For the past two years, I have tutored one man in my small community in reading. His English was already pretty good, but he couldn’t read or write at all really. He has improved remarkably, but there were certainly difficult portions; usually caused by the cultural differences between what he was reading – a fourth grade American reading textbook – and his life, culture, and everything he knows.
There are the obvious things: he knows the concept of snow, but has never experienced it, so the idea of earmuffs was lost to him.
He knows that tall buildings exist, but has no idea of the scale of our skyscrapers. For a dude who has probably never gone up stairs – at all – the concept of an elevator to take you hundreds of feet in the air was baffling and terrifying.
Some examples:
- Red Riding Hood: One story took a twist on a bunch of different fairy tales. To a fourth grader, it would have been a clever and funny story. But to a Gambian without any introduction to or experience with the original version, it makes no sense. When Little Red Riding Hood erases a part of the script and instead of coming to her house dressed as a grandmother, the wolf turns into a ballerina and starts pirouetting around the stage, it wasn’t cute or clever or funny: It was baffling. Plus, try to get an early reader to decode “pirouette”.
- There was one story about inventions, and man, did that make Americans look lazy and superficial. One girl invented a combination washer and dryer so the tired American worker doesn’t have to lift wet clothes into a new machine. He responded with a laugh, and I quote, “A machine to wash cloth? How is that?” After I explained, he clucked his tongue as Gambians do, and said, “No, no, I don’t think so.” He didn’t say anything, but when I described a clothes dryer, I could see the disdain on his face and I know he was thinking, “Stupid Americans! Building a machine to do what the sun does for free…”
- Another boy invented a special, super effective sprinkler. You may think a sprinkler is a simple thing to explain but to get to the sprinkler itself, I first had to discuss what a yard is, what our grass is like and why we like it, the prevalence of running water, and the fact that, in general, we don’t have anything like their rainy season. For a man who pulls 20 liters of water a day for EACH of his banana TREES, it all sounded heavenly – and far out of reach.
- There are a lot of stories about baseball in American textbooks – and a lot of associated baseball jargon. I know any baseball story will take twice as long due to all the unfamiliar phrases – home run, short stop, pitcher, fly ball, line up, bull pen, etc.
- There are some times when he knows EVERYTHING though. There was one story about a kid who went to visit his mother’s provincial family in Thailand. They described a life where all cooking is done in a special house on an open fire, they eat with their hands, where people gathered water from a well, and where they had no electricity. But when they made these statements, they ended everyone with an exclamation mark. The textbook looked like this:
“His grandfather hauled water from a well for bathing and everything! His grandmother cooked on an open fire inside a special house specifically for cooking! When the food was prepared they ate with their hands! At night, they chatted by candlelight only!”
If Mawdou wrote the story, it’d probably sound more like this:
“His grandmother hauled water from a well for cooking, washing, bathing… Duh. The women cooked on an open fire inside their cooking house… of course. They ate with their hands… like EVERYONE. At night, they chatted by candlelight… obviously.”
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