Land of the Free

I teach an ESL class once a week. When I started, I had no idea what I was doing. I had tutored non-English speakers before, but I'd never formally taught the subject.

I was volunteering at a completely not English related event, not to say we were speaking another language, but it didn't have to do with the English language, per se.

But, I digress. The woman I was paired with was co-owner in a business that employed a number of Latin workers and they had wanted to provide an ESL class for their employees for years but hadn't found someone to do it. And along came me.

I started teaching the men in mid-August, and though I'd like to think that they've vastly improved their chances for career advancement, I have a slight suspicion that I've been the one that's changed more than they. Because I'm a member of a church that has a Spanish speaking congregation of over 8,000, I'm a bit more in tune with issues of immigration and the Latin community than the typical white suburbanite female. However, nothing compares to really knowing people who struggled for months just to make it across the Mexican border in hopes of pursuing the American dream. And you can ask every single one of them. That's why they came.

I've taken a more holistic approach to teaching them English. I'm not only interested in them understanding and speaking my native language fluently, but I also think it's important for them to understand American English and American culture. We've done brief studies of our country's origin, history, government, economic system etc. I've acquainted them with American poetry and now we're studying American idioms and customs. Every culture has it's own strange cliches and buzz words, and I don't want the men to be lost when they hear ours. It's not only been fun for them to learn, but it's been fun for me to get a greater idea of where some of our strange phrases come from. Here are a few examples of things we discussed this last week. These are excerpts from a book called Do You Really Know American English? by William C. Harvey:

*~*For Native Americans, the hatchet carried the same symbolic significance as did the sword for the European settlers. In order to secure a treaty with a warring tribe, a colonial representative had to attend a ceremony where the local chief would literally "bury the hatchet" as a sign of peace. In modern times, the expression suggests that one is willing to end a dispute and stop the fighting for good.

~*~Using light and sticks, fifteenth century nocturnal hunters used the technique of "beating around the bush" in an effort to stir birds out of their nests. They had to be clever and careful, which is why the phrase describes a cautious, evasive person who refuses to come to the point.

*~*"Thrown for a loop" is an aeronautical expression that refers to being suddenly knocked out of a flight pattern and forced to use a looping maneuver in order to recover. Today, it means to disorient someone by doing something totally unexpected.

And there's plenty more where that came from. More American fun later.