436. Other ways of living


Some days ago a post about teaching students of other cultures appeared on the website of British Council – BBC. I wrote the comment below. Photo from: School children at the Kendriva Vidvalava School in Delhi - blog lib umn edu


August 26, 2010

“Other cultures”

Hello Nik,

I appreciate posting this topic. It's something we encounter every day in our classrooms.

I live in Granada, southern Spain, and we have more and more children and adolescents from other countries, for example and it is just one example, from Morocco.

My experience is nice. Maybe I am a fortunate teacher, but I think the same happens to many more teachers. Perhaps there is some bullying, out of the classroom, but as I say, I see my students together, at the playground, or in excursions to Sierra Nevada. The biggest number of students are from America: Bolivia, Ecuador. At tutorials they do not tell me anything wrong about treatment with other boys.

Fortunately they "fight" together in the football small league, aslo vs other schools.

With these South-American students I have no problems, evidently, with the language. Besides I in some way make friends with these kids and their families. The students tell me their things, in a natural way. Well, fortunately the students from Magrebi can already speak Spanish. Anyway I confess I deepen little in their cultures, in the classroom, I mean. I have a sort of fear or the like to bring out talking about their origin-countries. Except when I am with a single student at a tutorial: I try to know about their family, I friendly joke about their sisters' names, and we have a small laugh, as the most natural thing.

Well, as I've said, this is my experience.

Best for the staff of this website and my colleague teachers

Fernando M Díez Gallego

Teacher of English. Teacher trainer.

http://fernandoexperiences.blogspot.com

PS.: Honestly, when I instruct other teachers, we normally don't talk about different countries or very little: we are more concerned for the students' tracking, etc.

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