Humanising Language Teaching
Year 1; Issue 8; December 1999

"From Shizuoka to Gdansk"

Derek Nolan English Unlimited, Poland

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Having spent 2 years teaching in a technical school in Japan and 3 years in a private language school here in Poland, I have often encountered certain problems in the classroom which did not arise from an inability on the students' part to express themselves through English but because the norms of the culture in question proved to be a barrier. I feel this is an area which is often sadly lacking from CELTA and DELTA courses. What may be taboo in certain cultures, what students may have difficulty in discussing due to their cultural/ social backgrounds or what particular grammar or pronunciation problems different nationalities have are areas often neglected on such courses and teachers' books often offer very little information on them.

When teaching grammar or discussing a topic I try to put it in a personal context for the students and where possible ask them about their interests and experiences or use what I know about them already. While this usually works well to motivate students and generate interest there have been times, both in Japan and Poland, where my questions have been met with nothing but embarrassed silence. Textbooks obviously cover a range of topics which have been chosen to appeal to the majority of students but where I was teaching in Japan the students did not have a wide knowledge of the world. Texts about Oasis or Tom Cruise did not interest them at all. I was shocked when only a few of them had heard of U2 for example. While there is the argument that as English teachers we should not only teach the language, but also expose the students to all aspects of a country's culture, I found that my Japanese students were far more interested in using what English they had to talk about their idols and heroes, who were, in the main, Japanese. It meant that I had to keep up to date with the latest trends in Japanese pop and cartoons but it was essential to provide students with topics and situations they could relate to.

Poles, on the other hand, know all the latest Western music and films but obviously much appreciate it if you take an interest in their culture too. There are , however, some topics that may fall flat in a Polish classroom. When I first arrived in Poland I had one of my worst ever classes in the second month. The topic of the lesson was flying and airports and it never occurred to me that there would be people in the class who had never been to an airport let alone on a plane. My attempts to explain 'check-in desk' and 'departure lounge' were met with blank stares. They were visibly embarrassed when they told me that none of them had ever been to an airport and that few Poles could afford to fly. My colleagues, who had been using the same book, also said they had had disastrous lesson with this topic. Three years on and the situation has changed for many people but those who can afford to fly off to exotic destinations are in the minority so it is extremely important to be sensitive when discussing holidays and travel with Eastern Europeans. Likewise with the issue of emigration. When I recently asked my students some questions about emigration which appeared in our textbook they laughed and said that the book made emigration sound very romantic while for Poles the situation was quite the opposite.

Another time my questions were met with embarrassed silence was when, in Japan, I asked students about what they were good at. It is regarded as being very impolite to praise yourself or your family in any way. Apparently straight-forward text-book questions such as 'Are you good at sports?' or 'Who is the best cook in your family?' will certainly leave Japanese students and indeed most Asian students tongue-tied. Polish people, too, are rather self-deprecating. They feel that they are being constantly judged and do not feel at all comfortable with anything which may be construed by others as showing-off.

The teaching of functions in English also presents the teacher of Polish or Japanese students with certain problems. Polish people tend to be quite blunt and like to get straight to the point. Opinions are stated more forcibly than in English and the Poles do not make as much use of expressions such as 'I feel' or 'I think' as we do. Whereas English favours the use of understatement e.g. 'It wasn't your best exam this year' a Pole would probably say 'You've failed'. This directness often leaves a native speaker of English feeling offended although this clearly has not been the intention of the Polish person.

When requesting, Polish people generally use imperatives rather than indirect questions and therefore come across as sounding rather aggressive. Students here find our varying degrees of politeness when apologising, complaining etc. rather amusing as they do not see the need for so much padding. This is not to say that Polish has no polite forms because it does but not quite the range that English has. The Japanese, on the other hand, are the opposite feeling the need to apologise over and over again or to precede requests with expressions such as 'I'm really sorry to have to ask you this but...'. It is vital for us as teachers to be aware of these social norms and to decide how much attention we should give to ' the English way of doing things'.

Another important issue is that of negation. It may seem straight-forward to teach the word 'no' but in Japan they will do anything to avoid this word. If you ask a Japanese person to go for a drink with you, for example, and he does not wish to go, in Japanese he is more than likely to frown or inhale deeply through his teeth and say 'chotto' ( a bit). It is therefore very difficult to teach Japanese students to use this word and often frustrating for teachers when there never seems to be a clear-cut answer. The problem with 'no' is also present in Polish classes, even though it is one the most commonly heard words here. If a Polish student comes in and you know he hasn't done his homework he will answer 'yes' to the question, 'You haven't done your homework, have you?'. This is because Poles do not answer such a question with 'No, I haven't' but with 'Yes, what you've said is correct.' It all gets rather confusing at times and it is therefore essential to practise this with students regularly.

Many textbooks written for the international market do not cover the difficulties of pronunciation or intonation which there might be in our particular location. With Japanese students a lot of work has to be done on pronunciation whereas this is generally not a problem for Polish students. Intonation, however, is. Polish intonation relies on a smaller range of pitch. Polish uses falling intonation, so if you have passed an exam a Polish friend may say 'Swietnie' ('wonderful') but not sound half as excited as an English person saying it. Polish students often find it amusing how English people speak and often laugh at the people on the cassettes viewing them as being way over the top. Therefore if a textbook were written for Polish students more emphasis would have to be put on intonation rather than pronunciation but usually it the other way round.

I feel that it is essential to introduce socio-linguistics to the classroom and to introduce more cultural background information to the textbooks. It is not only important to make students more sensitive to cultural differences but to know, as teachers in a particular country, not to take things personally if someone does come across as being abrupt or in a manner which is not the norm in our country.