TESOL ICIS members and other readers, many of you know that Laura Jacobs has been working on a project to collect narratives of identity from EFL/ESL/TESOL professionals.

TESOL professionals are often at the forefront of globalization trends. As we interact across cultures every day, we are building truly global identities that shift across time and space. Narratives can be powerful tools to illuminate intercultural communication. There is growing interest in the power of narrative in our profession as well.

The website hosting this project is now ready for your viewing pleasure, as well as your much-anticipated continued contributions. So please visit, and please share your own tales about intercultural challenges of identity negotiation and development.

http://icisnarratives.weebly.com/

To whet your appetite, we have reprinted below the first submission to this site, a self-reflective story of painful teacher-student interactions by Rick Kappra.

WHERE ARE THE BOUNDARIES? CONFUSION OVER AMERICAN INFORMALITY IN AN ESOL CLASS
Rick Kappra, City College of San Francisco, California, USA

Background

This past semester I was teaching a high-intermediate multi-level class called Social Communication. Intended as a VESL (Vocational ESL) class, I decided I was going to focus on discussions of culture, as intercultural competence is a very important job skill. We spent quite a bit of time talking about cultural values, norms for small talk, giving compliments, cultural expectations in job interviews, etc. The class was dynamic and engaged and I was constantly being challenged as an instructor.

As with all of my classes, I began the semester by asking the students to please call me “Rick” and that my name was not “teacher.” Because of the level of this class, I was a bit more rigid in my enforcement of this request. They were at a level, I thought, in which they should be able to break old habits and comply with anyone’s request regarding how they would like to be addressed. After a discussion of cultural values, when I told them that because of my values of individualism and equality, when they call me “teacher” it is not respectful at all, but it takes away my identity and makes me sort of generic, some students’ heads nodded and it seemed like they finally understood. From that point on, only a few students continued to call me “teacher” and when they did, the other students in the class would correct them and we’d all laugh.

You Look Pregnant

About three-quarters of the way into the semester, a Chinese woman, Wai Ying, who is about my age (early 50s), looked at my stomach and asked, "Do you exercise?" I immediately knew where she was going with it and started to walk away from her as I answered, "No, not as much as I want to." She responded, "Yeah, looks like 7 months." I knew something was coming, but didn't expect that. Slightly shaken, I walked away to another group of students sitting behind her without responding. Class hadn't started yet and my students were at the point now where they chatted noisily until I could get them calmed down, so this was really just between her and me.

The next day when I walked in, she was standing next to her friend Amy. She got very excited and said to me, "Rick, Rick!!!" When I walked over, she said, "Amy said every day she wants to rub your stomach." I had told some friends about the 7 months comment and everyone told me I should have told her it was not appropriate, so I guess I was a bit worked up, but also, when she said this, both she and Amy started to laugh. I simply said, "Stop," to which they laughed even more, so I repeated, "Stop," the laughing continue so again, I said, "No really stop," and then finally since they were still laughing, I said very sternly, "Stop it, you are being rude!" Finally, they stopped laughing and sat down. I walked away feeling flushed, embarrassed, and hurt. The rest of the class period was very awkward. I felt very strange about what had happened, and the two of them sat with their heads bowed and didn't look at me.

The next day, Wai Ying was waiting outside of class for me. She gave me a note with an apology. I told her that we had discussed that you should not make any comments about people's bodies. This had come up several times in class when talking about small talk, compliments, etc. We also talked about not making comments about weight or height, among other physical characteristics. In her note she said she did not mean to hurt my feelings and she needed to learn more about cultural differences. Amy did not come to class that day, and Wai Ying seemed uncomfortable and instead of actively participating and sitting in the front row as she had up to that point, she sat in the middle of the class and spoke to her friends in Chinese for much of the class.

Search for Understanding

I received the letter of apology on a Thursday, and Wai Ying works every Friday, so she was absent the next day. Amy was also absent on Friday. I was hoping that by Monday awkward feelings would pass and class would return to normal.

That did not happen.

Instead, Wai Ying and Amy sat in the front row and spoke Chinese to one another, often while I was explaining something or answering one of their classmates’ questions. I hesitated to call them on their behavior because I felt like they were already feeling badly about what had happened, yet their behavior was becoming more and more disruptive to the class.

