Learn Something New Everyday

One thing that's great about teaching is that you often learn new stuff on a regular basis. Either you have to teach something different and you do some research, or you have to explain something and you never thought about the material in a specific way before, or your kids (students) tell you something you didn't know.

The other day I was teaching how to write before/after sentences. The text book would give prompts and then the kids had to write full sentences. For example, (get dressed/take a shower) (after). So the sentence would be: After I took a shower, I got dressed.

Before they wrote the sentences, we went through each example and determined which event went first. Some, like the above example, were obvious. Others were more interesting. One question was (lock the door/leave the house) (before). Well, to me (and I believe most Westerners, but feel free to correct me), first you leave the house, then you lock the door. To my students, that is not the way it works. We ended up having a 5-10 minute conversation trying to figure out why.

What it boiled down to, is that an individual apartment isn't "the house" according to them. The apartment building is "the house". So they lock the door (to their individual apartment) before they leave the house (the building). I'm glad we talked about it and figured it out. I think these like these are the cause of some cultural issues. If you don't take the time and figure it out, you end up thinking the students don't understand, or that they're stupid, and they think you're an idiot or a jerk for not listening and then they get frustrated.

The other example was dinner and dessert. To me, dessert is a separate meal of sorts. You finish dinner, then you have dessert. To my students, dessert is encompassed in the meal of dinner. You don't always have dessert, but if you do, it's included with dinner. So you have dessert, then finish your dinner.

I love learning little facts like this. It's part of why I like being in other countries and I think it helps me learn how to be more tolerant of other people and their customs. Or at least makes me pause and let them explain before I give judgement.