. (2015). China’s little emperors – the children without siblings. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/23/chinas-little-emperors-the-children-without-siblings. Accessed March 1, 2020.
Communication Perspectives for an ESL Community 