The Heart of the Matter

Lou Spaventa

The Teacher Interview 1: Nora Foster

(The actual name of the interviewee has been changed to preserve her anonymity)

It's a new teaching year here in the United States. California public schools and community colleges began classes on August 29^th. As it is a new academic year, I have chosen to devote my columns this year to interviewing practitioners of the trade of TESOL. I conducted my first interview with a tenured member of the ESL Department at a California community college. To be candid, the person I interviewed, Nora Foster, is someone I know fairly well, and someone who actually took some training from me nearly twenty years ago. I have divided the interview into four parts: the background of the teacher, her induction into the field, her current practice in the classroom, and her future intentions. I offer this interview to readers of HLT so that they can compare practice and thought with their counterparts here in the United States. I hope it will accomplish that purpose.

Nora Foster's Background

Nora grew up in San Diego, California, in a white, middle class environment, where there was little obvious difference among people. She later moved north to Carpinteria, California, a small town just south of Santa Barbara, California. In Carpinteria, she continued her compulsory education in the public schools. However, because she was a new girl in town and because the first person that was friendly to her was a Mexican(-American) girl, Nora fell in with a group of Mexican immigrant girls. This was in junior high school. The newly arrived Mexicans were called "broncs" by the second and third generation Mexican-American teens, who in turn were called "pochos" by the newly-arrived. Nora was an adopted "bronc." By fifteen years old, she had become fluent in Spanish.

Nora's early dreams of career went from being a teacher to being a writer, and later, to owning her own landscaping business (Carpinteria is a town full of fruit and flower growers). She was a very good student, but upon high school graduation, went to work in an office to help her mother, whose husband had left the home, support her large family of children. After a year and a half, she enrolled at Santa Barbara City College, the local California community college, which has almost open academic admission standards and very low fees. Nora did well, as she had in all of her schooling. She was soon a peer advisor and club officer. She got to know her instructors, and began to entertain thoughts of teaching or becoming a counselor (Community colleges typically have a very large staff of counselors whose role it is to advise and guide incoming and continuing students. This situation is unlike that of private and public colleges and universities, where the student is more or less on his own in planning his studies and career.).

After two and a half years of study at the community college, Nora transferred to the University of California at Santa Barbara and chose to major in Spanish literature. She did her BA and MA at that school. While doing her MA, she was employed as a teaching assistant (TA) and, by her admission, knew right away that teaching was for her. She said that her models for language teaching had not been very inspiring. Her classes were of the "drill and kill" variety, in other words, a rather strict audio-lingual approach. She took that model as a guide for how not to teach while she was a teaching assistant.

Into the Field

Nora began her teaching as an assistant while studying for her master's degree in Spanish literature. The "peninsular" bias of the program - Spanish literature emphasized, New World Spanish literature slighted in her estimation - began to make Nora cool to the idea of further study. At the same time, she was enjoying her teaching immensely. Other TAs and instructors went past her classroom and often heard laughter. She was questioned as to what she was doing in her classroom. Fortunately, she had an understanding teaching supervisor who told her that she could teach as she wished as long as she accomplished the course goals and her students succeeded on the departmental exams. At that time, she had one methodology course in teaching Spanish, which met one hour per week. The main benefit that she derived from this class was sharing of ideas with other instructors.

Nora knew that she had become a fluent speaker of Spanish because she used the language with native speakers every day. She took every opportunity to learn it, including study abroad in Mexico while at university. She said at the time that she knew language learning could be a rich experience for students, and she began to work to become a teacher who made it so.

From her time at Santa Barbara City College, she had gotten to know some of the ESL faculty. The student population at the school in the ESL Department was predominantly Spanish-speaking. Whileteaching Spanish at the university, and doing cultural work at a local Mexican cultural center, La Casa de La Raza, Nora got a call from one of the ESL faculty. He asked her to teach one, then two ESL courses. She took the challenge even though she had only taught Spanish before.. After eleven years of part time ESL teaching at the community college, she applied for and got a full time position as an ESL instructor. Condition to her employment was getting further formal training in ESL. So, Nora decided to get a certificate in TESOL from university extension. She had by this time built up a classroom repertoire. She says that she got something from every class she taught and observed.

The Classroom Context

Nora believes that there is no magic formula for good teaching. She thinks a good teacher is someone who knows he doesn't have all the answers, who cares about his students, and who stays, as she puts it, "in a constant state of flux." By this I take her to mean that such a teacher is willing to change and is always open to it. She now sees herself in some respects as a seasoned professional, a question I asked her directly. However, she believes each class of students will challenge her in different ways, so she knows she still has things to learn. When asked about her strengths, she replied that she supposed she was good at effectuating cooperative learning in the classroom, at teaching process writing, and teaching a successful on-line course. She has recently co-authored two ESL reading textbooks, and even though being a writer was a childhood dream, she doesn't feel she wants to go in that direction in ESL.

Nora characterized her methodology as communicative. She said that making learning relevant to students was important to her. She likes to use the arts in her classroom, which she wants to be a dynamic place. One methodological point she made was that, as far as she is concerned, skills should be integrated. She has seen students successfully negotiate multiple choice grammar tests, yet fail to use the same grammar in their writing. Thus, she is currently working on a grammar-writing course with a colleague. Finally, she believes that given the right mix of ability, goal-setting, and effort, every student can succeed. On the other hand, she doesn't feel that passing or failing a class is a final indicator of success or lack of it. "You can not pass a class, but still be successful," she said.

Next Steps

Nora has five children, the oldest of whom is now starting at Santa Barbara City College. Her youngest is still in elementary school. So, she sees many years ahead of classroom teaching as she is doing now. She said she would probably be teaching ESL for the rest of her life. Despite this, she still toys with that early dream of owning her own gardening and landscaping business, a dream that revives in summer when she tends to her own garden. Nora said she used to write, but raising five children ended that. She hoped one day to continue. She also hopes one day she might take her two youngest to another country where she would teach EFL and they would study. In the end, Nora felt she made the right decision when she entered the field of ESL. She has never second-guessed herself.