ποΈ Welcome to ESL Talk! ποΈ
A podcast for English Teachers, by English Teachers.
In this episode, we explore the transformative power of cultural exchange in the ESL classroom. Our guest, Esther Tong, is an experienced ESL instructor, who shares their journey of teaching English across diverse cultural contexts and explains how integrating cultural exchange fosters deeper learning and engagement.
We dive into real-world examples of cultural exchange projects, highlighting how they build crucial soft skills like communication, teamwork, and critical thinking. Tune in for insights on how cultural exchange can enrich both teaching and learning!
You can also reach out to Esther here:
Email: esther.tong.yz@gmail.com
Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/esthertongyz
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[00:00:04] You are listening to ESL talk, a podcast made for English teachers by English teachers.
[00:00:28] Hello everyone, welcome to another new episode of ESL talk in this episode. We're going
[00:00:34] to be talking about cultural exchange within ESL and within English teaching. I guess the
[00:00:39] Chinese today is Esther alongside Fei, of course, hello Fei, welcome.
[00:00:43] Hi, hello.
[00:00:45] Perfect. So before we go to our interview today, we do just want to take a few minutes
[00:00:49] to discuss cultural exchange and our experiences with that thing. So yeah, we should probably
[00:00:55] start with this concept of cultural exchange that it does kind of go both ways and it
[00:01:00] isn't just a one way kind of channel. So what do you understand by cultural exchange and
[00:01:06] why do you advocate for it being a two way kind of communication?
[00:01:11] Yeah, I find that sometimes when we're teaching teachers tend to sometimes put
[00:01:17] themselves in the position of provider of knowledge, provider of all things. And I feel
[00:01:22] like especially when you're teaching languages and working with students with speak
[00:01:27] different languages. We need to remember that there's source of information too, you know?
[00:01:32] And so the exchange idea for me is so important because instead of us just always just
[00:01:38] giving them all that cultural knowledge about the English speaking countries, have them participate
[00:01:44] too and exchange that with us, you know, compare with what their background is or what their reality
[00:01:50] is. Or even different knowledge that they have other countries and other cultures, right? What do
[00:01:56] do you think about that? Do you think we sometimes forget that concept or something? Yes, I think
[00:02:02] it's very easy to just kind of get into your teacher mode and just kind of go through
[00:02:08] the material, go through the content and not really consider the culture on the other side. It's
[00:02:14] you know, English culture. So for me, I might sprinkle in some British culture, I might
[00:02:18] sprinkle in some Canadian culture, I might sprinkle in some USA culture which is great, but those aren't
[00:02:24] necessarily the only English cultures. And then I necessarily the only correct English cultures. So it
[00:02:30] comes from talking to your students, engaging them, listening to them, getting their ideas
[00:02:34] as well. Because I think, you know, I'm sure you can speak about Brazil or the countries
[00:02:39] out of them, they are also affected by Western English speaking cultures to some extent. So it's
[00:02:46] about, again, having that two way, like I said, two way, a channel of communication. And it also
[00:02:51] helps them learn, right? Because they feel more personal, like the whole idea of personalising
[00:02:56] learning. Exactly. Yeah. And as we're here today from Estas, she's from Malaysia and that
[00:03:01] still a very, very huge English speaking country. That's quite what conventional ideas might say.
[00:03:07] Yeah. So it's really, really important that we again, you know, we have a two way channel and we
[00:03:11] listen to our students. We learn from them and we use that to help with that teaching as well. So yeah,
[00:03:16] really important. Now how about when, because we both have been teaching the longest in, you know,
[00:03:23] multi-lingual classes, like we teach in Canada or even in the UK and then you have students coming
[00:03:29] from all different parts of the world or even online, right? So I find that's fairly easy to
[00:03:35] promote that exchange because you can just as soon as you pair somebody up with this student
[00:03:38] from another country, that exchange will happen. How about when we're teaching in a more EFL
[00:03:44] setting or monolingual group of students? How can we promote that exchange more? Exactly.
