American English Panama: octubre 2012

Mr. Cerdas' English Blog!

Take Pride On What You Do!

Well, this should be the best time I am going thru right now. As you know I landed a job at a private school close to my abode. The school has around 800 students so far and with a new manager who is counting on his own experience to make the school still grow larger. So far, so good.

As with my personal view, I think that there is a lot to be done for Panama to become a very English speaking competitive country in the world. I find that Costa Rica, the neighbour country, has more chances to become more competitve than Panama. Panamanian kids find so much difficulty on learning English and the Panamanian government with its Ministry of Education has not empowered English teachers to become real English teachers who command the language a 100%, bad for the country.

But, we still have a path to walk on and we'll see if as time goes on things will get better off. Chances are that students in Panama will request more and more from their English teachers, who happen to learn English while they are studying for a bachellor degree. Most of them have no life experience with the language and have never lived in an English speaking country for a while. Bad for them.

Internet has helped many of them to overcome their fears of speaking English with foreigners and especially with Americans who lose their patience so easily when they are not thoroughly understood by any means.

We have the call center industry getting ripe in the country and thousands of Panamanian students get the chance to get a job in the industry, but it is so tough after training is over since they have a nesting period to go thru before being totally hired by the companies. This nesting period is so crazy, let me tell you, and I have even seen guys crying at the cafeterias during their breaks due to the fact that they can not get across when talking over the phone with an irate American customer. I use to recommend teachers to get a stint on a call center job, they will be quite surprised on how much English they can learn and will even reduce their national accent by speaking to American customers, and that will be a nice reality most of them will appreciate from this biz when the day is up.

This is the part where I consider that a good accent reduction training should be at hand. I am offering my students, first thing, an all American English Course for free. It is American English. You see, Panama has the biggest problem of choosing which English to choose for their school system: American or British. And I really get mad everytime somebody tells me that he or she speaks British English and that really grabs my attention, for me it is pure bullcrap! Panamanians should learn American English because of their natural ties with the United States of America. No other choice is the right one. Panama is still perceived by other latin American countries as an American territory because of the all mighty American dollar which is the national currency, no doubt it is the most Americanized country after Puerto Rico.

The United States ended the construction of the Panama Canal in 1914. There where the French failed the USA picked up and took over this engineering prowess of building a canal for the rest of the world to enjoy. I am sorry to say that the American influence was not as great as that experienced in the Phillipines, where English is the second official language after Tagalog. Filipinos have to study their college and university careers in English, no one graduates if he or she doesn't speak English and what really surprises me is that American English is the language they use for communication, not British.

It sounds so ridiculous to me when I hear a Panamanian speak English with British accent...it is so funny and phony to hear how this person sounds like trying to mimick the Queen's accent. LOL!

This is the time for students in Panama to remember that English is the easiest language in the world. There are millions of students and people all over the world learning English at the schools. They know that their countries will be more competitive if they command the business language. You can go anywhere in the world and find youth who speak English so fluently, they might be from any country in Europe, Asia or Africa or the Pacific Islands. People just try to benefit and profit from a language that commercially speaking is the most important one in the world. You can even speak Chinese Mandarin, but just remember that that language has so many obstacles to become a second language to humanity.

First thing: Millions of people speak Chinese because of birth, not because they have studied the language. English is taught all over the world because it is easy to learn, the writing and reading is not of utmost difficulty, but that doesn't happen with Chinese where you need to learn by heart thousands of Kanji characters to read a simple newspaper.

It makes me laugh off when I remember that a representative from the Panamanian National Assembly wanted to pass a law on the teaching of Mandarin to Panamanian students...hey! Students in Panama have a hard time learning English, let alone Chinese! For God's sake! I can not imagine Panamanian students trying to write Kanji nor trying to remember a dozen of these writing characters. English is a language that can not be replaced as an international tool of communication and they should perfectly know that by now.

About the learning discipline to learn English, well, we all kow that if we have no whatsoever attention from the students there is no way for them to learn the language properly. They need to focus on what you teach them and the most important thing is language communication that may be carried out by the listening process. As babies, students listen to first and then they repeat the same commands, requests and phrases they hear everyday when they are in the classroom.

