The joys and negatives of teaching foreign students

Nahid Kaiser Toma Teaching has always been an exciting experience to me. I was really flabbergasted to hear from the head of my department that I had been selected to teach the international students recently enrolled in Daffodil International University. Before that I took class of some Turkish students here, but these students are Indonesians, so it was another new experience. I was supposed to take vocabulary classes with them. In the introductory class I came to know some facts of Indonesian educational system that was shocking. For example, they have been exposed to English for the first time when they were in high school which we cannot think of in Bangladesh. Moreover, no freehand writing practice, no emphasis on pronunciation or building vocabulary was included. Only few grammar lessons were there. Besides, they had no habit of reading English newspapers, listening to English news on radio or TV, nor even hobby of watching English movies or TV shows. I was at a fix about how to start, where to start from. So I started with asking about their needs and expectations from the courses. They shared that they are all graduates, but to get a good job they need sound command of English-- both written and spoken--which made them decide to achieve an international language proficiency training. Therefore, I understood that I've to give them basic knowledge on communicative and business English so that they can succeed in interviews and sustain in the job atmosphere. It was a pleasure to run the course with them for several reasons. They are really eager to learn. Unlike some native students who just hanker after grade, these students grab whatever lesson they are given. They welcome their homework and accept challenging topics for oral presentation which gave me immense satisfaction as a teacher. Another noteworthy aspect in the international students I found is their balanced sense of humor. They know where to stop. They are neither unnecessarily humble nor unexpectedly obstinate. Rather, they are modest but straight forward. The ultimate pleasure of any teacher is when heshe can grow with the students. I came to know many things about Indonesian heritage and culture from them, learned new words and things from them. So it was give-and-take time which was unique in my teaching experience. My memories with the Turkish students were no less enjoyable. Once while teaching Romantic poetry I told them to make a comparison between a Turkish poet and English one as assignment. It was one of the most interesting assignments I ever received from any student because it introduced me to a new poet, a new poem and let me see how a poet like John Keats has so many common poetic elements with a Turkish one. I enjoyed it like anything. Besides, they arranged an exhibition of Turkish paintingphotography at Daffodil International University auditorium which brought us closer to Turkish culture. But it is the role of the world that there are two sides of a coin. Besides pleasure, a teacher also faces some pains when dealing with international students. In my case, the first barrier was my being not a native English speaker, English for me is still a foreign language. So I dared to teach foreigner (Indonesians) students another foreign language (English) myself being another foreigner (Bangladeshi) to both the learner and the target language. One problem was my limitation of not being able to use a single Bangla word for clarification which I do with many native students. In a class of 29 students, only 2 were Turkish. Other students wanted me to explain in Bangla, which was not possible because the two students felt deprived, even they complained once about it. Another problem was the challenge to meet up the need of the Indonesian graduates who hope to go back home to get a good job after this training. So I tried to utilise every minute of each class which was sometimes tiresome for me as well as for them. Another problem was accent. I know my accent is not native like but it is clear and free from any influence from my local dialect or native language. But the pronunciation of some of the Indonesian students was affected by their native tone. However my observation is that though their word-storage is limited, they know the use of those words. Along with me two more teachers of English department have taken classes of the Indonesian trainees. Ms. Umme Kulsum, who took classes on skills with them, says" I have enjoyed the cross-cultural interaction between us and their eagerness to know our culture but sometimes they talk internally in their own language which I do not understand and it irritates me." Another teacher, Ms. Shamsi Ara Huda, who took elementary English with them, says: "sometimes it gave me pain that I do not know their first language. If I knew I could explain better." Most of the time it is pleasant for me to spend time with my students from Indonesia. What I like most of them is their honesty, simplicity and frankness. They are also very interested about our Bangladeshi society and culture. But sometimes I have to go through some pain in conducting classes with them when it required their first language to make lessons clear. Nahid Kaiser Toma is senior lecturer, Department of English, Daffodil International University, Dhaka