[00:03:51] Intensely. So great question. I think it's about the materials that you use so making sure that
[00:03:57] you use materials that might still reflect the culture, but in a less conventional way. So for Canada,
[00:04:04] of course, you know, I know we've done this in our previous program's fairway. We look at
[00:04:08] Indigenous groups in Canada or we look at, you know, maybe subcultures within Canada different things
[00:04:15] that still promote English, but it's done in different ways. So I know in Vancouver when we're
[00:04:21] both on the West Coast, there was more about Asian Canadian culture and how that is still very
[00:04:26] English and very very anglicized, but it has its own identity and feel which a lot of students
[00:04:30] could connect to. And then obviously within Canada we also have a very strong Frankfurt culture
[00:04:35] in Quebec and on the East Coast, like Estus, get a mention a little bit, there's a lot of Irish
[00:04:40] and Scottish daily culture as well. So all of these things are still underpinned by English speaking,
[00:04:45] English culture, but it's represented in a very different or unique way. In a way that students
[00:04:49] probably don't know about or they're not aware of. So you're opening their mind and you're
[00:04:54] exposing them to that. So those are some ways that they could do it through good materials,
[00:04:59] authentic materials and things that they can apply to their situations. But what have you done
[00:05:03] in your experience to help do that? Because I know through your Instagram channel used to share a
[00:05:08] lot of interesting things which you'll actually view is loved. Yeah, yeah, I mean it was,
[00:05:14] I think that that was fairly easy to do because I was living here when I had my channel,
[00:05:19] I still am, you know. So it's like, I just go out on the street and I just show them the grocery store.
[00:05:26] And it's easy. I found that it was more challenging when I taught English in Brazil because
[00:05:31] and especially because this was how long ago was that? 15, 16 years ago when I started, you know,
[00:05:38] it wasn't as easy as just oh showing them something on the computer or a YouTube video or, you know.
[00:05:44] So I remember every time I traveled or somebody traveled abroad, I'd asked them to bring me magazines,
[00:05:51] I'd asked them to bring me whatever books, like brochures, travel brochures, you know. And I would
[00:05:58] bring that to the classroom to sort of have this experience more that feel of the real language
[00:06:05] being used in a real setting rather than just the course book or the text book. Right, right, yeah.
[00:06:10] And yeah, so I find that there was there's a bit more effort to make that happen.
[00:06:15] Nowadays we have technology and it is easier but the teacher still has to, I think,
[00:06:20] remember to use that if they are teaching at class of resilience in Brazil, what can they do
[00:06:27] to, you know, make that culture more apparent and bring more of that into the classroom
[00:06:33] and help their students as well, maybe use their own culture like the Brazilian culture.
[00:06:40] How would they talk about Brazilian culture in English? Which shouldn't be a challenge, you know?
[00:06:45] Yeah, 100% for sure. Yeah. And in terms of projects and activities specifically that you
[00:06:51] can think of, I know there was a monolingual more setting but in terms of projects and activities
[00:06:55] you've used. I know I've done things like students, they'll share something from their culture
[00:07:00] so in the last place that I was working at we would have projects every four weeks presentation
[00:07:06] that they have to deliver and then also a debate and there generally be around things like
[00:07:11] education in Canada and your home country. Fashion in Canada and your home country, so they're always
[00:07:16] making those connections and they're teaching each other and we had a lot of diversity in our class so
[00:07:22] it really brought that out. The best one, the most successful one obviously was food culture.
[00:07:26] Yeah, students actually made food and so on. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:30] When you're on online it's a little bit more difficult but even for me teaching one-on-one
[00:07:35] when I do that I'm always asking them, you know, is this the same in your country? Right
[00:07:41] or I know in Spanish it's you say like this but in your country you say the same way. So we always
[00:07:46] use those little maybe little platoes or those couple of minutes here in there to just kind of
[00:07:56] you don't fade to help. Yeah, yeah like you said it's always it's about like finding little
[00:08:01] opportunities here and there for sure but I remember at a school days to work at and that had
[00:08:07] a really good mix of nationalities and one of the students actually came up with this idea to do
[00:08:12] like a whole school event called International Day where each classroom was each class was a
[00:08:20] different country in the world to do sort of like a present. I'd say to do an immersive experience
[00:08:28] on. So every classroom you would walk into would be a different country and the students had
[00:08:34] to decorate the classroom, bring in the music and they had to do games and a presentation.