Finally, out of desperation, I posted a question to the CATESOL ICIG (Intercultural Communication Interest Group) Listserv. I described the incident and asked whether or not making a comment about a teacher’s weight would be appropriate in China. I did believe that Chinese (and other) students might make these sorts of comments to each other, perhaps in jest, and it was probably not a big deal.

I recognized that our discussions what was appropriate in the United States may have not have been fully understood. It was hard enough for them to call me by my first name, so I recognized that it might be very difficult for them to comprehend this cultural difference. But what I could not understand was why, if this was not appropriate student-teacher behavior in their culture (as I assumed) would this be okay in their minds in the United States?

Resolution

It seems I actually did understand what was going on, I just needed some colleagues to pull me out of my own cultural bubble and see it clearly.

The responses were very helpful. Some shared my sense of indignation. Others took a more empathetic approach, showing an understanding for my feelings as well as attempting to interpret Wai Ying and Amy’s intentions.

I came to realize several things. First of all, these students did not mean to insult me. They clearly liked my class and respected me as a teacher. We had a good rapport prior to this incident. They always sat in the first row and participated actively. What they were expressing to me was their familiarity and comfort. Several people on the ICIG list pointed out that in some cultures, it is acceptable to make jokes about the physical appearance of friends and acquaintances (though not necessarily teachers). I came to realize that they saw me as their friend. The boundaries between teacher and student had been blurred perhaps in large part due to my insistence that they use my first name.

And then there was the letter of apology. When Wai Ying gave me the letter, I believe she assumed I would accept it and forgive her. I lived in Japan for 6 years and came to understand the power of a gomenasai—or formal apology. In Japan, an apology is a formality. It does not mean that one is necessarily taking responsibility for wrong doing, it is simply a way to restore harmony (at least that is my understanding of it). Wai Ying’s apology was an attempt to restore harmony. Instead of accepting it and acknowledging that she did not mean to “hurt” me, I chided her and said “we talked about this in class.” I was still feeling hurt and still feeling like her behavior would not have been appropriate with a teacher in China. Harmony was not restored, and instead, she lost face even more than before.

Once I realized that the comments were meant as a sign of familiarity and intimacy, and that I had actually made a mistake when I was presented with a letter of apology, I wrote Wai Ying a letter. I thanked her for her apology and stated that we were involved in a cultural misunderstanding. I said that even though I understood that she did not mean to hurt or embarrass me, I was embarrassed when she and her friend were talking about my stomach and laughing. I told her we all make mistakes and I think she understands now that it is not appropriate to make comments about weight to an American. I pointed out that she had been very comfortable and participated in class and now it seemed like she was uncomfortable and she did not speak. I encouraged her to participate again and to not worry about what had happened.

I gave her the letter on a Thursday and she was absent, as usual, on Friday. When I saw her on Monday, she smiled at me and said, “I am happy now.”

Lessons Learned

I have been teaching ESOL for almost 30 years. I’ve taught in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, and in the United States have had students from a wide variety of cultures. I was the coordinator in CATESOL’s Intercultural Communication Interest Group and have read and written about intercultural communication. When this incident happened, I was going through some difficult things in my personal life. Both of my parents had just passed away and I was a bit off my game. I had recently gained some weight and was very self-conscious about my physical appearance. The comments appeared to be mocking me and I did not immediately think that there could be some cultural explanation for the misunderstanding. I just thought my students were being rude.

What I understand now is that my students were very confused about where the lines that I had blurred actually were. While I had done a good job of explaining to them why I preferred to be called “Rick,” I left them with very little understanding of what the rules actually were when it came to teacher-student interactions in the United States. They called me by my first name, I wore jeans and sneakers to class, I sat on the desk, and we laughed and joked together. And then, like an invisible wall, they came up against something that they did not realize existed.

I will continue to insist that my students call me Rick and I will continue to wear jeans and sneakers in my class. I don’t feel it is necessary, as some have done, to wear a tie to class and try to maintain very formal boundaries with my students. Instead, I will attempt to help them recognize that although it appears there are no boundaries, there actually are, and I will help them to discover what those boundaries are. I feel this is important because many of my students will move on to take credit ESL classes, or to take classes in other departments, where their instructors may be equally informal, yet, still have some very rigid, while possibly invisible, boundaries.