ESL Teaching and Learning

Introduction

As a fashionable type of educational form, teaching English as Second Language (ESL) is a significance in the multicultural society based on the growth rate of immigration. As a consequence of study and live abroad, ESL students are suffering an intense culture shock among their daily experience. In this paper, an overview of ESL education will be provided in the first part with statistics and sample programs. Afterwards, the culture shock is divided into two parts which are the shock of educational differences and the shock of social differences. In the context, those two aspects of culture shock will be discussed separately with perspectives from both ESL students and ESL educators. Besides, some stories will be consumed to explain the culture shock from ESL students and the teaching methods from prominent educators. Furthermore, the issues that should be aware among ESL education will be mentioned with some measure to release the students’ stress as well. Finally, a good vision of the future of ESL education will be located at the end of the article.

Along with the globalization, the education of ESL (English as Second Language) students has overwhelmingly become increasingly fashionable in all around the world. At the end of last century, almost 2 million immigrants settled in Canada. According to the statistics (Canada, 2003), nearly 17% of this population were aged 5-16, the appropriate age to secondary education. Furthermore, the total number of foreign-born immigrants tool up to 18.4% of Canadian population in 2003 (Canada, 2003). As a fact, most of immigrants settled in the biggest cities in Canada, Such as Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. According to the pattern in Toronto, most immigrant are from Asia, such as China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Iran, and South Africa (Justus, 2004). However, only less than 10% of immigrants use English or French as first language (Canada, 2004). As a reflection of the huge number of ESL students, numerous ESL educational institutions were founded up in these years.

In addition, within the age 25-34, compare to European background residents, the immigrants with Chinese background have a higher rate of university degree, the figure is 35.7% and 51.4% in Toronto (Ornstein, 2006). Refers to statistics, Chinese immigrants, for example, are more likely obtaining higher education than others. Therefore, on account of the demand of ESL students, some “accesses to university” have been found among universities. For example, Brock University has found a program named IELP (Intensive English Language Program) to those ESL students which in order to enter the undergraduate education. According to the criteria of Undergraduate Conditional admission, ESL students from different countries, which meet the basic academic and the prerequisite subject requirement, can apply for the undergraduate conditional admission as an offer to university, without a qualified proof of English proficiency. Those students with Conditional Offers begin their studies in the Intensive English Language Program (IELP). As a consequence, after completing Advanced Level 5 IELP, students proceed directly into undergraduate degree programs without further proof of English proficiency (Brock University, 2010). Based on the information of this ESL program, it provides the peace of mind knowing to both students and parents that a place is waiting in the undergraduate degree program before the student arrives in Canada. Besides, a single offer of admission letter to both IELP and undergraduate studies advances the process of accessing a Study Permit. Finally, IELP Students study Academic English and prepare for study at Brock University. Students will also learn about the Canadian lifestyle in preparation for study in Canada and may even choose to live with a Canadian family in a home stay (Brock University, 2010). Generally speaking, the ESL programs such like the one in Brock University offer an easy access to those ESL students who plan to get a higher degree in Canada.

An ESL student from IELP level 1 in Brock University, Qi, aged 18, came to Brock with an Undergraduate admission and planned to finish bachelor degrees in Brock University. During his first year in the program, he almost gave up the study in the IELP because of the intense culture shock from both educational process and living condition. “When I was in the first class of speaking, I was definitely frustrated by the totally strange language. Students were required to use only English during the class. It embarrassed me because of that I could barely speak in English, even just with a single word. You know, I cannot just count 1 to 10 in every speaking class!” besides, the shock of different study processes in Canada was also a difficulty for him. “When I went further among the courses, the teachers started to ask us to work as group for presentations, and write papers with critical thinking. Actually, I had never been required to do such things in Chinese classes. If the writers had wrote incorrect opinions or wrong theories, why teacher demanded us to read it? That is weird!”(Qi, 2010)

As shared by QI, most ESL students moving to a different environment experience various feelings that can range from excitement, interest to depression, frustration, and indignation. Indeed, all of these emotions are caused by the same issue—culture shock. Actually, this problem is even much more serious among ESL students because the difficulty of being involved in a different culture, which is caused by their unfamiliarity of English. In a word, lacking the tool of communication is referred as one of the sources of the culture shock.