[00:08:41] They had to talk about like so a couple of students were assigned the geography part of it,
[00:08:45] a couple students were assigned the food part of it. You know and they had to work as a team
[00:08:50] for about a week on that. It wasn't that long but those students just learned a lot about
[00:08:56] this country and what we found was the most effective was to give a class, a country that nobody
[00:09:03] in the class was from and that really helped because they just had to like you know,
[00:09:10] really learn something and then learn it well enough to teach the rest of the school and sometimes
[00:09:15] they would have a student from that country from a different class come in and be like,
[00:09:19] what are you going to say about my country and you know like kind of testing them? That's really fun.
[00:09:23] And it was a great activity. It worked really well and we ended up doing that annually so we
[00:09:28] would do it every year for very cool. And until I get to know. Now in terms of materials,
[00:09:36] I know that sometimes I have had experiences where I'm teaching with a material or a coursebook
[00:09:43] or something especially when I was like prepping students for the Cambridge exams. That was very,
[00:09:47] very British and students are here in Canada so I ended up having to sometimes adapt or bring
[00:09:54] in additional materials or take those few minutes in the class to explain this is a very British
[00:09:59] thing to say. Yeah. Maybe you're an exam but in Canada we won't do that. Can you think of some
[00:10:04] examples of materials you have? Yeah 100% so a real pain for me and my students was listening
[00:10:12] because listening was generally in British English even though they're in Canada and it's not
[00:10:17] really something that they would hear that often. So what we would do is we'd get the transcripts,
[00:10:22] students would read the transcripts with each other or to each other or even practice with me
[00:10:26] and then we'd actually get the students to record a version of it so we'd have different versions
[00:10:31] of it and we just rotate between them so that they could listen to different types of English.
[00:10:35] Not necessarily just Canadian English, North American English, British English,
[00:10:40] and then also with some other classes that I've taught will have an option of both
[00:10:46] British English and American English so we can rotate between them, class by class or if they
[00:10:50] are used to a set in type so for example some clients I worked with in the past they have a lot
[00:10:55] clients in the USA so I just only do American English so this would be useful and then there might
[00:11:01] be certain words of vocabulary we'd pick out that we'd have to explain and dissect so it just
[00:11:06] be a case of tweaking the materials to just make it more relevant for the learner but then in the
[00:11:14] on the occasion that there might be some useful words or phrases in British I might pick them out
[00:11:19] and be like have you heard this before do you know what this means? I know for example there's
[00:11:24] it you know when you guys listen to the interview with Estes she mentioned like some very British
[00:11:28] idioms and those who don't know that is something we think so maybe a lot of people listening
[00:11:33] test for you that maybe you can hear them but again use that as a fun fun running opportunity as well
[00:11:39] but yeah you're right some of the textbooks are very outdated you look at some of the pictures
[00:11:43] of some of the videos and you're like this is so 90s or this is so like 2000s or even like examples
[00:11:50] of sentences I remember speaking of like gender you know you'd always see like the examples of
[00:11:56] sentences and the the mechanic the plumber it was always a man and then it was always a nurse
[00:12:03] was always a woman and you know and the pictures and the sentences and the names and that's a really
[00:12:07] good point I remember like just kind of changing and making my own sentences for some of the
[00:12:15] exactly I'm making your students part of it so instead of saying you know this plumber club
[00:12:20] apply you'd say the student because they're going to study x or they want to be y
[00:12:24] well that's what they're looking to do so I think that's a really nice way to do that to adapt
[00:12:28] that as well yeah yeah yeah I view say I for that actually before where I click when I'm doing
[00:12:33] like practice exercises for my students I put the class list on the AI platform and I asked the
[00:12:40] I asked the AI to just kind of make the sentences with those students so yeah but sometimes these
[00:12:45] outdated classes can be really interesting because we were talking about like I remember really
[00:12:49] all top because of like video rentals and VHS tapes so that's true it can be a point of
[00:12:58] conversation to right yeah exactly exactly anything most importantly you know all of these different
[00:13:04] activities these different kinds of approaches they just help students expand their their mind
[00:13:09] change their attitudes step aspectives because as you mentioned sub students just say oh
[00:13:16] people from that country are like this so people from this country are like this and people
[00:13:20] have stereotypes they have preconceived notions so by giving them those opportunities to interact
