Code Blue: A Teacher Looks At Language and Learning

By Quan Cao, ELL Outlook™ Contributing Writer

When Alex first asked me to pen a blog for The Ell Outlook™, I thought what a great opportunity it would be for me to bridge my classroom reflections and my free mind, mapping 25,000 miles above sea level on one of my frequent weekend flights. Little did I know then and there how prophetic that bridging would turn out to be. On the flight to New Orleans, I picked up a reading file of materials I had collected over the past month and tried to catch up. The Internet passage from a Vietnamese listserver caught my eye: Fishermen in Southeast Asia were protesting trade restrictions from the U.S. and Europe, objecting to government-imposed tariffs and new trade restrictions. At the airport, I picked up the local Picayune daily, and there again, as if my eyes were playing tricks on me, on the front page of the local section was a small article depicting Vietnamese fishermen in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida applauding the new U.S. laws. So now it's no longer ethnicity that rules, but the interests of a newly formed community governed by common interests. Is this the new meaning of globalism? A globalism no longer built on religious ties, language bonds, or even ethnic roots, but one built on the color of profit and the meaning of fame and fortune?

I have often wondered, in the context of my lesson reflections on Friday mornings as I head for the airport to catch an early flight to my next workshop destination, what my students meant in their feedback to me the day before. What does it mean when they tell me they still have difficulty distinguishing between the past progressive and the past perfect? Sometimes language belies meaning. I amuse myself with the thought that the past is neither progressive, nor is it perfect. And yet it is my task to give them a newfound sense of freedom, to be able to use the past progressive and the past perfect in their five-paragraph essay. What use is it to complain about structure when structure can be mastered and meaning derived so that freedom can be found? In the river of consciousness of my mind, I think back to Aline's comment about the different meanings of the past when a man expresses himself and a woman's perception of the past as it flows on with her emotions into the present. In the classroom I keep pace with Aline's thought, yet try to stay on task with the past and catch out of the corner of my eye a quick conversation in Creole between Jean Baptiste and Claude about what Aline meant about male and female speech.

It almost seems to me at times that separate realities would have to interconnect if we are to make sense of the diversity of the world we are trying to simplify, codify, and resist. The 250 messages I get each day in my e-mail are multidimensional: Yesterday, half of them were about Nguyen Cao Ky, John Kerry, and the new immigration bill. The other half dealt with bilingual versus immersion classrooms, teaching grammar as a separate entity, level O conversation, and again an age-old topic, frequently discussed yet never fully resolved, the use of L1 in an L2 classroom. Each of those 250+ pieces of mail has a special significance for me. Each has meaning. Each becomes a part of the 100 lesson plans I keep in my head as I walk into the classroom. In the mirror of my students' eyes, my memory seeks a connection, an interconnected meaning. That is the daunting task that each of us takes on when we endeavor to teach another something about knowledge. Something about learning. Something about meaning.

And it would all be so simple if life stood still so our lesson plans matched test items. It would be great for social engineers and politicians who promise us the pie in the sky of education reform to imbue our classrooms with meaning. And yet we all operate at a snail's pace in comparison to the speed the world moves around us.

As teachers, especially teachers of language, we pride ourselves in giving meaning, opening eyes to new realities and new consciousness. And yet the world first has to go through the parameters of the past progressive and the past perfect. How do we make sense for our students if we cannot keep pace with changing definitions and new realities?   How long can we move behind realities and theories that are thrust willy-nilly upon us like ramifications of high-stakes testing and arguments about maintenance and acquisition?

I asked my students last Thursday after our weekly quick feedback session how they felt now, having come to the U.S. for schooling, wanting to stay here because of the instability of their countries, and being suddenly confronted with the reality that the jobs they want here are being shipped overseas to their own countries. They looked at me as if I had suddenly announced a pop quiz and they were caught totally unprepared. I asked them to reflect on the question over the weekend and come in on Monday ready to discuss it. That's what a teacher does: formulate questions, and feed the hunger of young minds.

It was then and there that I realized that we have misunderstood this whole notion of communication. Communication, even negotiation, is not about speaking one's mind. It's all about listening. It's about starting a conversation with others, and mostly with ourselves. It's about questioning our own realities.

That's indeed the purpose of what Alex asked me to do in beginning this blog: to start a dialogue between you, the reader, and me, the writer. To build a bridge, make a connection, begin a community. For after all, it is meaning that we all seek. Or at least, in my case, making sure that when this plane ride ends the destination I have chosen makes sense, and the people I am speaking to when I get to where I am going can hear my heart, my soul, and my spirit. Then, and only then, can the past become both progressive and perfect, and the world stand still for that nanosecond and know peace.