English teachers at the school where I am having my trainee placement pretend to be native English speakers. My school supervisor told me about it when we first met last summer. When she told me, I didn't think anything about it. Later on, when the new academic year started, we were told by some of our teachers in the Foreign Language Learning and Teaching Minor that that wasn't a good policy, mainly because it set a bad example regarding multilingualism, as students would have a monolingual English teacher, who apparently made no effort to learn other languages, while they had to learn English.
On December 3rd, when we celebrate the day of Basque language and culture, children put up a show at school; some classes sang a song, others made cookies etc. The 4th graders whose lessons I have been attending all along sang a well known song that challenges the listener to speak Basque, and starts saying something like "We speak Basque, why don't you join us?". Well, that morning, when the teacher and myself went to pick them up and take them to the English classroom downstairs, children sang the song pointing at us, and they had every reason to do so too. So, yes, pretending to be a native English teacher who doesn't speak Basque in a Basque school is not a good idea.
There are even more drawbacks to this policy. For instance, it makes it impossible to share with the students the struggles the teacher went through to learn English, which is something that helps create a good atmosphere and is encouraging for students. Equally, the teacher won't be able to share how they overcame those hurdles and show how far they got, setting an example. On the other hand, raising metalinguistic awareness pointing out similarities and differences between English and the students' L1 or L2 is prevented also. And, then, it creates awkward situations, where the English teacher can't speak with any student's parents in front of them, unless they do it in English, nor can they speak with the rest of the school staff in any other language but English. Finally, if the English teacher gets caught speaking Basque or Spanish students will feel cheated at and a bit stupid for having believed the teacher, which won't help create a relationship based on trust and respect.
The English teacher should be able to make students understand and accept that the English lesson and/or classroom is a place and time for English only, without cheating and lying.
iruzkinik ez:
Argitaratu iruzkina