I've made my first big blunder teaching ESL. Already. One very young Mexican lady, Norma, speaks almost no English. It must be such a struggle for her to get through the class, although I do a lot of pantomime to demonstrate what I'm saying.
Anyway, we were reviewing the alphabet and learning to spell our names aloud. She, along with several others, could not pronounce the word "spell." Tongues get so used to making certain sounds. All the Mexicans were saying "Es-spell." They want so much to sound American, so I was drilling them on the pronunciation. I was working alone with Norma and tried to get her to say "spell" five times in a row. It was too much. I shouldn't have made her do something so hard so many times. She started crying, left the room for awhile, and didn't return the next two sessions.
What I asked her to do is no more than I ask my little students to do at the piano, but it was just too humiliating for her. I must be more gentle with shy Mexican women!
