Participation Does Make a Difference: Reflections from Liu and Littlewood's Article

I would have to say that definitely, the perception that the West has towards the East Asian students is but among the many myths that English language classrooms have eventually learned to get away with for years. I mean, Liu and Littlewood did find out that teachers’ and students' local and academic cultural beliefs and practices as well as the teacher-centered secondary education were not precisely the factors contributing to students' negative attitude to classroom participation; in fact, they were able to prove that recently, East Asian students have generally shown positive attitudes towards English. Rather, their study was trying to highlight that this reticence in learning English could be attributable to: a) lack of experience in speaking English; b) lack of confidence in spoken English; c) anxiety from high performance expectations; and different perception of learner role. And of course, I have to agree.

When a person is born and raised in a home that does not speak English; whose breakfast table conversations and late-night tv marathon are all in their local dialect, and whose peers they hang out with mostly communicate to them using their native language, then you would expect that the person only has very limited exposure to English - only during their English class. Given this amount of time mostly listening and sometimes, speaking in English, would you expect a person to be very fluent in a language that just has a very peculiar sound and letter system compared to theirs? Of course not. 

Since fluency is an issue, this person naturally would regard his skill in spoken English very low. Each time he wants to share something, he would naturally be taken aback, to think about what to say and how to say it in a way that he would truly convey his thoughts and that the listener would understand. 

If the confidence is low, the anxiety is high, which in turn affects students' perception of their own competence. All the more would the student feel reluctant to speak, because he feels that producing the most accurate pronunciation of the words, which he thinks he is not capable of, is equivalent to competence.

The Value of Conversation Tables/Chat Cafes

Therefore, participating in conversation tables is really helpful for people who has little or no access to learning and acquiring another language. I can see its efficiency and practicality in a more natural and relaxed mode compared to the teacher-centered classroom. 

However...

It is not intended to replace the input from formal instruction; rather, it should complement the skills that the learners may have missed in the classroom.

What does this have to tell me as a Conversation Facilitator? 

And since, it is meant to complement formal education, Conversation Facilitators should at least feel the responsibility in holding conversation groups.

I understand and I also appreciate the beauty of spontaneous conversations — because that’s ideally how conversations go. However, I think holding a circle without careful planning, would be like a group with no vision at all. I do not mean here that a facilitator should overdo things or artificially set lines like a director would do to the actors of a play. Overdoing it might just ruin the beauty of real conversations, and we are not portraying roles in a play. After reading Liu and Littlewood’s study, I realized that it is really crucial to carefully plan for the conversation circles.

Thinking about what questions to ask, where to go, which topics to blurt out, and how to respond to people, yes, these are worth preparing for any conversation circle. I also realized this as I meet up with my group every Friday.

The leader should get to know his/her participants. In asking information about them, listen even to words that are unsaid. Look intently to the participant’s eye when they talk (but be careful not to stare, it might be rude in some cultures), and decipher non-verbal cues. Needless to say, carefully examine the participants’ attitudes, possible biases, their 'Achilles heel' (as far as cultural orientation is concerned), their interests, and their intentions as they ask questions and react during the conversation. By doing this, you will at least have a chance to examine the possible topics that you can disclose and those that you cannot. This is about being sensitive to the things that may be uncomfortable to the participants, which is very important in dealing with people. 

It is good that most of the conversation circles come in smaller groups. Evidently, the smaller the group, the more open the participants are in sharing their ideas. For me, given an hour for a smaller group would provide each participant a good chance to share his thoughts. Somehow, each participant would be compelled to say something; otherwise for him/her it would be more uncomfortable if he/she hasn’t say a word the whole time.

Of course, try to have variation, not just in places you decide to hold the conversation circle, but likewise in the topics you talk about in each session. Try to be creative by  integrating art, music, film, food, sports, even normal activities in the conversation. Gone are the days when we only learn English through chalk and board, or pen and paper. Let them talk about some of their selfies, some video clips from YouTube; you can go to a museum, cook, or maybe shop together. I believe that through these activities, the participants would be able to understand that the more realistic the tasks which require them to speak the language are, the more they would appreciate the practicality of using the language. 

