In the Burmese culture, teachers are the same level as parents. Students love, respect and frighten their teachers especially in primary and middle school level. Parents give teachers the trust for their children in school time.
There is a student ‘z’ who is studying at Grade 6 (start of middle school level). ‘z’ ‘s parents are rich enough that they give their child private tuition on English language, even with a native speaker!
During one of the English classes in school, ‘z’ ’s teacher, “Mr.A” ,is trying to explain his pupils on a particular topic. When “Mr.A” is pronouncing an English word, he hears a soft laughing sound. He continues explaining others English words and hears some kind of laughing sound. He tries to find out during his teaching and finally spots that ‘z’ is making chuckle. Mr.A blames ‘z’ for making chuckle and not paying attention to his teaching. The similar situation happens again in next class and this time, Mr.A gets so upset and presumes that ‘z’ is disrespectful and demands ‘z’ to bring his parents to school and meet up with him.
What happens to ‘z’ is that he is not disrespectful. He just cannot control himself when he hears Mr.A’s pronunciation of some English words. Mr.A, who has more exposure to Burmese language and come from a rural village, sometimes cannot pronounce some English words correctly. His temperament is some sort of impatient type.
When ‘z’ ’s parents finally finds out what has happened at school after carefully asking out their child, they try to carefully think how to resolve the problem. If you were a parent of ‘z’, what and how would you do to resolve the problem? What and how would you say to your child? You are also afraid that if you tell the teacher directly about his wrong pronunciation, he would feel ashamed, and in later classes, he would not be careful to your son or scold and blame your son all the times whenever there is a chance. Should the third party, such as another colleague teacher or even a headmaster/headmistress be involved in this matter to resolve?
Wooden Paddle from Central Portugal
1 day ago
Hey Thu Win,
ReplyDeleteI think if I were Z's parent, I would apologise to Mr A and I would make Z apologise to him too. I would not involve a third party in this situation as I feel that Z was largely at fault.
Once we’re at home, I would have a talk with Z. I would tell him that it is wrong to laugh at a person for his bad English. He should be more sensitive to Mr A’s culture and background and also acknowledge the effort that Mr A puts into speaking English. I guess this would be a good time to give Z a lesson on empathy. I would also remind Z to be respectful to his teachers.
Geraldine
I agree with Geraldine. Apologize and remind Z how he should behave.
ReplyDeleteInvolving a third party from the school administration would probably undermine Mr A's status as a English teacher. Although it sounds cruel, Mr A should be made aware that his pronunciation is not perfect. As Z's parents, I would feedback to the administration that Mr A has to improve, else the students deserve a better English teacher.
Hey Thu Win
ReplyDeleteIf I was the parent of Z I would first 'convince' Z to apologise by explaining the situation to him. By doing so, he will not feel that he is forced into doing something that is unreasonable. I believe that Z is already in the teenager stage and will like to listen to explanation instead of authoritative commands. This can also prevent the same situation from happening in future.
Then I will apologise to Mr A as regardless of the reason, Z was being disrespectful when he laughed at Mr A's pronounciation. However, I do not think I will let Mr A know the reason behind Z's action as I think that everyone has their own accent and should not be blamed for it. Also, this is not a major issue and a third party might worsen the situation instead of solving it.
Hello Thuwin
ReplyDeleteI would talk to Z and try to get him to see things from my point of view. I would tell him that it is impolite to laugh at others' errors. I would then try to convince Z to apologise to Mr A. I believe this would help to build on Z's social skills as well. (:
This is a very interesting scenario, ThuWin, one that reminds me of how difficult it is for teachers of primary school children. You describe the problem and the characters concisely and quite clearly---despite the presence of language problems. You've also generated lots of good feedback with well focused questions.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I think the advice the parents should give to their child is quite clear. It's interesting to see how your classmates responded.
Thanks for your effort!
Hi everyone,
ReplyDeleteThank you for giving interesting comments. In my opinion, there is no right or wrong method to solve the conflict. Moreover, even though we may think in a particular way, we may act in a different way when we are encountering face to face!
Anyway, we all will try our best and act in a best possible way, in which we think, whenever we encounter problems.
Brad: Thanks for the comment. Could you tell me which part of language problem should I need to improve most? Is it sentence structure? Now I am revising English grammar from the websites.