Hi teachers.
As the title suggests, I’m curious how you think your students are effected in terms of their desire to travel, study abroad, or even learn English by SNS and media outlet coverage of the US.
Disclaimer: This is just a shower thought, I’m not doing research or looking for particular confirmation. I avoid political topics in my English courses, so I’m hoping to just hear some anecdotes.
Thanks
16 comments
Most of my students like American media, but have no desire to go there because of gun violence. I don’t much blame them, having been here for over a decade, going back for a visit is a bit daunting given what you see on the news lately.
That being said, if they’re interested in English, they just focus on the EU, GB, or Canada. All are valid choices, and if gun violence is a concern, you’re much less likely to encounter it in those destinations.
Not at all in my experience. They still want to go see ohtani or eat a hamburger. Depends on the age but certainly the younger ones don’t read about school shootings or abortion and take that into account
My students (junior high) were surprised to learn Americans regularly eat rice. I think they legit thought we only eat bread.
Meanwhile some of my students expressed concerns/worries about safety after one of the larger mass shootings, I think the Pulse one in Orlando.
Disney movies/music was a big influence for some of my more motivated English learners. I had one girl who’d memorized How Far I’ll Go from the Moana soundtrack, in English, before the movie was even released. Music (One Direction, Taylor Swift, etc.) and big movies (like the Marvel stuff) were something they talked about.
Mainly a desire to see sport teams they like. I had a lot of students write they wanted to go to an NBA game. As I also like to cook and show stuff to my students, they are also interested in American food.
At my University, the # of students who have gone to study abroad in the USA has declined 75% since 2017(countries like Netherlands, Australia etc have increaseD). The image of the USA has definitely taken a beating in the past decade especially
+ (+) Marvel, New York, hamburger
– (-) Portions too big, guns, scary / not safe
Taylor Swift, hamburgers, guns, New York City, Los Angeles.
A good number felt that America is unsafe
A few wanted to visit and try American food or see famous places like the Grand canyon.
I wish I had more detailed answers but I also tried avoiding topics that were potentially political. The ideas I got were from talking about travel. “Where would you like to travel? Would you like to travel to x? Why or why not?”
Im not American but when I asked my students at an eikaiwa where they would like to travel one of my students flat out said America. I asked her why and she said “to see the Big Ben” lol
I’m in Korea actually. But when I asked my students if they wanted to visit the US some day most said yes but felt it was too dangerous. One student said “too much bang bang”
Everyone is armed to the teeth, we all shoot each other, and when Walking Dead was in its peak all those years ago, I overheard some elementary school kids talking about how America definitely has zombies.
A surprising amount of students also think that the majority of Americans are black, which is baffling, and are surprised when they realize that Hawaii and Guam are actually parts of America.
I teach English to preschool and kindergarten age kids. They tend to either think America is all White people or all Black people. There were some foreigners at the park one time and some of my kids were talking amongst each other trying to guess where they were from. One of them guessed America and another one of them said “No, America is only Black” to which i replied “like me?” (I’m a Black woman for reference) and she nodded her head.
I proceeded to tell them that there are all types of people in America, even Japanese. They did a collective “Ehhhhhh??!” hahaha
Hamburgers. Guns.
People used to ask me how many guns I own and how did I survive living in such a dangerous country.
Guns. Dangerous. Big food portions. Australia much safer. UK too far and expensive. let’s go to the US. the UK and Spain in Japan. We have many safe “foreign” theme parks. We can go to the US in Japan. Very safe. Japanese experience of America in Japan. I stay in Japan all my life. Yes, I did travel to a foreign “theme
Park” I’m international now.
It ran the gamut! I had kids who thought it was too dangerous because of guns. (Granted, with reason. I lived near Takko, and they surely heard about the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting, where several students from Takko were in attendance.) A lot of basic “I want to see the statue of liberty, eat hamburger.” During the trump administration many of my students expressed a desire to meet him because they, I suppose, found him entertaining.
There’s a bit of a tightrope walk in teaching the students about your home country and navigating the biases on both sides.