What about feed backing? Before it was an issue for me, because I thought it would be awkward to correct some of the words they mispronounced. But later on, I noticed that they want me to be more straightforward in giving my feedback. So probably, it’s worth asking your participants whether or not they would appreciate receiving feedbacks. Also, as a facilitator you need to be more subtle and effective at the same time in providing these feedback. How is it done? Well, I believe you will figure that out on your own while you are facilitating your own group.

Above everything else it is but important that you and your participants are both aware of the fact that, as Liu and Littlewood put it,  “participation does make a difference”. After all, words will not have its essence when it’s not given meaning. And giving meaning to words may only be done by the participants in a conversation.

Addressing Cultural Differences

My chat cafe group is different than I expected because we spend a lot more time talking about cultural differences than working on speaking the English language correctly.  For some reason, I had pictured our group talking about vocab words and working on pronunciation.  Instead, we spend most of our discussions comparing life in the United States to life in China and Taiwan.  So far, some of our most interesting discussions have revolved around politics, religion, childhood activities, and sports.  So while I have not had the opportunity to address many linguistic differences in our group meetings, I have had plenty of experience talking about cultural differences.  Part of me wishes I knew more about Xin's and Kyle's cultures before becoming part of this group.  For example, I had heard growing up, probably from some middle school boy trying to impress everyone with his knowledge, that Chinese families could only have one child.  I never gave a lot of thought to this piece of information, letting it remain the back of my mind all these years as some urban legend.  As a result, I ended up feeling a little embarrassed when I asked Xin if she had any siblings and she answered no, her family couldn't have more than one child, because that piece of information was something I probably should have already known.  Our reading this week covered a lack of Asian students participating in class discussions, possibly as a result of anxiety about appearing as not very smart.  In some ways, I feel that anxiety when talking to my chat circle; I do not want them to think less of me for asking questions that they might consider "dumb."

Our conversation circles seem to be running smoothly.  We have finalized our group to four people, two facilitators and two participants, but due to exam schedules, we have often only had one student show up.  At the request of our group to watch a classic American movie, we watched Mean Girls, a film which is pretty much a staple in our generation's childhood.  The film is a satire on high schools, showing catty behavior by girls fighting over a boy; Kyle found the movie very entertaining.  Our conversation circles are fun and enjoyable, and something to look forward to each week.

Stuck

I feel like I'm slightly stuck as far as planning my conversation circles. I worry that I'm not doing a sufficient job and unsure if my group is enjoying their time and learning and getting out of it what they want. Each week I tend to only have two or sometimes three out of the five total that are in my group. We usually spend the hour and sometimes more chatting in a coffee shop. It has worked out because usually it's a small number of people and not the same every time so we have plenty of things to talk about. I have tried asking if they would like to do different activities or what they would be interested in doing, but they don't really have many answers for me. I guess that is part of my task though - to plan things out and ensure that they are getting the most out of their experience. I just would love to hear more of their feedback and what they want to do and know about. I think that relates to the article we had to read this week about the sometimes perceived lack of participation by some East Asian students. I was very interested to read that many times students do want to participate and value it as part of their learning experience, but for various reasons do not participate often. One of the reasons it gave was because of lack of confidence in their English skills and the perceived idea of failing if making mistakes while speaking English. I wonder if the ideas talked about in the article are things faced by my group members (perhaps more in class but maybe also within our group). Perhaps I should take some time to consider if I were in their shoes. I'm just unsure of how to make the rest of my chats meaningful while engaging the whole group. Any thoughts? Ideas?