[00:13:24] with others talk to others get to know others they're like oh it's not really not true
[00:13:29] it's not actually correct or make them think about what what they're learning and what they're
[00:13:34] seeing right yeah exactly so yeah I think this is a really good starting point for today but let's
[00:13:40] get into today's interview with Esther where we're going to talk even more about cultural exchange in ESR
[00:13:56] hello Esther so nice to have you here as a guest with us today it's my pleasure yeah that's great
[00:14:02] great to have you on but first if you could please tell us a little bit about yourself and your
[00:14:07] journey as an English teacher for our listeners out there okay hi everyone is such an honor to be here
[00:14:13] thank you so much Danie thank you for inviting me on your wonderful channel my name is Esther
[00:14:19] and I'm from Malaysia by ethnicity I'm Chinese and my journey of learning English and teaching
[00:14:26] English starts when I was very young I always know that new that I want to be a teacher
[00:14:33] I find a lot of passion love joy when I teach people and coming to English I think one of the people
[00:14:41] that inspired me to be an English teacher is my English teacher so I want to be her I want to make English
[00:14:48] learning fun so I've started teaching English in in university in Malaysia it's called Curtin
[00:14:55] University it's an Australian off-shore campus based in Malaysia and I started off by starting with
[00:15:03] teaching intensive English program if teaching I out and then moving on I taught also effective
[00:15:11] communication skills research writing skills and moving on then I came to Canada to pursue my
[00:15:18] further education with masters international master of teaching English where I graduated in 2022
[00:15:25] 2024 so I graduated for January and along with that I am very honored and privileged to be able
[00:15:32] to teach in the housing university in English for academic purposes and English in Canada
[00:15:38] so that is that was a very rewarding experience for me as a teacher no it's a very easy there
[00:15:46] is a great journey it's a great story that's why I'm really happy that you can talk about the
[00:15:50] topic today which is about cultural exchange because yeah I know from our interactions working together
[00:15:55] and again all the students that we taught in all the different settings there's a lot of cultural
[00:16:00] exchange that took place so let's go into this topic a little bit more what this cultural exchange
[00:16:05] means to you and how do you think it can help learners and our teachers or audience I think culture
[00:16:11] exchange is a very important element that we should incorporate in English teaching or English
[00:16:18] learning because right now it's a global village so students come across from all part of the world
[00:16:26] and as teachers I think embedding this element in in your classes is promoting
[00:16:33] mutual trust sharing of values of customs and it helps students to take students outside the
[00:16:42] classroom I mean not physically but mentally and intellectually they are brought outside the classrooms
[00:16:48] and they not only broaden their rule view it doesn't only make the classroom interesting
[00:16:54] but they can learn so much more about a new festival country new festival people and I think it really
[00:17:01] helps them to elevate the entire learning process especially in English and takes it to the whole new
[00:17:07] level and gives so much spice in it you know it it it just enhances the flavor I think
[00:17:13] intercultural gives that umami in learning if I can you know put it in like cooking
[00:17:19] way else yeah that umami yeah that's a great way to put it I actually I like what you're saying
[00:17:27] to because it seems obvious but there are a lot of times where the teachers just they're kind
[00:17:33] of like presenting the culture that goes with English right that's right let's talk about
[00:17:37] Canada let's talk about England let's talk about the US now could you maybe give some examples for
[00:17:43] listeners of what do you mean of like projects or cultural exchange activities that you have
[00:17:48] tried in your teaching career and how do you think that that helped your students mm-hmm
[00:17:53] so one of the most recent experiences I could put if I may is the um when I was teaching in
[00:17:59] the housing university we have this program called English in Canada so one of the things that students
[00:18:05] come here to learn English and they were brought outside classroom learning is out of the classroom
[00:18:11] out of the fall walls so they go around to different parts of the city in Halifax they look at
[00:18:23] so they use this intercultural lenses and put on this you know lens where they where they describe
[00:18:30] the analyze and the evaluate so describe as in a describe what they see you know what what this
[00:18:36] is building like analyze what I think about what I see analyze what's happening why is it happening
[00:18:42] why do people in a behave in this way or why it's this building built in this way and then
[00:18:49] for their own procedure evaluate how they feel about what they see so that is the most recent example
[00:18:55] that I can give especially when you bring student outside it's no longer just like okay observe
