Week 12 TQ Dialogues: The Hidden Curriculum of Survival ESL

TQ Dialogues: The Hidden Curriculum of Survival ESL

I was convinced that the examples introduced by Auerbach and Burgess oversimplify and lack the reality. I remembered learning some dialogues when I was a junior high school student. The dialogue was between Mike Smith and Junko Takano following like this: “M: Nice to meet you. My name is Mike Smith. J: Nice to meet you, too. My name is Junko Takano. How are you? M: Fine, thank you. And you?” Now I find these conversations very strange. Such conversations never happen usually. However, in junior high school, I was impressed and thought this was English. Moreover, I learned “This is a pen.”, but I have never used this sentence in a daily conversation. In Japan, materials are improving gradually, but there are still such conversations used in a textbook in junior high school. I am wondering why such conversations are used and when I found them very strange?

We should follow some steps. In this article, the goal is to act on a critical view of reality to improve learners’ lives. Nevertheless, it is also necessary to acquire language competency. At first, it does not matter whether the conversation is authentic or not. Students should learn English as much as possible. In the process of learning, they come to know what conversation they really need or how to think critically. The first time I notice the conversation learned from my materials was strange was when I was in the middle of 7th grade. AETs (Assistant English Teacher) came to my school once a month. When I introduced myself to AET, AET said, ““My name is ~.” is okay, but we often say “I’m ~.” And “How are you? Fine, thank you.” is not used very much, either. We say “good or not bad.””

If the situation is ESL, we need more authentic conversations. In addition, a problem-posing view suggested by Freire is also necessary. ESL students could face many problems in daily life, such as job, housing and health problem. For example, when I tried to pay my bill of this semester at IUP, my pin number was suddenly changed. So I could not enter my URSA. I was very upset, because I thought someone stole my information. I did not what to do and what to explain in English. I have never been taught such conversation in English.

After all, it is not until we face some problems that we can learn authentic English more. However, if possible, we should know how to say and think in advance.

My question is: Do you have any examples that you learn strange conversations when you learn the second language? Have you ever experienced any troubles in the U.S. or foreign countries because you do not know much of the second language?