7/12/2009

SLA Essay 1: Narrative of a Growing Participator in Taiwan Nathan Straub

In July 2007, Teresa and her brother Nathan came to Taiwan for the first time. She was not confident about learning

a language as different as Chinese, but she clung to her standbys of making friends and learning "hands-on".

Teresa's first job in Taiwan was working as an American teacher in English camps. She had to adjust to things like

calling the female Taiwanese camp director by her English name "Robert". When she had a rash on her leg, Robert

and a more experienced American teacher took her to the hospital, where all the signs were written in unintelligible

characters, and the doctor prescribed pills with labels on which only the scientific names were in English. She took

pictures and was fascinated by it all, but she had to rely on the older teachers and the Taiwanese staff for everything.

At the camp, Teresa was assigned a team of 8-13 year olds, who spoke Chinese to each other, and spoke basic

English to her after much coaxing. She was assigned a college-age Taiwanese TA who went by "Pom-Pom". Pom-

Pom was supposed to interpret as Teresa taught her team in English. It helped to explain the stories and activities to

Pom-Pom before class, but Pom-Pom still was not very enthusiastic. Babysitting 12 kids is hard enough without

having to listen to a foreigner and relay all her instructions.

Over the next 7 weeks, Teresa made friends with the other American teachers and the TA's. Besides hello, goodbye,

and sorry, all the communication was in English. At mealtimes, she would point at foods and ask TA's and students

what they were in Chinese. Because of the loud environment in the dining hall it was hard to hear and even harder

to remember the names of foods. But after a couple weeks, certain ones stood out, either because they sounded like

something else (rice = mi3 fan4 sounds like "me fun"; mango = man guo2) or because it was a favorite or common

food (chicken leg = ji tui4; leechee = li zi4).

At the swimming pool, the kids played dodge-ball in one of the lanes, and someone came swimming into the middle

of their game, one called to the other, "pambien" (pang bian4). It was easy to remember, and when she asked a TA,

she found out it is a rude way to say "move over". After 6 weeks, when it came time to take a train to a different

camp location, a TA friend wrote out handy phrases on a card for her. These included "jie4 guo4", a polite word for

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"move over", but because it was written in the Taiwanese phonetic system, she couldn't read it very easily and

"pambien" always came to her mind first because it came at a teachable moment.

During those 7 weeks of English camps, Teresa got night-and-day interaction with Chinese kids and TA's, but it was

mostly in English. Because of this interaction, she made good friends with most of the TA's, and some of the kids.

It did take lots of work, and more often than not, it was easiest to interact with the kids during free-time, playing

frisbee or UNO, using very few words.

After camps were over, Teresa began work at an English Village school, where classes of 5th-graders would come

for two days and practice their English in situation classrooms. She missed the camp TA's, as there were only two

Taiwanese on staff besides the cleaning ladies. One of the rules of the school was "no Chinese". This caused

considerable chafing, both for her and for the students. She made some exceptions to the rule: No Chinese in the

classroom unless the teacher asks you to explain something in Chinese." This let her do some give-and-take and test

students' comprehension: in the airport class, she would ask, "What is this in Chinese?" (fei ji) "Do you know what

it is in English?" (airplane) At lunchtime, Teresa had the option of eating with the students or with her fellow

American teachers. The latter allowed for encouragement and debriefing on the day, and building friendships with

fellow teachers (using English). The former allowed for interacting with students using some Chinese. On the days

when she ate with the students, her team grew more attached to her and respected her more because she made an

effort to understand their conversations in Chinese. Two or three local students liked their visit so much that they

started coming by on Saturday afternoons to hang out.

Overall, at the English Village, interaction was high but Chinese interaction with the same people consistently was

tragically low. The two hours a week of Chinese lessons for the teaching team was not nearly enough. The

textbook selected had excellent material, but the Chinese teacher was clumsy with the pinyin romanization system

and some of the topics in the book were simply irrelevant, such as buying a car or searching for an apartment to rent.