[00:19:02] you know treasure hunt and that's it but after the treasure hunt you need to bring them back and
[00:19:07] ask them why why do you think exactly for example in um I have to say there's a lot of Irish
[00:19:15] influence a lot of Celtic symbols so I think with that you need to ask them why do you think you know
[00:19:22] people's names has this it's it's it's it's a pattern that you notice and coming to that
[00:19:30] then they'll start noticing so that's one example that could provide another example that I
[00:19:35] I did in my previous workplace in critical um was that we used this post crossing where learners are
[00:19:44] second like uh what do you go English is a second language so what happens is that students will come to
[00:19:51] classroom so now I'll say okay we have this um a website or application what you could write post
[00:19:57] cards to strangers that you don't know or across the world like it can be any topic in Harry
[00:20:04] so you write like hey dear Danny or dear Fay or whoever that is whoever reads my post card my name is
[00:20:12] Esther and I'm from Malaysia I celebrate Chinese New Year every February and we we I work food
[00:20:20] includes fish includes this and that and it means you know fish means um that you have plenty every year
[00:20:29] so a very short paragraph of who they are with your from and then they delivered all the way across
[00:20:35] to another place where Garnos were at Lens too and then this random person that signs up for this program
[00:20:41] they say oh I receive a postcard from someone from Malaysia so it gives up excitement you know talking
[00:20:47] strangers like hey I don't know who I'm giving myself into but yeah that's it that's interesting
[00:20:52] nice yeah for example I love that I love the the experiential part of it where it's actually hands on
[00:20:57] there's a connection yes and it kind of ties into building those soft skills that they really need
[00:21:03] as well like for academic or future careers using English so in what ways do you think cultural
[00:21:08] exchange helps students fill these soft skills like communication teamwork you kind of touched
[00:21:12] in it but could you go a little bit further about how they build those soft skills specifically
[00:21:17] so I think these soft skills the main soft skills that can be can be cultivated through this program
[00:21:24] this this project is that it helps them with communication and teamwork I think communication is one
[00:21:31] of the most important thing that is student can build and the students should hold the skill
[00:21:35] because a lot of everybody has a lot of great ideas but how do you put them down in paper
[00:21:42] how do you put them in writing so students can work on group projects on different themes for
[00:21:48] example let's say you know four of us decide to talk about a celebration so we have actively
[00:21:53] listen to each other and put down what are we gonna write so not only communication but teamwork as well
[00:22:01] so with communication it includes like written and what you got written skills and even thinking skills
[00:22:08] which brings me to the next point which is also critical thinking so when you are building
[00:22:15] and when you're giving a homework of culture exchange it really fosters critical thinking because
[00:22:20] they start to analyze okay I am sending my postpart to a particular country is there anything
[00:22:28] anything anything that is sensitive I should not touch on or anything that I should be aware of
[00:22:35] which promotes that interest in oh I want to do my own research I want to understand what's
[00:22:42] going on with this this country and the friend that I'll be potentially writing to so they start to
[00:22:49] actively think and not just like okay we're gonna run a say all right we're gonna write about we're
[00:22:54] gonna send them a say that probably have no interest in and I just copied paste from any
[00:23:00] website copy based my friend mm-hmm so I think with that being said communication is definitely
[00:23:06] the most important thing that we can cultivate um another one is teamwork because they're working
[00:23:11] in teams that we definitely asking their friends and third one is critical thinking okay I really
[00:23:18] like that I hadn't thought of that what you said about maybe even like the teacher doing some
[00:23:23] preparation about the culture that they will be working with or talking to yeah so those things
[00:23:30] oh you don't want to talk about this or maybe you want to say this in a different way
[00:23:33] and that's a really great point now speaking of that there can be a lot of change challenges
[00:23:40] that arise right especially when you have students working with in groups with different
[00:23:45] cultures mixed in can you maybe share some examples about challenges you've seen or
[00:23:53] challenges that make come up when the students are working as a team with this I think one of
[00:23:58] the biggest challenges probably they will feel the lack of confidence we see in especially for English
[00:24:07] that are second language to you know different learners even for as a foreign language so I think
[00:24:12] when it comes to them or speaking or writing they probably will feel like okay I don't know anything