     Among the diverse reasons of culture shock, there are two main sources for the ESL students, educational difference and social difference. Culture shock is the shock of the new and unfamiliar, and everything in the class is unfamiliar to ESL students (Shoebottom, 2010). For instance, the goal of education in China is simply the transmission of the certain knowledge in the current educational system. During the study of mathematics and physics from secondary school to university, students who can match the basic standard have to memorize thousands of formulas for their examinations. Nevertheless, this educational perspective of transmission will therefore lead to a lack of development of students’ discovery, analysis, critical thinking and such abilities in independent learning. Educators barely consume presentations as a component of their teaching process, and also surely avoid student thinking in a critical way. On the contrary, the educational system in Canada is completely different. Canadian educators always motivate students to learn independently, think critically, and analyze logically, all by themselves. Class activities such as presentations and practices are necessary parts in pedagogic processes. In consequence, student like QI would feel drift away from the courses. Although some of them overcome the difficulties from language, thinking model is an obstacle to participate in class activities and achieve the academic excellence as well. Generally speaking, most eastern students have a lack of creativity by the teaching method of their country. Therefore, to re-cultivate students’ potential of creativity is another great progress that should be made by ESL education. Besides, the specific personalities can also be barriers in ESL teaching procedures. As an example, among Chinese students, Their Veiled personality, which is referred as a traditional character of Chinese, makes them feeling embarrassed or losing face by providing the incorrect answer to teacher’s question, or even being appreciated by teachers. Mostly, Chinese students prefer remain silent to “show off” in front of classmates.

If students have arrived from an educational system where teachers are stern and aloof, they may find it difficult to come to terms with the open and friendly relations between teachers and students at FIS, and with the often productively noisy atmosphere in the classroom. Some school systems are based on the notion that the way to promote academic success is by fostering competition among individual students. At FIS however teachers throughout the school foster cooperation among students, encouraging them to work together to achieve the learning goals. In many classes here students and teachers jointly decide on these learning goals and how they are to be assessed. Some ESL students do not feel comfortable at being involved in what they consider to be the teacher's job. (Shoebottom, 2010)

  Such phenomenon above lead a result that this cannot engage in the study environment properly, they therefore cannot feel pleased in their learning, which is entirely deviated from western education conceptions.

On the other hand, another cause of culture shock is social difference. As well as educational differences, ESL students suffer various social differences. On the perspective of ESL educator, in order to comprehend the difficulties of cultural difference in social processes, ESL educators should be trained with multicultural knowledge especially religious customs and traditional habits. The connection between educators and students should be built on the mutual understanding and intercommunication. Thus, for ESL educators, only teaching with your prominent skill of English proficiency is far too enough. The acquaintance of students’ culture is also a significance to release the stress on the students.

Mark, a grade six teacher with 10 years experience, explains, I guess you try to find connections in stories that you’re reading, travel experiences that I’ve had to where the students have been as well and making connections there, finding links between other cultures. We’ve got a lot of Muslim students here, so it’s usually easy to discuss the traditions that those students have and share them with the other students from other cultures that are in the classroom as well. Those are some ways. Melissa, a teacher, has a similar approach to the question of culture. She connects culture to religious celebrations and holidays and the fusion invites funds of knowledge: And just getting ESL students from different cultures, to talk about their stuff. Like if there’s a holiday or a celebration as opposed to just finding things on it. Things, when they talk about it they feel they have some ownership over it, that they’re helping other kids in the class. (Rowsell, Sztainbok, Blaney, 2007)

