My first blog post in months comes on the night when I have fifteen articles to edit for my students' English newspaper. Sounds like perfect timing to me! Out of the the half-a-dozen blog entries floating around on my computer that were never completed in a manner timely enough to post, this is the one that will finally land me at the top of Josh's list of blog links.
The following is an exact rendering of a letter that one of my freshman students gave me tonight during her self-study break. I have omitted both her name, her classmate's name and their class number. It should be noted that her classmate is fluent in English after studying in the US for a number of years.
To Samantha teacher.
Teacher, hi. I am ****** in class #-#. I think you may already know me, don't you? If you don't know me...I'm the person who sits next to ***** in [your class]. I have some agonies about my English abilities, so I would like to talk about it. Can you hear me? I know you are too busy to read it. But I need your help. ㅠ.ㅠ Actually, until in 2010, July, my English grades were great and enough to have no concerns about it. So I stopped my English studying (especially listening). And I went to hear, Sadaebugo, my english grades are dropping now. I think I lost my feeling of English and can't listen to English exactly. I make some mistakes during listening. Also, as you know, I and ***** are really indeed friends and we are roommate. Because I lost my confidence of English and my friend who has great English skills sits next to me, I become to dislike learning English. I know it's just execuse, but it's my real mind and thought. I want to take your advices and befriend with you. Can you be my real friend and magician who will solve my worries? I'll look forward to receiving your answer with happiness.
From *******
While this letter is significant in a number of ways by itself, I'm especially struck because this student is not alone. Earlier today I had another student from a different grade approach me with a similar concern. He told me about how he feels his English listening abilities declining despite regular listening to Harry Potter audio readings. Two weeks ago, I spoke with a student who is passionate about learning languages. He takes Japanese as a foreign language at school, is teaching Italian by himself for fun and has aspirations to master Arabic in the future. But he confessed that he has problems listening when others speak to him in any language. He feels bad for his friends because he has them repeat what they say over and over again and is even more worried about his English listening score on standardized tests. I actually wondered if he has a mild form of an auditory processing disorder. If he did, I know that he would never volunteer to be seen by a doctor to be diagnosed. There's such an undeserved stigma attached to disabilities in Korea that even suggesting this could be insulting to him, but that's another blogpost.
Obviously, I'm going to do what I can to help these students improve their English listening. But I can't fully express how much their permission to listen has meant to me. I'm not shy about approaching my students and asking them questions about their school life and hometown. Some answer my questions much more willingly than others. Other students will come to me to practice their English (or in one case, his Spanish) with sessions that revolve around them asking me questions about life in America. This is great, too, but these students who are willing to confess their struggles with language remind me that my job as the teacher, and as a person, isn't just to speak and teach, but it's also to listen.
I wish I wouldn't have started my classes off with a PostSecret lesson featuring the vocab word "anonymous." I really don't want that word to set the tone for my class. Instead, I hope that my students know that I do know them, I do HEAR them, and I want to keep listening.
P.S. Don't worry too much about the slighted articles; I'm supposed to read them over with my co-teacher so that we can check them together. She doesn't expect me to read them tonight. ^^
