Breaking out of the classroom, by Wendy Tanagho

I have always been fascinated by language.  I love my native language, and I love learning and using other languages.  I was the one doing crossword puzzles and word games while others in my class complained about the books we had to read.  Still, I never thought about turning a love for language into a career.  I went through college in a confused, undecided state, declaring my major at the last possible deadline.  I decided to major in Spanish, my true passion at the time. 

Still, I never thought about using my passions for language in a career.  During college I went to Guatemala for two weeks, teaching English to fourth, fifth and sixth graders in a mountain village school.  For the first time, my passion had form and color.  Learning and speaking Spanish had always been in my heart, but in Guatemala they made sense as skills that could connect me to other people.  This was also the first time I thought about teaching English to speakers of other languages.

After college, I worked in the field of social work, using Spanish in urban community centers.  Many of my adult clients expressed an interest in, or often a need for, learning English.  For the first time, I realized that teaching English as a Second Language to adults was a career in its own right. 

Shortly thereafter I took two graduate level courses in the field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).  One of the requirements of my coursework was that I observe an actual ESL class.  I observed a free, adult ESL class at a community center in my city, and I knew I had found my niche. I was energized by the practicality of the lessons and the hospitality of the teachers.  The next semester I got a job at that center, teaching survival ESL.  Although I had no training as a teacher or as a linguist, I knew that my students needed to learn English in order to get jobs. 

As a young, inexperienced teacher I used a complicated, highly specialized technique that I had perfected in college: "winging it" (or, in other words, making it up as I went along).  My instincts told me that my students would not learn English by reading picture dictionaries and copying textbook exercises.  These were great foundational techniques, but I knew there had to be more. Granted, at the survival level most of the time is spent on the alphabet, numbers, colors, and basic word order.  But even at this beginner level, I learned that lessons had to have meaning if my students were going to achieve their goals of fluency.  My lessons had to be applicable to real life need and/or connected to personal experience.

Back then, I never ventured outside of the classroom.  Instead, I had to find ways to bring the real world into the classroom.  I would literally bring my world to my classroom, in the form of visual aids that I used for hands-on activities.  One such activity was during our clothing unit.  I brought in a suitcase full of clothes belonging to me and my husband, and I had students pack for a vacation, labeling each article of clothing as they packed it.  We also had fun with the reverse - each student had to blindly pull out an article of clothing and identify it as they put it on, no matter what it was!  My students had fun just getting out of their seats, and the game helped alleviate the anxiety students may have felt as they were called on to complete a language performance task.  In a game such as this, everyone shares a common language experience rather than being singled out to give a correct answer. 

Recently, I finished teaching an advanced English class for adults, and I found that at that level motivation is the key to learning.  Each student in my class had a different goal or reason for studying English.  On the first day of class, my new students asked me if we could go out to eat or to see a movie.  Is it cheating to have class at a restaurant or a movie theater?  When my students asked me to take them to these places during class, I hesitated.  Surely I wasn't getting paid to go out and have fun! 

Well, as it turns out, having fun is a critical part of learning, even for adults.   When children are in school, we call it "discovery learning."  For adults, especially those learning another language, we have another term for it: "authenticity."  Giving adult learners authentic material means using real-world English as the basis for learning, rather than only using grammar exercises constructed specifically for textbooks. 

In the Chicago area where I teach, there is no shortage of authentic language experiences: museums, theaters, festivals, outdoor shopping malls, libraries, ethnic neighborhoods, and as many more as you can think of.  My class assignments consisted of presentations based on a trip to the Chicago History Museum, scavenger hunts in the public library and at the mall, book reports based on books students choose, and student-generated surveys administered to friends and family. 

So, from my days of "winging it" to my newfound practice of frequent field trips, I have learned that class doesn't always happen in a classroom.  As you consider studying abroad, remember that in today's world learning is a dynamic, interactional adventure just waiting to start.

Sometimes I wonder what I would be doing today if, instead of following my heart, I had pursued a so-called "practical" major, like business or engineering.  Are you letting your passions in life lead you?  Could they lead you to study English or business or law in another country or culture?  Where passion and life meet, there is no classroom more effective or more fun.   

Wendy Tanagho is an ESL instructor at Goal Training Educational Center in Skokie, Illinois.  She is currently working on a Masters Degree in Applied Linguistics through the University of Massachusetts Boston online program