I Hate English!

I have not run into many children who have felt this way in my short career as an ESOL teacher but students similar to Mei Mei are out there. This book is very helpful to teachers with ESOL students in their classroom who are not trained in TESOL practices. Students often go through a silent period where they are listening to the language and just taking English in before they begin speaking it. The story of Mei Mei gives an indication what may be going on in their minds at the time. When I lived in Thailand, I often became frustrated and angry when I wanted to answer someone in Thai and tell them what I understood or knew about a subject, but was trapped by my lack of fluency in their language. I used to think, "Boy! If they could only understand me in English, then I'd tell them!" People would often mistake my lack of ability to communicate with lack of intelligence, which would frustrate me further. I will share this book with my students and hope I understand what they going through at times.

I teach English as a Second Language to Spanish-speaking elementary students. We begin the year by reading this book and discussing how the students feel about learning English. We often refer back to the book throughout the year as we identify our own stages of language acquisition. This book is very realistic and motivational.

Recently I used this book in an ESL teacher training class to help public school teachers understand culture shock for their ESL students. I read this book to a class of 28 adults and they were fascinated. Once, when I looked at them, they were sitting there like a class of children listening to a fascinating story. It was great!! In the evaluations, many mentioned the book as being very helpful to them.