Cultural Differences

I had my first day of class today! Yay!

It went well.

I know I told both of you that I had my lesson plan all figured out for the week. I started out with the "What 3 things or people would you bring with you if you were stranded on a deserted island?" question. I broke them up into groups to discuss.

I went around the room one-by-one so I could learn their names and gauge their English level. Some did well, some struggled.

But their answers really interested me.

I wrote my answers down before class so I'd have something to share with them about myself. I said I'd bring 1) my iPod (assuming that it'd never lose battery power), 2) chocolate (a lifetime supply), and 3) my brother. To be honest, I was thinking about saying I'd bring you two, but I just didn't feel like explaining that. I tried to make it simple.

A lot of them said they'd bring a member of the opposite sex. Like... an unspecified member of the opposite sex. Many of the boys said "girl." One ballsy boy said "sexy girl." They said mostly for company. Many of the girls said they'd bring a "man." Their justification was mostly for protection and survival purposes. Perhaps I'm looking into this too much, but I think it reflects a big cultural difference. I would never deem some random man or woman important enough to bring to an island, but I think their culture's emphasis on the family makes them need to have that sort of relationship (even on a deserted island). If that makes sense.

Aside from bringing a member of the opposite sex, many of them said they would bring survival equipment. Many of them said knives and water. One student said he'd bring a fishing rod.

I had a few male students who said they'd bring superheroes to their deserted island. Superman, Spiderman, and Batman (who they called "Battyman," which I thought was really cute).

I thought it was interesting. None of mine were very practical. I thought about bringing things that would be practical, but mostly I just wanted to make sure I wouldn't be bored on a deserted island. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think most Americans would bring 3 similar things. Or at least 1 of them would be for entertainment purposes.



There's this one student, Lebron (I wonder where he got that name...), who came up to me during break. He said that he was interested in going to school in America. He was asking me if Washington had good schools. It's so cute--I think he really wants to do well and improve his English. He even asks me what he should do to improve his English. He also calls me "teacher."

One of my students (a female student) asked for my phone number. I think she wants to practice her English outside of class. My supervisor (sort of) told Robert and I that there aren't really any rules that say we can't socialize with our students outside of class so it would be up to us to figure out how we wanted to handle that. I really don't mind, though. I gave her my number. Maybe we can get a group of students together to practice English outside of class.

I think the students like that Robert and I are in the same age group as them. I think they find us more relatable because of it. They asked me about fashion and music in America. One student asked me about Las Vegas!


It was a good class. I enjoyed it. I didn't get to do my Catch the Ghost activity, though. The one-on-one talking to people took a lot more time than I had anticipated. I think I'll try to do it another class period.