[00:24:21] one of the biggest things I observe especially with my contacts with learners that
[00:24:27] don't speak very very good English is that they think that English fluency is equal to intelligence
[00:24:37] like if I'm not fluent that means I'm not smart as though what those who are very fluent
[00:24:43] and with that when they write down stuff they will feel very reluctant they'll feel very reluctant
[00:24:49] to present their ideas so that is one of the things that I've seen one of the barriers that
[00:24:56] the reluctance and confidence can be something that is hindering them from presenting their ideas
[00:25:04] I think another another probably another challenge that I would face is lack of understanding
[00:25:12] I think one of the things that I aim to diminish and I aim to just
[00:25:18] how do I say stop in my class is the feeling of that you know I want I don't need to learn about other
[00:25:28] that probably my way of thinking is more superior than any other people and I think that is the
[00:25:36] main reason why we have culture exchange if a person feels that I don't need to know about other people
[00:25:44] I'm self sufficient so that is a mindset that we have as teachers have to help to
[00:25:53] how do I say decree or how do I say what's the word to it shift against exactly to shift
[00:25:59] that mindset to shift that perspective because so many students or even even teachers jump into conclusions
[00:26:08] the moment you see news of a particular religion, a particular race you know okay they are like this
[00:26:16] yeah I don't want to write to them because they are not as good as me
[00:26:23] yeah so it's a real challenge media plays a very big role in influencing how people see or feel things
[00:26:31] and with intercultural and putting in the three lens as in describe analyze evaluate
[00:26:37] really hold us back first step describe
[00:26:42] what you see in the picture don't immediately jump to conclusions true and that really is of
[00:26:50] crucial part of into cultural change great yeah it's a good this disdies in our
[00:26:54] member because we'd always talk about the differences between subjectivity and objectivity
[00:26:58] and feelings of effects and again it ties in with so many other different facets of English and
[00:27:04] academic English specifically so I really like that and just letting students have the opportunity
[00:27:10] to just even start to open and expand their mind just a little bit it helps really can help
[00:27:16] that and it can help both our confidence as well so exactly what what did you notice in terms of
[00:27:22] students confidence levels as they as they learn about each other's cultures you know can you
[00:27:25] think of a specific story or an example of a student or a group of students who really
[00:27:30] improve their confidence through cultural exchange of course I think one of the I think one of the
[00:27:36] biggest change I see in students is that they are they they start to be more comfortable
[00:27:44] in speaking with strangers I always encourage my students hey if you see someone that because
[00:27:50] there's sometimes we have Australian students coming to campus and we have for example native
[00:27:56] speakers coming you know so the first the first impression of the first feeding of the students
[00:28:02] as oh they would judge my English they will definitely judge and I tell them you know what
[00:28:08] in fact the people who speak English are the person that would not judge you would not at all judge
[00:28:14] you I see an increase in confidence as in when they start to test the water start to dip their
[00:28:21] feet in the water they say oh they're actually very friendly people they they they when I when I
[00:28:28] am able to for example utter a complete sentence they were like oh I'm so glad you talked to me
[00:28:34] and they start and these these people started to give them a lot of response so that makes them
[00:28:41] few empowered and that that makes them feel respected valued as an individual individual and not just
[00:28:47] their you know fluency and their language competency so in power them to step more step out more
[00:28:54] to engage in the better conversation so one of the things I think one of the things I can think
[00:29:00] about is that we were doing a project of me asking students to go out okay talk to people
[00:29:07] who whom you've never met talk to people who you know that fear and language is not the same as yours
[00:29:14] and students come back and say you know what and one of the best problems I think I got was
[00:29:19] Esther you made English so you made me feel that English is not that difficult nice simple
[00:29:28] but very impactful comment for me that makes me feel that this is something that I should
[00:29:34] continue to do you're doing something right for sure exactly exactly if I can if I can help people
[00:29:40] to alleviate that fear towards a learning English through a culture exchange and broaden their mind
[00:29:48] I'm like that's all I need as a teacher yeah that's great that's the best kind of feedback you can get
[00:29:54] right yeah I'm also curious you know if you have ever gotten any other more specific feedback on the
[00:30:00] these activities where you're promoting the cultural exchange like the one you did where you took
[00:30:05] the students out and what kind of specific feedback have you had from students and has that made you