Combined Group and The Arrival

I was finally able to meet with my new group; a combined group on Mondays with Isabella and I facilitating, and with six members (although only five could come on Monday).  It was great to meet everyone, and it was very relaxed with everyone finding things to talk about.  Many of them have similar classes or majors, which makes for easy conversation.  I'm hoping in future weeks we can make sure to talk about things other than just classes, but classes are of course a very relevant subject for everyone and something they were all eager to discuss, so I'm glad we were able to discuss it together!  Since our group formed a little later and has only met in this combined manner once so far, I'm still not completely sure what the group dynamic will be like.  We would like to do some activities, but with eight people I worry about coordinating schedules if we were to meet for a meal or something outside of our usual 3 pm time slot.  I'm hoping it works out though!

I really enjoyed reading (if that is the right word) the book The Arrival.  The illustrations were beautiful and fascinating, and although I did miss the presence of words, I can see the benefits of having a book which everyone can read regardless of their native language, and with an ambiguity that allows everyone to see their own experiences rather than being limited to the more exact story that narration would have depicted.  

Do We Ever Find a Home Away from Home? (Realizations from Shaun Tan’s ‘The Arrival’)

When I first grabbed a copy of Shaun Tan’s book, ‘The Arrival’, I thought of reading a story book that my mom used to buy for me when I was a little girl - colorful and with minimal texts for me to practice reading. After all, story books have made a lot of profit since moms find them strategic in teaching reading. However, as I thumbed through the pages, I was really disappointed not to read any texts. Yes, the book is entirely made up of illustrations - of people, places, and stuff that I couldn’t even make sense of at the beginning. On the succeeding days, however, when I finally got the chance to truly commit myself to the material and try to understand why a book has no words at all, that was when things get crystal clear for me. Eureka!

Since it is considered a book, I am still certain that the author did not forget about the fundamental elements of story writing, in spite of the fact that there are no words at all, so I did a formalistic analysis of it. 

The protagonist leaves his home and family since he envisions to provide a better life for the them in a distant place. The setting might be inspired by some areas in New York, yet there are features which tell us of a place that is both familiar to us but still undiscovered and sort of part of the imagined futuristic world. The plot is very simple - he leaves home, goes through a lot of challenges as he embarks on a very strange place, then reunites with his family near the end of the story, and finally, gets to feel at home in his new home. The theme is also very simple as it talks about a man’s journey to improve life and find belongingness in the place where he thinks would provide him a more comfortable living. 

When carefully analyzing it, you would tell that the story could be just any of those hackneyed stories - stark and predictable. However, since these are all told in visuals, I am not actually certain if my analyses are all accurate. And this is what is beautiful and special about Shaun Tan’s masterpiece, that NY Times calls a ‘visually eloquent’ material.

The story is told the way the readers would interpret the pictures that looked familiar yet still is not. This is exactly what I find ‘cunning' about this book. It’s entirely the readers' interpretation or imagination that works all throughout the book so they would be able to fully grasp its message. Readers can fill the ideas on what each picture suggests - therefore, provides more room for them to relate to the struggles of the protagonist. Eventually, the more the readers are able to relate to the text, the greater is the likelihood of them appreciating the book.

Although Tan was able to meticulously show even the slightest detail of the person’s facial expressions, the places, the animals, food, etc., the ambiguities of each illustration honestly reflects any foreigner's experience of hesitations, fears, cluelessness, and anxieties once he uproots himself from the comforts of his home and decides to engage in the unknown. The struggles of language difficulties; homesickness; loss of money; change of social status; and separation anxieties that the protagonist in the novel are exactly the same things that anyone would have when we decide to leave our countries either to study or work in a foreign place. Just like the girls in my conversation circle…just like me.

Yes, the protagonist in the story is no different when compared to Heejae, Xi, Eunji, and me.

When the four of us went to America to study or work, we have undergone many difficulties - preparations way back when we were just about ready to leave, the fear of the unknown; the certain level of sadness, that one cannot explain, when leaving our loved ones; the stress of going through various security checks; problems such as finding a temporary abode, getting well with others, ordering food that sounds and looks entirely strange, changes in the activities, unpredictably crazy weather, among others.

