When you teach ESL to adults one of the most exciting experiences you get is that the people you teach have a lot in common with you: Family responsibilities, career development, business, retirement, etc. Because of this coincidence the topics you use for your lessons and the examples you choose are very likely to be real life experiences to some of the students. We the teachers, without the intention of hurting anyone’s feelings, would like to use topics and examples that the adult learners can easily have something to say about. However, in the process of doing this, we sometimes make a lesson very interesting but at the expense of one or a few persons. My intention in this post is to highlight some of those slippery areas I have come across as an ESL teacher for adults. Perhaps, we could be more careful in the way we deal with these topics.
1. Self introduction
This is usually the first lesson and very likely to be the first contact between the teacher and the learners. Names: Many ESL learners pick English names for many reasons that may be strange to native English speakers. Besides using popular names some names are chosen because of reasons like: The name sounds musical, the name sounds like the learner’s surname or family name, the name is short and easy to remember, spell and pronounce, etc. In one of my classes I have one of such names we may find so weird. He is called Lucifer. Two years ago I had Diable (The french word for devil). A middle aged woman also chose ‘Pussy’ for her English name because it sounded nice to her. When I told her the meaning she wept because she had been using it for one month already. My advice: Do not explain weird names in class in front of others. Tell them the meaning privately and leave them with the option of changing it.
Jobs: While the student who is a lawyer is very proud to say it, the one who is a plumber is looking for a vague word like ‘technician’ to use. In most societies in the world some jobs are considered dirty, low paying and indecent. To avoid embarrassment people turn to use vague terms when they make self introductions. In as much as we want them to be able to say what they really do for a living, we also don’t want to embarrass them in front of the other students.
2. Describing people
Age, Height, Weight, Marital status: These may not be taught under self introduction on the first day but may come up later when you start to teach your students how to describe people. In my example I was trying a classroom activity whereby they had to describe eachother guessing the height, age, weight and marital status. The activity was very exciting but two ladies really got hurt because of what the other students said. In some Asian countries a woman above 25 is generally considered by the society to be late for marriage as well as a man in his 40s. A woman above 50kg is considered overweight. Short and or chubby women are not considered to be beautiful by the society. A bald headed man is considered ugly no matter how great the rest of the body looks. So while the tall and slim ones feel proud as they are being described, the chubby or short ones are in total embarrassment. My advice: Bring pictures for them to describe. It’s less embarrassing.
3. Household chores
I had hardly expected any trouble to show up in this topic. I thought it was just about naming the chores and saying who was responsible for doing them at home and when. But no! There was a couple in my class. The man got really hurt when the wife proudly said ” My husband does all the chores at home.” The way the other men in the class laughed embarrassed the man. I am not sure about what happened later that day when the couple got home. Watch out for couples in your class.
4. Likes and dislikes
This is another popular ESL topic intended to help learners express their feelings about things, places and persons. What is sensitive about this is the fact that it may affect the friendliness that already exists among the adults in your classroom. The possibility that hurting sentences will be made is very high. Sentences like: “I hate smokers” “I don’t like boxing” “I dislike excessive use of makeup” “I dislike computer games” “I hate pork” etc. Although they may be making these kind of sentences without the intention of hurting anyone, the others who feel guilty of these dislikes feel rejected and are less likely to communicate with those who gave them all the guilt. My advice: Teach them English phrases like ”No offence” “I don’t mean to hurt anyone,” and tell them to use these phrases every time they make sensitive statements.
5. Brand, price, real or fake
You are either teaching about shopping or famous brands and then you come to this speaking part where you want to drill them on asking the price of an item, what brand it is and whether or not it is real. In this modern society where people are judged by the things they own, be careful in the way you handle this. The lady talking about her Gucci handbag, the cost and where she bought it, is in a way showing off and looking down on her classmate next to her with a low quality handbag with perhaps no brand. Ladies are extremely sensitive to these details. In other words we should be careful in the way we point out details about personal items like: shoes, caps, mobile phones, handbags, jewelry, cars, etc. While these details make some learners proud and comfortable the same details make other learners feel miserable.
6. Where do you live?
This used to look like a very simple question to me until I came to understand that in many cities around the world, the area of the city where someone lives tells what financial status the person has. Of course this is not always true but that’s how the society thinks. In a city like Shanghai for those who have been there, people are proud to say they live at or around the Jing an temple because it is one of the most expensive areas of the town, therefore suggesting the persons financial status. On the other hand people don’t feel so comfortable saying they live in SongJiang or Luwan. Because this is embarrassing to some people, in my class I prefer asking questions like: Do you live far from downtown?
These sensitive topics abound depending on the ESL learners you are teaching, their culture, etc. It is practically impossible to discuss certain things without making one or two persons uncomfortable but with a little more care and the use of nicer expressions we can make our adults ESL classroom a less embarrassing place to be.
While hoping that this was useful, you are welcome to share your own experience in the comment section.