     What is more, on the perspective of ESL students, how to get over the culture shock is a Sunday-school truth in ESL education. According to QI’s experience above, to score directly to overcome the various differences in other cultures, the general view and the conceptual comprehension of the specific culture are necessary. For instance, power distance in western society especially Canada has a tremendous distinctness from other countries. Basically, as a country advocating freedom and equity, the power distance in Canada represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above; It suggests that a society's level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders (Hofstede, 1991). Furthermore, based on the research of Hofstede, Canada has Individualism (IDV) as the highest ranking (80) Hofstede Dimension, and is indicative of a society with a more individualistic attitude and relatively loose bonds with others. The populace is more self-reliant and looks out for themselves and their close family members. Privacy is considered the cultural norm and attempts at personal ingratiating may meet with rebuff (Hofstede, 1991). According to the conceptions listed above, ESL students in Canada should provide their own opinion bravely and always think critically. Subsequently, when they work in a Workgroup or in discussion, the circumspectly considered opinions from individual are forceful enough to represent a concept. Besides, providing own answers and being discussed in class would always be appreciated in Canadian classrooms. What it means is that those students who have their own opinion should be motivated to share with the class for a better great for their academic excellence. Finally, In order to create an inclusive classroom response from the students' suggestions is always referred to an effective strategy in teaching, students therefore should fearlessly deliver their advice to teachers in order to increase the quality of ESL education.

     In conclusion, with the increasing number of ESL students in Canadian classrooms, the teaching quality of ESL education should also be mentioned by the whole society. Facing to impact from social and educational differences, more connections and communications between educators and students should be set up. Additionally, in order to offer a better preparation to those ESL students who aim at enrolling in university, a systematic curriculum structure should be organized in the programs like IELP from Brock University. Finally, the quality of ESL education will increase rapidly as long as gaining enough concentration from society including government. In the end, here is a quote from Milnes (2008), Culture invites our ESL students in our classrooms, and culture and cultural awareness personalize ESL teaching. As an educator, let us keep their own identity and involve them into our culture.

References

Ryan, J., Pollock, K., Antonlelli, F. (2009). Teacher Diversity in Canada: Leaky Pipelines, Bottlenecks, and Glass Ceilings. Canadian Journal of Education 32, 3 (2009): 591-617.

Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill

Milnes, T., Cheng, L. (2008). Teachers' Assessment of ESL Students in Mainstream Classes: Challenges, Strategies, and Decision-Making. TESL CANADA JOURNALVREWE TESL DU CANADA. 25, 2 SPRING (2008): 49-65.

Rowsell, J., Sztainbok, V., Blaney, J. (2007). Losing Strangeness: Using Culture to Mediate ESL Teaching. LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND CURRICULUM. 20, 2 (2007): 140-154.

Grayson, J. P. (2008) Linguistic Capital and Academic Achievement of Canadian- and Foreign-Born University Students. York University.

Canada. 2003. Canada’s Ethnocultural Portrait: The Changing Mosaic. Ottawa: Industry Canada.

Canada. 2004. Facts and Figures 2004. Ottawa: Strategic Research and Evaluation, Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Justus, M. 2004. ‘‘Immigrants in Canada’s Cities.’’ Pp. 41–49 in Our Diverse Cities, edited by C. Andrew. Ottawa: Canada.

Frankfurt International School. (2010) ESL Students and Culture Shock. Retrieve: 3/30/2011: http://esl.fis.edu/parents/advice/shock.htm

Brock University. (2010). ESL Service. Retrieve: 3/30/2011: http: //www.brocku.ca/ESL-services。

A Brief Reflection of Ontario High Schools: How does western education impact on Chinese Education

Introduction

Nowadays, the focus of the Ontario educational system is improved. Schools are looking forward to a better performance in both academic and social aspects; school boards are expecting a greater outcome from the educational institutions in their districts; students and parents have never stopped looking for a school providing comprehension development. In a word, the whole educational system of Ontario is moving forward sustainably. However, improvement needs energy. Sustainable improvement needs sustainable energy that can be converted into human and material resources (Hargreaves& Fink, 2007). Through the visits to the secondary schools in Niagara region, the developmental potential of the education shows incisively and vividly. There were four secondary schools visited by us in November: Eden High School, St. Francis Secondary School, St. Catharines Collegiate School, and Blessed Trinity Catholic Secondary School. In this paper, three of them will be picked to compare and evaluated: Eden High School, St. Francis Secondary School, and St. Catharines Collegiate School, because of that all three schools represent different form of school existing in Ontario: Public School, Catholic School, and Public Christian School. Afterward, such educational representatives of Ontario will be compared with the educational system in China in several aspects. Furthermore, an overview of eastern and western education will be stated at the end.