English is learned by hearing first. Then the language communication becomes a reality by and by. It takes some time before students start speaking that fluently. That won't happen overnight, but it will happen sooner than you realize. Just take your time and endorse the need of self control in the classroom.

Second thing, I have realized is that English needs not a second backup language to be learned. You can use your own body to let students know what they need to know. It is called TPR or Total Physical Response. You use your acting skills. Yes! Definitely! You need to be an actor when you teach English. Students learn by looking at you and listening to your words.

Once in the classroom, your histrionic abilities should take place. You are the one in command of the class, you are the leader of the pack, you are the one they will listen to and will pay attention to. You are the one in charge of the class during those 45 minutes. You only have 45 minutes to teach something new. You need to be an actor and play the role. You've got 45 minutes against 23.15 hrs of their Spanish speaking world.

You need to make good use of those 45 minutes and you can split up those 45 mts into 3 parts of 15 minutes each. Your first 15 minutes will be spent on arranging the class and give out the topic presentation. 15 minutes for the activity to be carried out and the last 15 minutes for the wrapup.

Audiovisual material is key and should be taken into consideration by the school manager. Students today do not feel like writing so much and let alone copy from the whiteboard. Technology is of utmost importance. You can convey ideas and concepts in a smoothly way by making students watch a video, some slides, etc. Instead of using chalk and board alone. Students pay more attention to graphics and that is the span of time you need to engrave in them the concepts you want to portray. In a nutshell, technology works for the teacher's benefit and the students' as well.

You gotta be ready and attentive to what's going on with the students. Some of them are ready to learn and some of them will lag behind. I am sorry to say that this is an utter reality hard to forget when it comes to teaching English. Students are PEOPLE! They learn according to their natural capacities. You should try to help those who are a little bit hard on learning. They want to learn and keep up with the rest of the class, it is just that sometimes it takes more time for them to grasp the subject.

In that case, my personal consideration goes to them. You are an English teacher and a facilitator of the language, not a hangman! You were not hired to leave students behind. You were hired to facilitate their language acquisition. You must stop sometimes on your track and go walk back to see if every one is save and sound. No student should be left behind. It will take some of the teacher's time, but it will pay off in the long run. We are there to help and that is what really matters at the end of the day.

I don't personally believe that excellent grades mean anything at all. A student might be an excellent one in any subject, but in English, well, he might be experiencing a rough ride. A student might get a 1.00 in your subject, but that means nothing at all...maybe it means that I am the one failing to facilitate the knowledge of the language to him or her. It may also mean that the student has issues he needs to cope with. Home problems might be an issue, too. There are parents that don't even care if their sons and daughters are learning at all. They just have time for their jobs and personal tastes and their children might be out of the equation. Keep in mind that some students come from homes going thru hard times and this hinders the students' abilities to get a good grasp of the foreign language.

Speaking of technological support, I have realized that students love Internet and love to learn from a computer...that is good news if you have an English learning platform and I am so happy to say that I count upon some guys who have set up an English Course totally online for Spanish speaking students and people who want to learn American English. The course has three levels of learning: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. The student can choose the level and everything it takes is to sign up with a name and an Email address. The system sends a confirmation message right away and the student confirms his participation by clicking on the special link the system delivers to him. He receives the first lesson inmediately and can even access to a personal virtual classroom where he can see videos, download file sounds and print pdf documents. No wonder technology is here to stay and help!

As time goes on, I think that technology will play a bigger role in the language learning aspect. Students will resort more and more to these technologies to get to know people from countries where these languages are spoken. This will facilitate with no doubt that the students will feel at ease when it comes to learn and speak another language. English will become a more familiar language and countries such as Panama will get the benefits of having English speaking professionals who will feel at home with the language. Time will show.

Well, I'll be in touch with you guys and let you know about more developments coming soon as I am getting a kick out of teaching here in Panama City, Panama. Let me just sign off for the moment and hope to keep on writing some more info and clues about teaching American English to our Panamanian students, it is an invaluable experience I am going thru these days. Meanwhile, this is IT!