Points of View II: Zhuomin Lee, Singapore

This time Zhuomin shares us with us her joys (and frustrations) of teaching English!

"Is it appropriate to express mild frustration about students who just don’t get it? If you are a teacher by profession, this will sound familiar.

Last week students in the intermediate class learnt about clothes, which was fun when it came to role play. They took turns pretending to be customers and shop assistants in a store asking about prices and sizes. This was also a good opportunity to review numbers above one hundred, a lesson they had previously learnt.

This afternoon we went through the same sentence structure again and they made the same grammar mistakes as they did last week. Some also had problems remembering that trousers, shorts and shoes come in pairs.

“I would like to buy a sue.”

“I would like to buy a pair of shoes.”

“It costs 20 dollar.”

“It costs 20 dollarssssss.”

The s sound exists in Khmer, as in Siem Reap and Banteay Srey. However, it is not pronounced if it is at the end of a word. This is why they often miss out the audible s at the end of a plural noun.

“Guys! Remember the s!”. Hiss.

But teachers make mistakes too, and half the time we don’t have the answers either. For example, articles (a, an, a pair of) are hard to remember, even harder still to explain. Two similar items make a pair, so why is it ‘a bikini’ and not ‘a pair of bikini’?

Some grammar rules are as such because… they just are. It sounds correct and it makes sense because we have read, conversed, written, and taken exams in English all our lives, but for individuals who do so in another language, they naturally struggle. In other words, it is like trying to study Khmer from scratch and be expected to do well in four weeks!

The classroom is the only time students get to use their English language skills, since they speak Khmer at home and with their friends. Yet, two hours of practice a day is hardly enough. Although there is a lot of catching up to do, force feeding and setting them challenges way beyond their abilities is not the way to go. As it is, some students have problems attending school. The worst thing to happen is for them to quit school all together, not because of their socio-economic circumstances but because they have completely lost interest in learning.

For the rest of this week, some of us shall probably have to continue to eat, sleep and dream a pair of shoes until the children get it right."