A general evaluation of schools

First of all, I am really glad to obtain the chance of obvious the Canadian schooling system internally. All the schools we have visited are elites in their specific educational area. For instance, the St. Francis Secondary School is a marvelous Catholic school in the school district. St. Francis locates nearby Niagara Lake shore. Because of the area is settled by the middle and upper class families, the constructions of the school are well built and decorated. As a fact, he students at St. Francis are mainly from the middle class and upper class result in that the school contains good manner and order. Generally speaking, the first impression of St. Francis is the heavily cultural atmosphere. The school daily schedule consists of numerous cultural activities and traditional events. Plenty of religious symbols and pictures, the memento of annual events and activities displayed in the well decorated hall. In addition, the strongest characteristic of the school prided by administrators is that school has a very strict discipline to keep it in great order. For example, Uniforms and specific kind of shoes are necessary to be worn on campus. What else, the tattoos and accessories like earrings are abandoned by the regulation of the school. During the visit, we can easily feel the peaceful and organized climate of the St. Francis. Moreover, another impressive factor is the technology and equipment for the school. From smart board, visual communication system in the classroom, to workshop, mechanical factor, musical classroom and even media center, the school contains almost every single top technology that could be utilized in education. As a result, the capacity of the student is amazing by the various choices of self-interest based courses. In fact, it seems the biggest difference between eastern and western education which will be discussed in later parts.  Last but not the least, the special education of St. Francis is fabulous. Special students in this school are treated very considerately and carefully. There are several levels to separate different degree of their disabilities. Some of them are able to involve into normal classes with their own teaching assistants. Another group of special students is arranged in resources classes with supports of extra resources for their study. And the rest which cannot proceed regular studies are looked after carefully in the special classes. By the thoughtful consideration and treatment, the special students can experience the best study climate they can ever have.

When you step into the school gate of Eden high school, you can surely smell the difference from other schools. As mentioned before, Eden High School is a Public Christian School. Normally, the religious school is not allowed to become a part of the district of the school board. As a special case, Eden is a Christian school; however, it is still not allowed to proceed religious activities in school time. Same as St. Francis High School, Eden High School has a strict discipline as well. A vivid evidence is that two students got a three day suspension because of walking while national song. The suspension is extremely serious to us, and it is impossible in China only by violating certain rule. Nevertheless, such punishments are kind of success as well because of being a part of moral leadership. According to Sergiovanni (1975), many school administrators are practicing a form of leadership that is based on moral authority, and such practice should be acknowledged as leadership. The administrators of Eden do successfully build a mutual respective relationship through the school wide by setting certain regulations and taking it seriously. As another expression of moral leadership, spiritual department is a core component of Eden’s educational system. This department mainly focuses on the mental health of the student. Besides, all off-school religious activities for students and teachers are held by spiritual department, it consequently regarded as an important agency to maintain symbols of Christian school. In addition, another impression in Eden is the patrolling police officer on campus. The principal Mr. Thompson explained that settling police in school can avoid bullying behavior from students. However, it can also be explained as an extreme way to keep the order in the school. Although it might secure the social equity on campus, student still could feel uncomfortable about being observed by police, like prisoners.

Due to the great scale of the school and the lovingly reception, we spent the most time in St. Catharines Collegiate high school, hence the information from this school is much more than provided by other schools. During our school tour, we observed the difficulties of organizing such a big educational institution. For instance, a boy was lying randomly under the stair and seems very sick. When the vice principal asked him about the reason, he just paltered him with the reason of not feeling comfortable. The biggest impression of the school is that the school provided us a fancy lunch which made by special student. Such activities show another kind of consideration to those special students that differ from schools above. The philosophy of special education in Collegiate is that they are not only taking care of the students but also looking forward to creating a better future for them. After having lunch at school, I went to watch a basketball game between Collegiate school team and Grimsby school team due to the heavy rain outside. As a fact, the enthusiasm of students for sports was really impressed me. The sports team for Canadian schools is far beyond only a competitive group but a representative of school culture. According to my own experience, since once I have played basketball for my school team, although the sports team in Chinese school can occupy school time for training and contesting, it still is isolated from rest parts of the school. Students are never allowed to dodge classes for watching games of their own school. To be frank, such impression gave me a sense of humanistic concern in Canadian schools; it is not about academic excellence, but the sense of collectivism.