But as the story suggests, in every problem, there will always be a way. The first time is always the hardest, but you’ll get over it eventually. You’ll find a place where you can thrive. You will meet people who will help you and make you happy. And then, you will unknowingly learn to be amused with the new people you are with and with the new place you are at.

Of course, the novel has clearly indicated the protagonist’s trouble in communicating in a world where language is way too different. And this can also be very true to our conversation circle. Although I did have a background in English, but communicating with a native speaker is far too different than when you only had the chance to listen to an ESL teacher all your life and learn the language from textbooks, so I still have minimal problems in communicating my thoughts in a much more spontaneous way or understanding the slangs of the native speakers. The other girls in my circle, of course, have serious issues with the language; however, just like the protagonist in the novel, we have all come to learn that non-verbal cues come very handy as reinforcement when words have some trouble delivering our thoughts. Facial expressions, gestures, body movements and the likes can help us convey our intentions when we lack the verbal adequacy that is needed to effectively carry a conversation.

Also, the novel has taught me that traveling may be complicated and risky, yet, amidst all the perplexing circumstances, it is always rewarding to meet and create bonds with people, learn so many lessons in life that no classroom would teach, and of course grow from the experiences away from the comforts of home. These are, of course, just some of my objectives in this conversation circle, that eventually I will be able to help the participants and myself understand that we might be different, we might come from the farthest parts of the world, but we can always find a niche wherever we want to go, if only we learn to communicate to people, to be open to whatever comes our way, and to accept that in this peculiar world we can eventually find a home away from home. 

Xi, Heejae, Me, Eunji at UMMA (2/13/2015)

Planning vs. Facilitating

Tonight I had my fourth meeting and I feel like I am starting to get to know my group better. Although, I can say that attendance is a certainly a factor in the dynamic of each meeting. The first week everyone attended and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had two boys in my group and three girls. The second week only the two boys could come, which worked out as we had a great conversation about American football along with one of my friends. Last week, only the girls could come, and although I had planned to play a game with them, we ended up chatting the whole hour. This week, once again, it was just the boys, and the girls weren't there.  I brought a card game, yet we never had time to play. It's funny how it has worked out, but I enjoy the conversation each time none the less.

One thing I really appreciate is that I am getting to know them each individually, in addition to learning about their culture in general. One of my group members really likes art museums for example, and another one loves listening to Jason Mraz.

I always feel better about having something to do, having a "plan", yet it usually ends up never being used. I feel like I act as a "facilitator" only when there is a lull in conversation, or when I try to get one of the group members to further explain what they are saying. But I also feel like I am just chatting with friends at times, when they are talking to each other and comparing the differences between Chinese and Korean music or their interest (or disinterest) in museums. I look forward to these meetings and getting a chance to take a break and have meaningful conversations with kind souls.

Blog Post #3

Having facilitated a few chat cafe circles, I am now feeling a lot more comfortable with my group.  I am no longer stressed about planning conversation topics because I can count on my group having their own questions ready to ask.  So far, some of our most interesting conversations have revolved around holidays, politics, religion, and our hobbies growing up.  Instead of planning in advance, I merely facilitate the discussion to continue if there is ever a lull in conversation.  For example, my group chose to talk about politics.  After Jamie and I answered their questions about our political beliefs, I facilitated the conversation by asking Xin and Kyle questions about similarities and differences between Chinese and Taiwanese politics.  I was able to bring new angles into the conversation, therefore fueling the talking to continue.

My approach to the conversation circles has changed as I have come to realize that neither Xin nor Kyle are very shy.  They are both curious and vocal about American traditions and their own traditions.  As a result, the conversation will almost always carry itself the entire time.  This allows me to spend more time really focusing on and listening to their questions and answers, instead of having half of my mind thinking of what to talk about next.  I am starting to feel less like we are in a school-organized program and more like we are just a group of friends talking at a coffee shop.  So far, my experiences as a chat cafe facilitator have been pleasant, and our weekly meeting have become something I really look forward to attending.