Teaching One’s Native Language Overseas

Opportunities abound for people with disabilities who want to teach English abroad or come to the United States to teach their native language. As a result, it can take time and a degree of persistence to search through programs, make connections abroad, and educate the exchange program or school on one’s qualifications and skills (to dispel preconceived notions that may become barriers to finding a placement). The following are stories about Americans with disabilities who successfully navigated the process of finding a position overseas, and what they shared and learned during their teaching experience abroad.

Blind Perspectives

Robin Barnes, who is blind, became a teacher in Kochi, Japan, with the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme. The JET program aims to enhance foreign language education in Japan and to promote international exchange at the local level by fostering ties between Japanese and foreign youth. College and university graduates have the opportunity to serve in local government organizations as well as public and private junior and senior high schools.   

Barnes kept a journal during her 12-month English teaching assignment, and noted this her first week: “I arrived in Kochi on a very hot, windless Wednesday afternoon…Everyone seems to know my name and I can’t figure out how or why. I’ve already had one newspaper interview and ever since, people stop me on the street to tell me that I’m great. ‘Erai, suggoi,’ they say. I don’t like being famous. It makes me feel as if I should be doing something amazing when in actuality, I’m just trying to get settled.”

By the next day, she began to settle in. “Today I meet my future colleagues, none of whom, I’m told, speak much English. I wonder if I will ever learn enough Japanese to make close friends. Will I be able to learn the city independently? And, because Japanese society is so group oriented and because I’m the first blind assistant language teacher at a blind school, how will I be treated? Am I strong enough to do this job?” Barnes questioned. She was the first full-time assistant language teacher at Kochi Mou Gakko, which at the time employed 33 teachers and instructed 27 students. Barnes taught four students in individual instruction. “Teaching one-on-one is very hard, harder than teaching a class of 40, I think. Lately I’ve felt that I’m not doing this job justice. I suppose it’s all part of the experience, and a challenge, such as this one, builds character,” she noted.

In addition to teaching at the blind school, Barnes also taught at schools for children with mental and physical disabilities, rural elementary schools, and at a school located inside Kochi Medical University Hospital. “All of my students are wonderful and are always giving me things, mostly sweets. I see so many different kinds of people each day and I’m thankful for my interactions with them. Sometimes, I get to go onto the wards in the hospital and teach students who can’t leave their beds. To me, that is one of the most rewarding experiences I think I’ve ever had,” she reflected.

When teaching one’s own language abroad, the visiting teacher also has an opportunity to learn the host country’s language through faculty meetings and by living in the community. “Everyone speaks to me in Japanese, so I get plenty of practice. Lately when I try to speak English, only Japanese comes out. It’s strange and I never expected this to happen to me,” commented Barnes. “Every day I go a little farther from home and speak a little more Japanese. The past few weeks have taught me to be patient, to treat each day as a gift, to laugh, learn and enjoy every opportunity that I am given…I am proud of the things I have accomplished. I speak Japanese everyday, I have Japanese friends, and I love my job. What more could I ask for?  When I was a child, my parents used to tell me an ancient Japanese proverb: ‘If you love your children, send them on a journey.’ And I never realized until this very moment that my life now is my journey.”

Similar to Barnes, Lorie Singleton, who is visually impaired, taught English at a blind school as a Peace Corps volunteer in Levoca, Slovakia. “Highs were exhilarating. Lows were heart-wrenching. Successes left me feeling as if I had climbed the highest mountain. And setbacks brought intense frustration before I was able to come up with solutions,” says Singleton. Her students ranged in age from eight to nineteen; grades 3-12. They came from a variety of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, and their skills in English ran from beginning to well-advanced. “Though some would have found these differences challenging, I loved the change. It was wonderful to go straight from a lecture on American politics with my high school seniors, to singing a lively rendition of ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ with my adorable third graders,” says Singleton. “Materials were in short supply. I transcribed books into both large print and Braille for all of my high school and many of my elementary school classes. I used magazines and cassettes sent from home to add to my classroom supplies.”

 

Shortage of Resources

In some locations, it may be necessary to bring equipment and technology with you in order to function most successfully as a teacher. Julie Sanfaçon, who has a visual impairment, relied on her laptop and dictionaries and encyclopedias on CD Rom during her English teaching assignment at the Mali Union of the Blind in West Africa. The only alternative format available at the organization was Braille, which Sanfaçon doesn’t read, and adaptive technology often was unavailable.

“Resources of any kind are scarce, such as paper. If I’m at home, and I had to print out a document, I could afford to play with the font type, font size, character spacing. I use Verdana 18 and put more space between the characters to stretch out the text but that takes a lot of paper. In Mali, if I needed to note something down on paper I would have to split it in to 2, 3 or 4 because paper was scarce and expensive,” says Sanfaçon. “I had to kind of struggle. There wasn’t access to the Internet [because of its cost], we had power shortages and failures so sometimes the computers weren’t working, and they had printers but there was no ink. In Mali, getting assistance is all negotiation and thank goodness I dealt with people who were pretty open-minded.” 

Sarah Presley, who is blind, had the Peace Corps ship her Perkins Brailler to Morocco for her volunteer teaching assignment. Then, she carried with her a CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) for magnifying print and a laptop computer with a printer built in and speech access software, which “turned out to be invaluable.”

“My job was, perhaps, [both] the most frustrating and rewarding part of my experience,” says Presley. “During my first year, I taught high school seniors, most of whom had advanced cases of senioritis and no interest in learning English. My reward came from working with the students who wanted to learn – they were a joy. They really appreciated the efforts I made to make accessible materials for the class and to make the class interesting. After class, I spent some time planning lessons. However, because there were no textbooks, I spent most of my time, especially during the first year, Brailling lessons for my students.”

