Sense and Sensitivities

(c) Robin Reid

Topics to avoid in the ESOL classroom?

It's the end of the year and the feedback forms have been analysed and, let's face it, I don't even need to look at them to know they're going to be great! Mainly because I spent the final 3 weeks of term teaching my students how to say, "My teacher is excellent and her lessons are always well-planned"!

There were things they didn't like though. There was the classic, "too many games", followed swiftly by "not enough games", and best of all, "I didn't like all the stairs I had to climb every day". However, most potently was the simple comment, "I didn't like when we talked about prejudice".

I knew immediately which lesson this student referred to, and sadly it was probably the most prominent memory he will take away from my classes as it happened during his first week. We had, as a team, decided to teach about the ESOL cuts and in order to illustrate the effects of the cuts one teacher wanted to teach a lesson about asylum seekers and their status in the country. We agreed it could be controversial and inflammatory but perhaps necessary, as we had heard some very ill-informed opinions emanating from some of our European students.

My colleague had a really successful lesson which seemed to enlighten the students and bring a collective understanding of the system asylum seekers were subjected to, whereas my class descended into chaos. The European students questioned what money asylum seekers had access to, and when informed one particular student was outraged and wanted to know why we should fund asylum seekers who could be murderers. This led to a young refugee running out of the room crying and staff being dispatched to find him whilst the rest of the class sat in bewilderment. The new student, who had expressed doubts about the topic at the beginning of the class, wanted to leave too but I asked him to stay and support the point of view of other students who were debating with the Europeans. He stayed, reluctantly, and said nothing, but stood firmly alongside his fellow refugees. He didn't attend for a week after that.

I felt horrible. Was I right to try to teach this lesson? I knew that some of the class held particularly ignorant beliefs and I knew that I had some sensitive students. The new guy told me that he had left his previous college due to the prejudice he had been subjected to and he was angry that I had brought this prejudice right into the room where he wanted to feel safe. Plus, he still remembers it as the low point.

However, I know that, equally, the other students remember it too. They will remember their contrition as they started to understand the situation; they will remember their horror as some of the refugees told their stories candidly; they will remember the tears of a friend who had seemed so confident and unbreakable. And they did learn about each other, and they did come to a collective understanding, even if it wasn't immediate. And I honestly think that the experience was an education that many hadn't expected to face in their daily English class. Would I do it again? Not the same way, no. But though one student has listed it as a negative, I think it has been one step towards tolerance for others. Indeed, one student has said that she has encountered more cultures and languages in one year in our ESOL department than in her entire life.

But are there topics that ought to be avoided in the ESOL classroom? Is it good sense to plough on through our students' sensitivities?