Lastly, all three schools will be compared generally and systematically by using the professor Sydor’s “Four Leadership Frames” theory and Dr. Larry Lezotte’s “Correlates of School Improvement.

		Eden High Christian public school Trinity	St. Catharines Collegiate	St. Francis high school
STRUCTURAL FRAMES	Students Appearance	·  Religious students, uniformed, well organized by strict disciplines and police	·  Minorities and new immigrants, dress sloppily and poorly, behave desultorily and unconcernedly	·  Mainly white students, Uniformed, well organized by strict disciplines
	Teachers Appearance	·  Teachers look very professional, dress in a casual formal style, has a positive interaction with their students	·  Teachers look tired and unconfident, dress casually, bare have interaction with students	·  Teachers look very professional, dress formally, has positive interaction and various activities in class
	Class Scale and Discipline	·  Various Classes available to students, students are concentrating and active based on their own interest	·  Transmitting based classes, students seem to be abstracted ·  School discipline shows in front of every classroom	·  Students are organized by course and the teacher not class, generally small classes ·  Students’ interest and ability are well developed
	School Order	·  Hardware: classroom equipped with updated technics, hand work workshops, mechanical factory and art rooms; ·  Environment: school building is new, clean and neat, all in good order ·  School Uniform: students all dressed in uniform	·  Hardware: classroom equipments are old and outdated, no sensory room at school, a big library and huge auditorium ·  Environment: school building is big but old, not very clean nor neat ·  School Uniform: the only public school with uniform	·  Hardware: classroom well equipped, advanced electric equipments are utilized, independent resource room, workshops and media rooms. ·  Environment: school building fulfills new and clean of cultural elements ·  School Uniform: students all dressed in uniform
HUMAN RESOURCE FRAMES	Principal Leadership Style	Male. ·  Efficient, and professional principal with consideration for students ·  The principal works closely with teachers and students ·  Strong moral leadership	Female ·  Very kind, responsible but not professional enough, invitational leadership style ·  The vice principal seems to be unfamiliar with the school facilities and students, she said she is a newcomer	Male Efficient, care about all students. Little bit bureaucratic, lack of communication with us
	Teacher-Student Relationship	·  Seems limited ·  Students are well organized by the teachers ·  Lack of information	·  Standard, seems like lack of cooperation	·  Good, positive interaction with each other, students show respect to teachers and teachers seem to care about students
	Others	·  School council is very effective because parents are pleased to be getting involved in school activities	·  School gets 5000 hours volunteer services per year from the community	·
SYMBOLIC FRAMES	Non-Religion	·  School history display board, school trophy show box, and students’ decorations are neat and beautiful showing that the school is under good management	·  A board on the wall showing the history of the school at the front door ·  Colorful decoration paintings on the wall in lobby and hallways	·  School history display board, school trophy show box, and students’ decorations are neat and beautiful ·  Elements show the characteristics of the school
	Religion	·  Numerous cross, religious portrait and symbols infiltrate into every corner of the school ·  Photo frames of the Pope and the Primate and cross in the lobby ·  Students-painting crosses ·  Morning prayer	·  None	·  Not too many symbols of religion, but the school still shows their Christian religion by several aspects

Comparison between Chinese and Canadian educational system

Leaders through their ways of mandating to approach their vision of schools. Whatever decisions they make, ways they choose to implement educational improvement, they will "tap people's emotions, appeal their values, and respond to their connections with other people" (Sergiovanni, 1992, p. 76). There is a morally based leadership-- a form of stewardship, that emerged in the late 20^th century (Sergiovanni, 1992). In stewardship, school leaders, administers, teachers, and parents share their ideas and values, more importantly, responsibilities for students' learning. Students are also a part of this leadership, "they join the others in stewardship responsibility for the school as learning community" (Sergiovanni, 1992, p. 91). As Sergiovanni comments, 