Presley didn’t initially want to be placed at a school teaching blind children, as she found such placements presumptive and she had been used to working in mainstream environments. However, the experience and connection with her students changed her perspective. “I now know how important it is for those of us with disabilities to share our experiences, especially in the areas of education, [and] adapting to the world around us... As Americans, we have much to share with others about what we have tried in these areas, about what has and has not worked. It is also true that people with disabilities in other countries have just as much to share with us.”

Wheelchair Users Viewpoints

Not everyone with a disability teaches English at a school with disabled children. Josue Medrano, a wheelchair user from the United States, participated in an AIESEC paid traineeship to Brazil, where they built a ramp and adapted the facilities so he could access his classroom independently. He taught English to six classes of adults for about 20 hours per week, but ended up leaving the position early, due in part to lack of professional development to support his teacher training. “Most people are underprivileged, and to see a person with a disability in that type of job was pretty strange. Like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe he’s American and disabled and coming over here to teach English,’” says Medrano.

Melissa Mitchell headed to France for her English teaching experience following college. “After packing all my stuff in a huge backpack and strategically balancing it on my wheelchair, I left my home for the airport setting out on my adventure abroad. I arrived in Rennes exhausted and a little nervous (I had not practiced my French in six months!),” says Mitchell. “From the time I landed, I was already surprising people with my independence skills. My advisor and supervisor took me to the grounds of the Institute pour la Formation de Maitres (L’IUFM) and showed me to my room at the small dormitory for international students. While the other language assistants were staying in the dormitory for a short time while searching for suitable apartments, I was allowed to live there for the duration of my job since accessible housing is scarce. This willingness to do something out of the ordinary allowed me to have appropriate housing and the L’IUFM to keep a qualified assistant.”

Mitchell’s students ranged from very experienced teachers returning for refresher courses to young people earning their credentials. Brigitte Gruson, an English professor who supervised Mitchell and the other language assistants, explains, “The director of L’IUFM was immediately in favor of accepting Melissa as an assistant. It seemed to us that having her could be an advantage for the school. Some of our students – unfortunately too few – could have disabled students in their classes. Our view was that to work with an assistant who was disabled could lead them to evolve in their teaching.” 

Mitchell worked 12 hours each week assisting with language classes, leading sessions in the language lab and facilitating conversation groups. The students and teachers at the L'IUFM were very excited to have two language assistants from the United States because it provided them with exposure to native speakers.

Fellow American language assistant Elijah Wood, who worked often alongside Mitchell, observed, “I think when people with disabilities from the United States go abroad, they highlight the differences between domestic and foreign systems that serve them, which can lead to improvements on both fronts.”

“Teaching abroad introduced me to French culture, people, and disability perspectives in another country. Looking back this experience has changed the entire course of my life,” says Mitchell, who is employed in the international education field.

Marie Sharp, also a wheelchair user, found a job with VENUSA, an American-based exchange program for students in Venezuela that also provides English classes to Venezuelans. She was hired as an English teacher at the Universidad del Momboy in Valera, a small city located in the state of Trujillo.

“The people of Valera see me living and loving my life everyday, and I can break the stereotypes that people in wheelchairs are poor, uneducated, or helpless. I think maybe the Venezuelans with disabilities that I have met have begun to look at their own lives differently because of me. I think I’ve had a positive impact – at the end of each day that is a good feeling!” she says. To get to work, Sharp and the other teachers took a buseta, which is like a small bus or big van. These busetas aren’t equipped with lifts, but Sharp is ambulatory, so she could get out of her wheelchair and walk on while friends lifted her wheelchair on to the bus. Sharp learned to expand her definition of independence to include rallying the people around her for assistance. In the classroom, she focused on rallying her students to get excited about learning English.

“My classes have been going well so far, with the occasional culture shock from differences that my students spring upon me (for example the concept of time here is more relaxed, and people come late to class as a normal routine). It has been interesting learning to teach here because it is so different than the American classrooms I grew up in,” Sharp reflected mid-experience. “My students are so laid back. It is a challenge to manage the classroom, keep cell phones out of my sight and prevent people from cheating. Challenges and all, I enjoy teaching English, making jokes, having my students sing nursery rhymes, telling them about American culture, and seeing them improve as the semester goes on.”

Observing the Rewards

Not all teaching opportunities take place in traditional classrooms. Leticia Arellano, a Deaf American woman, was hired by a Deaf Japanese businessman to teach him American Sign Language (ASL), so he could make presentations during business trips to the United States without having to rely upon interpreters. In exchange for providing ASL lessons, Arellano received a place to stay and meals during her ten weeks in Japan. She also had the opportunity to learn about Japanese Deaf education because the man she tutored also taught at Kanazawa School for the Deaf. After her experience teaching in Japan, the man and his wife, whom she tutored in ASL, came to the United States to teach at Gallaudet University and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. “[He and his wife] showed that they could use their ASL pretty well!” Arellano proudly observed.

Allegra Johnson, who has rheumatoid arthritis and taught English at Cité Scolaire Albert Camus in Mourenx, France, shares Arellano’s excitement at seeing her students succeed. “As long as I taught in France, the reaction from my students—the sudden realization that they understand and can be understood by a foreigner using another language—always delighted me.”

Information for this article was excerpted from previously solicited articles by the National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange and published in past A World Awaits You journals, the Transitions Abroad magazine, and a blind organization newsletter.