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Mr. Kenneth Seat teaches Modren World History at Blair. |
Mr. Kenneth Seat is
a Blair teacher who taught in Japan. His experience in Japan helped him
understand more about what areas students who are learning English
need to develop here at Blair. He acknowledges that he uses different strategies
to help international students get some help that they need.
Mr. Kenneth Seat teaches modern world. history now, but he taught English
in Japan for two years. He uses those experiences to help him to teach
the ESOL
students in his class. "My experience in Japan teaching students English
as their second language is important," he said. Mr. Seat understands
what students need to get help with. Each individual student might have
different weakness area, but Mr. Seat feels that students are more likely
to struggle
with vocabulary. "I know sometimes which words are difficult," he said.
To help them with that kind of problem, he tries to speak slowly and writes
things on the board.
But at Blair there are challenges for teachers. "It's hard to meet
everybody's needs because everyone has a different ability level," Mr.
Seat said. Of course, everybody learns in different ways. Some students
like to go fast and some need to slow down a little. "If I go too fast
they
get lost and if I go slowly they say it's too boring," he said.
But he knows what to do to solve that problem. "I teach using different
strategies to cover the basic information for the whole class and give
extra work to kids who can handle more difficult ideas," he said. Once
he gets
the class settled he can go around the room and talk to other kids.
Students in other countries are taught differently than in the United States.
The ways students in Japan learn is different than students in the United
States because of the way that teaching system and process is set up. For
example, students
in Japan learn by sitting in rows, listening, and taking notes. The class
doesn't have much interaction between the teacher, students and the classmates.
They
don't do things like brainstorm and discuss ideas together. But Mr. Seat
said, "It is very important for students to explore ideas."
In the United States teachers like to do different things to get students
to use critical thinking. For example, teachers in the United States want
their
students to understand the meaning and able to analyze in their own thoughts
by not just taking the information's given by the teachers. These ideas
are not common for the teachers in other countries. Mr. Seat said some
students who come to Blair from other countries are like his students in
Japan. "Students
expect to listen and take notes." They all expect to learn the facts,
when, who and how it happened. But they are not required to think more
profoundly about why they have to learn that facts and how the facts affect
other things.
In Japan students don't interact together. They don't work in groups
like in the United States students do, so they don't experience working
in groups to share different opinions and have their own perspectives viewed
at different angles.
Mr. Seat knows that things like working in groups can be hard for some
students from other countries. When teachers know these things, it makes
it easier
for them to help students from other countries.
