English That I Learned from My Students (Part I)

As a non-native English speaking teacher here in America, I have to thank my students for giving me a lot of precious English lessons these past 2 years. They “improve” my pronunciation, and they teach me a lot of young and cool (or...maybe I should also say, inappropriate?) English that I’ve never learned on the textbooks before.

I’m just going to focus on pronunciation for today. Sometimes I feel like my students are just too critical on my pronunciation in English. It might be a revenge for me correcting their tones in Mandarin all the time.😆 So for example, when I said the letter “h,” or words like “jeopardy,” “metaphor,” or “tournament,” they could all somehow found them funny. But sometimes they really couldn’t understand me, and I did learn how I confused different vowels in English from them. Here are two examples:

[Example 1]

Me talking to a student: Where is your “saw?”

Student: ???

Me trying again: Where is your “saw?” Your “saw?” You look like you don’t have a “saw” today!

Student: You mean “saw?” (Making a sawing/cutting movement.)

Me: No! The spiritual thing that lives in your body!

Student: Ah, soul!

😂😂😂

[Example 2]

Me: You know, back in Taiwan in the old time, a teacher can throw “choke” to students.

Students: ???

Me: No teachers threw it to me but I’ve seen it.

Students: Throw what???

Me: “Choke!” C-H-A-L-K!

Students: Ah, chalk!

😂😂😂



Most of the time, when students feel so comfortable to “help” with my pronunciation, it’s because they think we are close enough to share everything. So usually they do not have bad intention. In that case, I would interpret their behaviors as joking friendly, not laughing at me. So I usually just joke back, complaining that they have no idea how confusing English can be, or threaten that I’ll go back to Taiwan if they correct my pronunciation again. 😜


But there were some other cases, which might not have been the same story. Watching SRT students is considered one of my top challenges right now. These students are not in my class, and they are assigned to come to my classroom for just 25 minutes everyday. It’s so hard to build rapport with them. And they are freshmen, which means some of them can be very immature and loud. One time I saw a student playing video game, and I was telling him to stop it and he should work on his homework. Of course, he was not happy, and I heard him mimicking my accent in a mean way. Well, two years ago, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed what he did. But I have learned (Thank God!), and I saw this as a perfect timing to put my foot down. So I told him, “What you’re doing right now is ignorant and disrespectful. I love my accent, and I’m PROUD of my accent.” Surprisingly, I heard other students supporting me by saying that they love my accent, too, and my accent is their favorite one. 💓And yes, that student shut up and never did it again. (So far.)

So, thanks to my lovely students, I have learned to be more careful about how to pronounce some vowels in English, and I also learned to be more confident in myself, and be proud of my accent, my root.