Week 5

This week I went to another school for my school visits, which was actually an education center for adults. Not surprisingly, a lot of the learners came from mainland China. What was surprising was that a significant number were refugees from countries like Sudan, Burma and Vietnam. One of the Sudanese students, a girl, I recall, had horrific scars all over her arms. Another Sudanese man, more shockingly, had a long scar across one of his eyes. I was told by a teacher there that there was another man who went deaf due to a bomb explosion that exploded his eardrums. I had never felt so close to the terror of war before I actually met these people face to face. The teachers there were very nice and helpful. In their classes I saw communicative learning in practice. In particular, in a Cert 2 level class that I have observed, the teacher introduced Australia’s climate, geography, history and wild animals to the students using a jig-saw reading activity. I helped in the activity to engage students in speaking with each other. I found that in general the Chinese learners were less motivated, most of whom, a teacher told me, were rather rich and had their families in China. And after all, there was a considerably large Chinese speaking population there in Melbourne. On the other hand, I met refugees from Sudan, and Bosnian and Ukrainian ladies married to Australians, who were very motivated in learning English. They left behind everything they had in their home countries, and came to Australia for a new life. Therefore, English was something they needed, something that they had to master. Therefore, as a language teacher, we have to provide a motive to the students for them to learn.