[00:30:11] change the way you do things in the future or not I think with if I can recall the students
[00:30:18] comments I think students when they when we brought them out and they they get to experience you know
[00:30:25] look at different places and buildings and people they came back and they say that now I have a deeper
[00:30:32] level of understanding so it I think it breaks the the ice if I can talk about like the the
[00:30:42] cultural iceberg the cultural iceberg the top visible part being you know the what you could
[00:30:48] the superficial part of culture when a fashion behavior food but but bringing them out helps them
[00:30:56] to dive deeper in so the students comment was that I got to actually know why some people behave
[00:31:08] why now I understand what's the meaning behind a certain certain action I didn't say what's
[00:31:17] the meaning behind a certain fashion for example so that really helps me to help help
[00:31:23] stem to build that I think awareness and understanding I'm probably I can't really think of a
[00:31:30] particular comment but the impression was the feedback like they gave was this they came to me in
[00:31:36] classroom where we exchanged the discussions or how do you guys feel so this is what was being
[00:31:41] exchanged they get to dive deeper into the deeper cultural values of what I have another question
[00:31:49] connected to this as well as the a lot of our listeners they teach online the teacher younger children
[00:31:54] or maybe students who are very shy to speak and share their culture or share their background so
[00:32:00] for our listeners who maybe teach online how could teachers really approach that and how could
[00:32:05] they start to you know begin this journey of cultural exchange and online environment
[00:32:10] I think sometimes online environment makes it even easier because um because with or I know that
[00:32:18] there's some platforms one of the things that I wanted to talk about didn't get to was that I know
[00:32:23] that some classrooms globally they want to do an exchange program they are looking for the
[00:32:29] change program so I was I joined this Facebook group I saw this post saying that I'm looking for
[00:32:36] a classroom to do exchange so I think with online classroom I think one of the things that we can
[00:32:42] invite for example that's that you found someone I'm in Canada and I found someone in Malaysia
[00:32:49] that wants to exchange that with me so we could we could set a time and to build that timing together
[00:32:56] and we could invite them to drop in for just even let's say a 30 minute say right now
[00:33:02] I'm going to put you in breakout rooms you are going to chat with your friends and these are the
[00:33:07] prompts that you can ask your friend for example if you're not comfortable in in in in pairs they
[00:33:14] could be put into groups of four like two and two right so they will have an exchange of the
[00:33:20] ideas I hate what is your traditional dish it can be very simple questions is rich for English
[00:33:26] gender we don't want to complicate the questions being asked depending on the level of course
[00:33:31] and that really facilitates another one that I I can share is post crossing post crossing
[00:33:38] is an online stand up form you basically is a project that allows you to send postfarts
[00:33:43] back and forth from random people on the one and everything's online so they could group together
[00:33:50] three students group together they discuss what you want to write what themes you want to explore
[00:33:56] and each student will you know provide feedback so it's it's also promotes peer feedback
[00:34:01] I'm going to write about Chinese you're going to write about who you're going to write about your house
[00:34:06] your grandma and then they would send it out so I think online makes it even easier yeah
[00:34:13] that's nice that's interesting that's a great idea I had never tried that I want to check
[00:34:17] out that website actually myself so Esther you actually had some really great tips and advice
[00:34:24] today for listeners but if anybody out there is interested in learning more about the kind of work
[00:34:30] you do or they would like to connect with you to talk about some of the things you've talked about
[00:34:35] today where can they find your contact in for a more information about what you do?
[00:34:39] Oh yeah sure I'll be happy to share that I'm on LinkedIn so my LinkedIn name is Esther Pong
[00:34:46] STHER Tio NG so you can see me just a little profile there and you could just add me
[00:34:53] and my email is Esther yesthr.tiong.yz at gmail.com
[00:35:03] right so again I like to yeah what those in the description as well so if anyone wants to get in touch
[00:35:07] they can most suddenly do that I know sometimes we have questions that we wanted to maybe check
[00:35:12] or clarify something so Esther will be able to do that for you that's perfect thank you so much for
[00:35:18] joining us today was going to continue. Well thank you once again Esther this was a lovely
[00:35:23] conversation and we want to thank you our listeners as well for joining us today remember that
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[00:36:18] you very soon for another new episode of ESL Talk thanks for listening bye bye thank you.