From Student to Teacher

  There is a famous saying in my country that goes, “A donde fueres haz los que vieres.” Translated it would be "Wherever you go, do what you see people do". However, we can also find other variants such as "When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do". But what do these sayings want to tell us? What is their meaning? Well, they advise us about the adaptation we must have. Adaptation to what? To other cultures, customs and manners. Because manners are not the same all over the world. Even, what for you may be an act of being polite, for others may be strange and even offensive. Some cultures won't mind so much if you break or don't follow certain etiquette, either because they understand that you're a foreigner or it's just not a big deal. In other countries, however, they may take drastic measures. It is important to keep in mind that the vast majority of people, and that includes students within a classroom, bring ingrained customs and habits that hav...

  Each person acts according to his or her cultural rules. Therefore, for a TESOL teacher, the interpretations given to certain actions are of utmost importance. Jumping to conclusions is never ideal, especially in a multicultural environment.Understanding, tolerance, and patience must be fundamental in the classroom. For example, African American and Hispanic students tend to be more expressive because it is part of their culture. Their expressiveness does not imply that they are bad students or want to be imposing, as they may be perceived. On the other hand, we have people from Asia who tend to be more quiet and reserved, because in their culture the teacher is an authority figure who must be highly respected. Many factors as expressiveness, emotions or timing vary from culture to culture. Therefore, something key is the benefit of the doubt. Professor Ivers explained this principle when he said, “Whenever a student is from a different place or ethnic group or something does...

  Why? Although during childhood we have a stage of asking very often the why of everything which we later overcome. When we grow up, we acquire certain beliefs about why certain events happen, some of them we attribute to our own actions and others to the actions of other people. These beliefs remain in our brain, and we apply them to our life and to the life of other people. These beliefs are reflected in the classroom between teachers and students or among students themselves. It is important that as teachers we are open to understand that our reasons are not the only valid or the only possible explanations. An event can have many causes. We must also make our students aware of the same, with love and patience.

  Many factors impact human relationships and among these factors is personal space. It is that mental bubble we create around ourselves and the things that belong to us. It is the space between us and others. According to Westside Toastmasters, “Each person has his own personal territory, which includes the area that exist around his possessions, such as his home, which bonded by fences, the inside of his motor vehicle, his own bedroom or personal chair and, a defined air space around his body.” This factor within a TESOL classroom is of great importance, since it can affect even the way to greet or make someone feel welcome. For example, in my country Venezuela it is very common to greet with a kiss on the cheek, even with a hug. These actions are a symbol of courtesy, kindness and companionship. This behavior is something completely normal, however, for other cultures a simple handshake or a hand gesture is enough. Therefore, the interaction between people with different p...

  Decisions. We all have to make them at some point, and these bring their consequences, no decision is free of them. According to the patterns within which we have grown up, decisions may have great or little importance within our social group. According to Professor Ivers, " What is considered an acceptable choice to make in some cultures, might be considered a betrayal, possibly, in other cultures." For example, in Latin America changing political sides is considered high treason towards a specific group to which one belonged. Whereas in other countries it is considered a very individual choice. Therefore, we can find societies that are group oriented and others that are individualistic oriented. In the first ones, there is a great respect for the collective good, decisions are not individual, but in an intricate way it must be considered how that decision will affect the group. In these societies, standing out is not the most important thing, in fact, in a certain wa...

Although we all have the same emotions, we do not all express them with the same intensity when we are in public. Therefore, it is easy to misinterpret the expressiveness of emotions of people from other cultures. It is even easy to misinterpret people who belong to our own culture but who have different ranges/levels of tolerance to expressiveness. These ranges of tolerance (from low, to high) are passed down from generation to generation. This has made me reflect on how I express my own feelings? What patterns do I possess and how might people perceive me if I express myself in a certain way? Emotional expressiveness is key in a TESOL classroom. It is necessary to learn to work with the different ranges or tolerance levels of expressiveness that can be found in a classroom or even in our lives.