Stewardship represents primarily an act of trust, whereby people and institutions entrust a leader with certain obligations and duties to fulfill and perform on their behalf. For example, the public entrusts the schools to the school board. The school board entrusts each school to its principal, parents entrust their children to teachers. ... Stewardship involves placing oneself I service to ideas and ideas and to others who are committed to their fulfillment. It furnishes an attractive image of leadership. (p. 91)

During the school visiting, the principals all mentioned about how their communities contributed to the school, how the parents involve themselves in the school event and help schools establish programs. They are not only proud of their staff and teachers but the bigger environment they live in. School, community, parent, and student are interrelated in terms of building a more effective learning environment. In China, they have a top to down hierarchy relationship. A community is much less likely involved in students' learning. Parents' job is to obey what the school tells them to do in terms of students' assignments and then monitor their children to finish. Instead of cultivating multiple abilities, schools in China focus on the students' successfulness of exams. As a result, the cognitions of students' learning orientation, self-awareness, and social obligation are low. This stewardship starts to emerge in private schools in some big cities, such as Shanghai, Beijing, and so on. But it is still a tough way to persist and implement it in the exam-focused school culture.

Generally speaking, the educational system in Ontario province is far ahead of most educational systems in the world, including Chinese and American. Based on the organizational theories, the educational organizational structure is moving steadily forward to a learning organization model; meanwhile, the Chinese education is still struggling between bureaucracy and modified bureaucracy. Although there are increasing educational leaders in China who start to care about more than the result of examinations. The whole society in China including educator student and parent is still putting the academic excellence on priority. The power of decision making in schooling system is impossibly distributed into lower levels of the educational structure. The student and parent are still located on the bottom of the whole educational pyramid. Besides, the so-called educational reform in china is mainly based on quality oriented education, which focuses on providing multiple developmental directions to students and distributing the right of decision making into student and parent level. However, all Chinese educational institutions are still directed by the syllabus formulated by the government, and the result of examinations that based on such syllabus is still the only way to evaluate the outcome of education. Therefore, the education in China could possibly improve only if the Chinese educational system could be restructured by entire society according to the real purpose of the quality oriented education. In a word, pyramid organizational construction of education should be eliminated.

As another fact, overwhelmingly more Chinese schools start importing “invitational education” into their classes. Nevertheless, the invitational education is based on Dewey’s educational theory, constructivism, which was abandoned by Chinese government several decades ago. However, the current Chinese educational system is simply referring to the successful outcome of western education reform and ignoring the basis of such revaluation. Like a bomb without blasting fuse, you cannot control the timing and power; like a skyscraper without groundwork, you cannot direct the construction growing straightly and solidly. It could definitely lead a disaster for our educational system without a bright correction. The original purpose of invitational education is inviting students to develop themselves initially. On the contrary, the misunderstanding invitational education will possibly mislead into a dead loop. In order to really apply advanced western educational theories into Chinese environment, the administrators and leaders must realize that simply importing part of the system can no longer work in the current situation. The barycenter of education must be transferred from exam-oriented to student-centered. Besides, the government should lay the educational pyramid down and truly distribute the power into different levels. Although the government and educational department could still work as a leader of the whole system, providing the direction and adjusting the deviation, the mutual respect and interaction are still the foundation of the advanced learning organization. Finally, to quote from Albert Einstein, We cannot solve the problems that we have created with the same thinking that created them.    

Conclusion

In conclusion, we are really pleased to have the chance of visiting those preeminent schools in Niagara region. Such experience provides a general vision of the Canadian educational system to us. As a part of graduate study, this kind of applicable course, offers students not only general knowledge but also applications into real educational institutions, the principle of teaching in Canada could easily explain by such activities. In the end, the useful experiences and precious memories will be definitely recorded in my path of educational career.

Reference:

Hargreaves, A., Fink, D. (2006). Sustainable leadership. John Wiley & Sons. Inc.

Sergiovanni, T. (1992). Moral leadership. The Jossey-bass reader on educational leadership (2nd. Ed.). Pp. 75-92.