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For this project, I have been utilizing numerous sources St Mary's has provided us. One was the Pathways Program at Jonkoping University in Sweden. Carl is the teacher we were connected with and he has been teaching at the university for a number of years. This program is one for international students coming to Sweden who want to both improve on their English and learn more about the Swedish culture. The website also states that it will help with an introduction into higher education in Sweden. Carl explained that they use the course to teach students how to comfortably fit into academic life, especially in the area of writing academic papers in English. He says they use a strategy called process writing, which is essentially teaching students how to write a rough draft, edit it and then come out with a final draft in the end. This makes sense as the program is also for students who come in and meet the degree requirements but lack the English proficiency. It seems to be a lot of lecturing, but some discussion with peers. It's looser in its structure as it is a class for adults, so it was interesting to see no raising of hands or the like. But it's been informative with what the differences are in teaching adults versus children!

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For this project, I interviewed my good friend Nara Nogueira who is an English teachers at the Federal Technological Institute of Minas Gerais in Betim, Brazil. The school where she teaches is a kind of vocational school where students work toward getting their high school diploma while simultaneously being prepared to enter the workforce as a mechanic, welder, lab tech etc. Although Nara teaches in a privileged school operated by the federal government, she talked about how most English teachers in Brazil are woefully underprepared and often don't even speak the language they are supposed to teach. Although English is a required subject starting in 5th grade, very little time or money is allocated to English and most students spend just one hour a week learning English in a classroom that often contains 40+ students. There is a running gag among most Brazilian students that they learn how to conjugate the verb "to be" every year and learn meaningless phrases like "the book is on the table." Most students argue that, to really learn English, you need to study at a private language school, which often are expensive and employ teachers who, while fluent, often have no training nor experience teaching English. I feel like I could write paragraphs and paragraphs about this, but I think it is important to say that most Brazilians see value English proficiency and have a strong desire to learn the language, for both personal and professional reasons.

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Sherry Short

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For my interview, I spoke to Marcella Caprario a lecturer in the English for Academic Purposes(EAP) program at the NYU/Shanghai Campus in China.  She has been teaching in China for three years and before that was working at Pace University in New York.  She teaches freshman courses and although the students are proficient in English, they struggle with the diverse teaching philosophy and objectives of the course.  Although they are highly educated in the Chinese public school system they tend to lack the basic skills in the areas of writing an essay based on their own ideas, synthesizing information from sources and how to do their own research online.

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China- Jodi Dahler                        Shen Wai International School (SWIS) is the first government invested international school in Shenzhen, China. SWIS is a private Pre-K-5 school and opened in 2011. The school strives to provide children with a world-class education for expatriate students based in Shenzhen as well as children who hold permanent residency from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. SWIS is a state of the art school which includes a gym, fitness center, indoor pool, theater, library, dining hall, dance studio and purpose built teaching spaces, including a music lab and a newly created maker space. Technology is primarily used in their teaching and students demonstrate their understanding through the use of technology. Personalization and inquiry based learning guides all of their programing for their students. Students at SWIS are taught in English throughout their day with one hour of Chinese. In Chinese they learn the language and the culture. Each classroom has approximately 22-25 students with one teacher and a Chinese co-teacher working together to meet the needs of their students. EAL and ELL support is provided at SWIS. The EAL model encourages inclusion in the classroom through in-class support, while meeting the language needs of students through pull out support. After they enter the program, ELL’s receive pull out and/or push in support. After students have been identified as needing EAL, students are given two full academic years of support to attain a language proficiency level of 4.5 or above in the WIDA literacy component of reading and writing. Students are assessed twice a year, December and June.

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China- Jodi Dahler                        Shen Wai International School (SWIS) is the first government invested international school in Shenzhen, China. SWIS is a private Pre-K-5 school and opened in 2011. The school strives to provide children with a world-class education for expatriate students based in Shenzhen as well as children who hold permanent residency from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. SWIS is a state of the art school which includes a gym, fitness center, indoor pool, theater, library, dining hall, dance studio and purpose built teaching spaces, including a music lab and a newly created maker space. Technology is primarily used in their teaching and students demonstrate their understanding through the use of technology. Personalization and inquiry based learning guides all of their programing for their students. Students at SWIS are taught in English throughout their day with one hour of Chinese. In Chinese they learn the language and the culture. Each classroom has approximately 22-25 students with one teacher and a Chinese co-teacher working together to meet the needs of their students. EAL and ELL support is provided at SWIS. The EAL model encourages inclusion in the classroom through in-class support, while meeting the language needs of students through pull out support. After they enter the program, ELL’s receive pull out and/or push in support. After students have been identified as needing EAL, students are given two full academic years of support to attain a language proficiency level of 4.5 or above in the WIDA literacy component of reading and writing. Students are assessed twice a year, December and June.

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I interviewed an old high school classmate who has been teaching in Japan for the last year. His reflections were in depth, and I could tell that he had struggled with the system he was placed in. From his observations and experiences, students were highly unmotivated to become proficient in English. Not only was there no specification to why they should learn it, but only 1/10 of their English teachers had ever lived abroad. Josh said that this really affected the way students perceived English. To them, it was only a language that they would use when foreigners came to their country. Of course there is not much motivation behind that! Also, Josh said that students had long school days, where they not only had their academics but also had to be involved in mandatory extracurricular activities. This would leave the last couple of hours of their day to dedicate to homework.
I looked into this idea about motivation in Japanese students in EFL courses. This study found similar findings in that Japanese students overall are unmotivated to become proficient in English mainly because of anxiety and wanting to save face. It's apparent why students in Japan overall don't take risks because they don't have any reason why they should be learning it in the first place.
Josh provided a very interesting sides of EFL abroad. While these programs can be idealized, it is sobering to hear how there needs to be change among other school systems.

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My interview was with a young woman that taught English as a foreign language in Madagascar. She shared that Madagascar's primary language is Malagasy and that there are 18 different tribes each with their own dialect. She shared that even though the dialects were different, tribes could understand each other. French is the second most spoken language and the language that is used by the government. English instruction in the schools she taught in was a two hour class once a week. Many students are not able to afford schools where English is taught and taught well. The Malagasy people are fortunate to have a language in common so that they can communicate with each other throughout this island country.