Whenever invited to conduct teacher-training seminars, I emphasize the importance of developing a passion for teaching and compassion for the learners. I remind the attendees of the importance of building a rapport between them and their students. To achieve that, the students must see how much you love what you’re doing and feel that you care for them.

One day, I was tested if I could walk my talk.

While my students were working on a graded exercise I gave after discussing a grammar point, I noticed that one of them was crying. It was apparent that the seatwork I gave was the reason.

The task was simple – from a set of paired sentences, they will write new sentences using the comparative form of adjectives (followed by than). In each pair of sentences, the same adjective is used to describe two different things.

I know I discussed the topic sufficiently. In addition, shown on screen while they were doing the exercise was the slide on my PPT that explained in detail what to do. There were examples too.

I wanted to approach her, but I realized that it might unnecessarily draw the whole class’s attention to her, which might make her uncomfortable. So, I asked them to stop writing and allow me to give one more example. I noticed that the student seated nearest to her was trying to help her understand what I was explaining. Despite all those, she was unable to finish the exercise.

Knowing her level (A2), I was not surprised that she found that exercise difficult.  What was surprising were those tears. It bothered me, to say the least.

Why?

I love teaching. I use humor in the classroom, but I take my profession seriously. Teaching, for me, is more than just a means of livelihood. I have been doing this for the past 30 years. It has become an integral part of my life.

As a teacher, everything I do in the class is guided by one of the philosophies I subscribe to – “The student is the reason I am a teacher.”  Thus, I care about what the students say about how I teach. I care whether my students learn or not. I care about how my students feel.

I was sure I did not say or do anything to offend the student who cried. One of the things I tried so hard to avoid was to make my students feel disrespected. To ensure that, I studied their culture whenever I had the opportunity. I kept in mind the tips given to me by my compatriots who have been teaching here longer than I do. I don’t like to offend my students either directly or indirectly. I’m particularly careful with my language and the humor I use in class. As a teacher, I know how important it is to establish a good rapport with my students, and that begins with me acknowledging that they deserve respect.

So, I was wondering what triggered her to cry. It made me contemplate about my overall performance in the class. It made me wonder if I was performing as a teacher the way I should.

I asked myself – Am I an effective teacher? Am I doing the right things in the class? Am I using the proper strategies to motivate my students and help them learn?

Have I become a “mercenary expat teacher” who cares for nothing but running to the ATM during paydays?

The only consolation I had was the thought that the student seemed to care about whether she learned, so much so that when she couldn’t do the exercise, it frustrated her, prompting those tears to well out of her eyes.

When the class ended, I sent that student a text message asking her, only if she was comfortable doing so, to visit me in my office anytime both of us were available so I could explain to her further the grammar point I discussed that day. I also promised to give her a chance to redo the exercise.

That’s why the university requires us to serve 3 hours of office a week. We use that in case students need help or want to practice conversation.

The following day, the student came with that classmate seated nearest to her, who happened to be her best friend (whose language level was B2). She asked her friend to accompany her in case she needed a translator.

When they settled in my office, I asked my student why she cried. She explained in Korean, and her classmate translated it into English.

She cried because she felt so stupid that she could hardly understand English. She thinks her IQ is low because she cannot speak English well.

I told her what she said was actually a fallacy in language learning. A language learner should not be considered stupid because she can hardly understand the new language she is trying to learn. I pointed this out not because I wanted her to feel better but because it was true. The ability to speak in English is not a metric used in measuring intelligence.

I explained to her (and her friend) that people who speak multiple languages could do so because they dedicated their time and resources to studying the languages they know. Another possible reason they attained speaking and writing proficiency in a language or several languages is that they were exposed to those languages since birth.

I cited myself as an example. I could speak three dialects in my country (Tagalog, Ibanag, and Ilocano) because those are the languages of my parents. And how did I learn English? My parents used the language, too, when communicating. In my country (the Philippines), English is the medium of instruction in our schools (from Basic Education to Tertiary, even in Graduate School). All of our textbooks (except the ones we used for the subjects in  Filipino) were written in English. In addition, I told them I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and completed the academic requirements for a Master of Arts in English. (The Master’s degree I completed is in Educational Management.)

As a clincher for my monologue, I asked my two visitors, “Am I stupid because I don’t speak Korean well?” I was happy they both said “no.”

Then I asked my student who cried how long has she been studying English and how serious her efforts were to learn the language.  She responded, “Not too long, and she was not serious with her efforts.”

I told her that that was the problem. I added that that is also why I could not speak Korean well – I was not serious about learning the language. After hearing that, she said something in Korean to her friend. I asked her friend what it was. My student said, “I will teach sir Korean, and he’ll teach me English.” Then we had a laugh.

Then I took the opportunity to share the findings of one of my studies on English language learning published in an indexed journal. I told them that one group of students in my study was more proficient in English because, as the data I gathered have shown, they spent more time learning English than the other group of students with whom they were compared. I told them that they could not find anywhere a magic pill that would make them proficient in the English language overnight. The secret to becoming proficient in any language is spending time studying it. The more hours you allot to learning the language, the better.

After the pep talk, we went down to work. I spent around 10 minutes explaining to her the comparative form of adjectives and how to rewrite two sentences with the same adjective into one sentence using the comparative form of the said adjective. Then I gave her as much time she needed to finish the exercise – the exercise that made her cry. She finished the exercise with no tears but smiles.

Before they left, I explained the other fallacy that my student who cried said – that her IQ was very low because she could not speak English well. I told her that the English language has nothing to do with a person’s intelligence quotient. IQ tests in a country are written in that country’s native language. Verbal comprehension is only one of the aspects tested in IQ tests, and verbal comprehension is not verbal comprehension in English but in the language in which the IQ test is written.

I told my students that when people can speak English fluently, it does not mean their intelligence quotient is high. Proficiency in English has never been and will never be used as the sole basis for measuring a person’s intelligence. That people who could speak English are more intelligent than those who could not is a fallacy.

The above reminds me of what one of my fellow expat teachers remarked in the English Cafe where we were both serving time that same day when my student cried. There were no students to serve then, so he checked some papers. He said, “How stupid this student is. He doesn’t know the comparative form of  expensive.”  That’s the stupidest comment I have ever heard from a language teacher. It made me wonder if he has training in pedagogy… if indeed he was a real teacher.