Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Chapter 7 Teaching- Jim Cooper- Reflection
This chapter focuses on the problem of teaching English in both Puerto Rican universities and public schools. It describes such an issue as one that is almost impossible to resolve no matter what you do and is a problem that is manipulated by the teachers and professors higher ups or bosses or the teachers stubbornness and ignorance as well. Now a days we have improved but we still have a lot of work to do. I say this because, as I write this any word that is spelled incorrectly word and the computer fix it for me meaning I'm not learning how to properly write the word and thus failing at learning English. My experience with English teaching revolved around a private catholic school. The school had good teachers, they were usually the strictest of all the teachers in school. They were all women who were either raised in the states but were born and had returned to Puerto Rico or were fluent in English because they were taught well, I guess. I was personally taught the basic words of English by my mom: colors, numbers, the alphabet, animals, etc. The rest I learned by my own reading books and watching English movies and T.V. shows. Then school help fill in the rest of the gaps but by then I knew the basic rules and I have always had decent pronunciation, at least that is what they tell me both at home in school and in University. Anyways, it seems like teaching English in the 50's was a huge struggle in Puerto Rico and I imagine it can be stressing to try and teach English and not have the materials and the skills to do so, not to mention that some students aren't even willing to learn. It was interesting to see how and English teacher form the states viewed the state of education in the island and it funny how he pointed out a lot of the problems that we still face today and some people don't know or outright deny they exist.
This 50's videos are weird to watch now, but I thought it would be educational. It's about discipline in school and since the writing took place in the 50's..:
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I do remember learning in my theater class in 6th grade and subsequent history classes what a struggle it was to teach English in Puerto Rico. I too learned the majority of my English because of family and not school. It kinda makes one wonder if Puerto Rico really should put English as an official second language considering that only a small percentage of Puerto Ricans actually know it.
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ReplyDeleteFor the most part, I learned English by watching T.V. and listening to music, same as you. I think that one of the main problems people have when learning English or any other language is that many are not actually willing to learn it. Having the will to learn is extremely important and it makes the whole process even easier.
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