After three months, Teresa and several teammates decided on a church to attend. Lin, the pastor's wife, interpreted

for them during the sermon. Teresa arranged for Lin to tutor her an hour or two every week. At these sessions, she

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and another teacher would record the new words and listen to them during the week. Besides Lin, the ones she felt

most comfortable talking to at church were young kids. They knew some English, and looked at her as half-role

model, half-playmate.

Teresa kept up with some of the camp TA's through chat and email. One, a sweet girl named Angela, lived just at

the next train stop. Eventually, Teresa invited herself over to Angela's home every Friday evening. Angela's mother

was a Taiwanese English teacher, and although her father didn't speak much English, he had a patient way of

treating you as though you could understand what he said to you… and after a couple tries, you did get the gist of

what he was saying.

By Chinese New Year, 8 months after coming to Taiwan, she was such good friends with the female TA's from the

summer camps that they "fought over her" and had to arrange a schedule for her to visit them all, over the holiday.

Angela's family took her on their holiday road trip to Sun Moon Lake, and from there she took the train south to

meet up with other TA's who showed her around in Kaohsiung. Angela's family would have had her back at their

house for the remainder of the holiday week, but because she was going to Kaohsiung, Teresa took pity on her

socially-challenged brother and suggested they invite Nathan over instead.

She learned to always bring a gift when going to someone's home. Her role as a guest required bringing some

famous specialty food from where she lived in Taiwan. Their role as hosts was to provide hospitality and show her

all the interesting local sights and treat her to "special" local foods. The foods might be disgusting to the hosts, but

they still needed to impress her with them, and she still needed to act impressed.

Back at the English Village, two astonishingly loyal Taiwanese friends were the cleaning ladies, affectionately

known as the "Ayii's" (meaning aunties). They didn't know more than ten words of English, but they were very

affectionate. Every day Teresa saw them, so she would express her thanks for their work or try to joke around with

them using gestures or her limited Chinese. The Ayii's also served lunch to the kids on schooldays, so when she was

in the food line she would point to the items she wanted and say "hen duo" (a lot) or "yi dian" (a little). To show

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their affection, the Ayii's would save her an extra piece of fruit. When she returned to the States after a year, there

were tears and hugs from those cleaning ladies.

As she got better at Chinese, Teresa could ask questions or make comments to the clerk at the grocery store or 7-11.

They didn't have a lot of time for small talk, but would usually be surprised and compliment her on her Chinese.

This increased her confidence, even though she knew they were just being polite and she had a long way to go.

They usually saw her eager, blundering attempts as a form of respect, since she was trying to enter their culture and

not expecting them to rely on what they'd learned in High School English class. Although there were dozens of

clerks who worked at the grocery store and 7-11, smaller mom-and-pop shops always had the same people in

charge. She got to know the bread lady, the florist, and the gift shop owner. At Christmas and Valentine's, she and

another teacher made cookies, wrapped them up and gave them to some of these acquaintances.

As a gauge of her language ability, Teresa managed to carry on a rudimentary conversation with her brother in

Chinese for an hour in the Seattle airport during a layover on their way home from Taiwan after a year. It was fun to

talk about people without them knowing what you were saying. On the flight from Seattle to Portland, she played

the role of interpreter between the American stewardess and her mischievous brother.

After that first year, Teresa decided to come back to Taiwan and serve for another year. Rather than working at an

English Village in a large city, she taught actual English lessons at elementary schools on tiny Kinmen Island. Her

Chinese ability improved considerably, especially since she was in a small island community where she got to know

virtually everyone. But it was frustrating that when she made friends with high school girls in Kinmen, they mainly

wanted to "use" her to learn English, rather than helping her learn Chinese. She came to the conclusion that if your

goal is merely to learn the language, people will see through you; but if your goal is to be interested in other people,

they will want to be your friend and eventually introduce you to their friends.