My second classroom observation was under Ah Young Kim, in her grammar class for level 3 students. When class started, Ah Young jumped to review the previous day’s lesson: modal verbs, or “helping verbs.” At first I was a little confused about what type of verbs she was referring to, because I kept hearing “Mo-awl” verbs—but then I noticed what would be the remnants of her first language. Her native language was Korean, so she still had slight difficulties in pronunciation, but the students hardly noticed.
Since I can only imagine that Ah Young experienced learning English as a second language, I feel like she had a great perspective for teaching English, especially when it came to the attitude implications of grammar. She drew a diagram of what different modal verbs implied: “You must close the door” implies 100% of certainty; “you should close the door,” fall at 80% certainty; “you may close the door,” is more of a suggestion at 60%; and ending with the least certain “you might close the door.” I never really even thought of these helping verbs working in this way before. She has English as a foreign language down to a science—since English was very much so a foreign language to her at some point in time.
At the end, she had small groups practice dialogues using modal verbs, and it was a great applied exercise for the students. Starting with “Could you do a favor for me?” we sprang into a conversation of modal verbs! “B: Why should I?” “A: Because you might receive a favor in return!” Overall, the class was a great experience. I discovered that grammar doesn’t always have to be boring.
What a unique opportunity, for students to learn a foreign language from someone who was once in their shoes! This gives Ah Young a unique perspective and probably makes her more approachable to her students. Though we cannot replicate the experience of learning English as a foreign language, we can gain some insight by trying to learn the languages of our tutees and conversation partners.
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