IT TAKES PRACTICE TO BECOME THIS KIND OF A RAINBOW
My students are from lots of places: Columbia, Guatemala, Mexico, Vietnam, South Korea, China, and Taiwan this year. The mix is always changing. My two classes are adult-ed, English as a Second Language (ESL) classes.
I am lucky to have such a good part-time job working for an awesome community college. This is only my second semester to teach in this program.
Oklahoma City Community College has a very deep commitment to helping students transition to college however that needs to happen. They work hard to get grants for our ESL and GED classes that are free for the student. The materials and curriculum support for both programs are extremely good. And once some of them move on to real college, they already have a framework of support built around them.
What happens in ESL classes that are English immersion like ours is that anyone from anywhere can come to any class that fits their schedule. The upside is that we take all comers from any first language background and the teachers can come from any first language background of their own. It provides for an amazing mix of cultures all in the same classroom.
There is only one downside: With that many different cultures represented, our students tend to start grouping themselves by their first language. So within a few weeks the observant teacher can identify the Vietnamese table, the Colombian table, the Mexican table, etc.
And naturally, one person at that table will become the de factotranslator for the rest and give their own version of what the teacher just said to do each time instructions are given. It’s the most natural thing to do, and it happens almost on a subconscious level.
Trying Something New
This semester I tried something new for me. As soon as I saw that dynamic at the beginning of the next class period I talked with them It Takes Practice to Become This Kind of a Rainbow | Life at the Intersections: