In the Bread & Roses Curriculum I used with ninth grade ESL students in a Brooklyn high school for twenty years, I had the full backing of a women's liberation movement and support from the school's Relationship Abuse Prevention Program (R.A.P.P.). With Shengang Middle School's eighth grade English conversation enrichment program, I was stepping into uncharted waters.
I had to remember the children were not just junior high school students; they were from Taiwan. In Taiwan, a male dominated Confucian society anchoring (or holding back) a progressive society, some real-life topics are taboo. Older teenagers might get more out of these workshops with less nervous embarrassment but the topics won't be much easier to approach. In higher education in Taiwan, conservative deans might not let an EFL teacher use this subject matter in class; there would be more oversight, especially on the topic of "Women's Issues".
After working with the children almost two school years, ninety minutes a week, workshop topics on women's studies like “Marriage Relationships” "Relationship Abuse", and "The Breadwinner" were still a little over these young teenagers' heads; the less mature among them goofed off in Chinese instead of practicing English conversation. They were capable of understanding the ‘big’ words and sentence patterns, but the role plays put them off.
Earlier in the program, we had discussed oppressive child labor. We did a cooperative learning workshop then and the students understood the "5 Types of Abuse" workers suffer (physical, verbal, emotional financial, and sexual) in addition to being overworked, underpaid, and endangered. With the "Haitian Family Budget" workshop, they could see how poor people must live, and with "Living Wage" workshop, they went home to ask their parents how they managed the family expenses. It was time to tackle the topic of "Women's Role in Taiwan."
The song I played for motivation, “Love Child”, for relationship abuse, was perfect. The children loved the beat and pounded on the desks. I then explained the song assuming the boyfriend's questions ("Why won't you sleep with me?") answered by Diana Ross & The Supremes. The topic had to be approached carefully with a playful tone.
(The teacher holds the answer key and goes over the vocabulary in advance.)
We started "Panel of Experts" activity; eight students, one from each group that sat up front with mini-whiteboard and markers. I read the Opinion Survey
statements about Marriage Relationships and told them to write their opinion in a sentence;
was it the wife’s, husband’s, both, or either’s responsibility.
All thirty-two students took turns representing their groups. They wrote and showed their boards when done. When the students got the drift, I extended the questions to be about the role play. The class was quiet and
the responses were mostly on task. The children loved seeing their classmates in the hot seat.
After the break, we began brainstorming for the role plays. I paired the students up within their group, told them to choose who would play the roles of Douglas and Frankie. I want to mention that in both role-plays, sometimes two boys or two girls played partners. The students chuckled but understood the possibilities of same-sex relationships.
When some students reverted to speaking in Chinese and playing, I walked around and kept them on task. Mostly they brainstormed. I left only ten minutes at the end of class for one set of partners to demonstrate, but when they did, they took the easy way out; the husband told the wife what to do and the wife complied meekly. I asked them if that was the way it goes in Taiwan relationships. They looked sheepishly about. With TV sitcoms and horrific news of abusive relationships, they had to do better than that. We put off the role plays for the next class.
I had to remember the children were not just junior high school students; they were from Taiwan. In Taiwan, a male dominated Confucian society anchoring (or holding back) a progressive society, some real-life topics are taboo. Older teenagers might get more out of these workshops with less nervous embarrassment but the topics won't be much easier to approach. In higher education in Taiwan, conservative deans might not let an EFL teacher use this subject matter in class; there would be more oversight, especially on the topic of "Women's Issues".
Earlier in the program, we had discussed oppressive child labor. We did a cooperative learning workshop then and the students understood the "5 Types of Abuse" workers suffer (physical, verbal, emotional financial, and sexual) in addition to being overworked, underpaid, and endangered. With the "Haitian Family Budget" workshop, they could see how poor people must live, and with "Living Wage" workshop, they went home to ask their parents how they managed the family expenses. It was time to tackle the topic of "Women's Role in Taiwan." The song I played for motivation, “Love Child”, for relationship abuse, was perfect. The children loved the beat and pounded on the desks. I then explained the song assuming the boyfriend's questions ("Why won't you sleep with me?") answered by Diana Ross & The Supremes. The topic had to be approached carefully with a playful tone.
The unit "Women's Roles" was started with a controlled composition (CC) called "One Woman's Role." I read it aloud with the students repeating after me. New vocabulary was written on the board and explained in simple English. We then did Step 9a practicing future tense with the text in a whiteboard competition. I then verbally engaged the students in reported speech with Step 6b, turning the woman's role into a more liberated one using the negative to illustrate an opposite lifestyle for modern women.
After the break, I touched on the previous topic of "Direct Democracy" by introducing the Opinion Survey: "Marriage Responsibilities". I read aloud the directions and explained the task. Each student had a copy. I read aloud the statements. After each statement, I asked for a show of hands for their opinion and wrote the results down in a chart on the board:
After the break, I touched on the previous topic of "Direct Democracy" by introducing the Opinion Survey: "Marriage Responsibilities". I read aloud the directions and explained the task. Each student had a copy. I read aloud the statements. After each statement, I asked for a show of hands for their opinion and wrote the results down in a chart on the board:
The children were asked to write sentences analyzing the data ("Everyone thinks both husband and wife should cook the meals."). The opinion survey showed that the students
believed in equality of responsibility in marriage. But for all the equality
between the sexes these young teenagers supported, in dating, marriage and the workplace, the sexes were not equal.
As part of the Bread & Roses Curriculum, light-hearted role plays, controlled composition, and music with competitions and
whiteboard games such as “Jeopardy” question-writing or "Concentration", a word-match and sentence making game was conducted between the eight teams of four students. But then we got down to the role plays, one called "The Breadwinner" and the other called "Cooling the Relationship."
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| Matrix for "Concentration": 1 point for spelling, 2 for a match, and 3 for a sentence definition or example. |
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| Matrix for "Jeopardy": Easy answers are 20 points, more difficult are 100. |
After the break, we began brainstorming for the role plays. I paired the students up within their group, told them to choose who would play the roles of Douglas and Frankie. I want to mention that in both role-plays, sometimes two boys or two girls played partners. The students chuckled but understood the possibilities of same-sex relationships.
When some students reverted to speaking in Chinese and playing, I walked around and kept them on task. Mostly they brainstormed. I left only ten minutes at the end of class for one set of partners to demonstrate, but when they did, they took the easy way out; the husband told the wife what to do and the wife complied meekly. I asked them if that was the way it goes in Taiwan relationships. They looked sheepishly about. With TV sitcoms and horrific news of abusive relationships, they had to do better than that. We put off the role plays for the next class.
Another conscience-raising role play you might want to try is the "'Cooling' The Relationship" scenario.
Teenage pregnancy is an issue in Taiwan. The data is underestimated because of the stigma attached to it. An NGO called “The Garden of Hope” has for sixteen years been doing outreach visiting schools in the Taipei area. Abortion statistics are kept low-key and teenage girls are directed to adoption services or orphanages.
Confucian principles and conservative constraints on society in Taiwan can oppress students on their way to adulthood. There have been some inroads with AIDS prevention and same-sex marriage legislation, but when push comes to shove, the male's point-of-view dominates. I was concerned that no matter how I pared the B&R and Community Curricula down, because of cultural beliefs, the children had no index of the subject matter; they hadn’t discussed it in Chinese at school or home. It is considered irrelevant because is not required for tests or graduation.
There was English being practiced by those who wished to join in. The children had fun despite the serious nature of the topics. Perhaps it was okay for a foreigner like myself to bring these taboo subjects up. Along with English as a Foreign Language, foreign teachers must share our ideals of an equal society between men and women. The rising of the women is the rising of us all!
Confucian principles and conservative constraints on society in Taiwan can oppress students on their way to adulthood. There have been some inroads with AIDS prevention and same-sex marriage legislation, but when push comes to shove, the male's point-of-view dominates. I was concerned that no matter how I pared the B&R and Community Curricula down, because of cultural beliefs, the children had no index of the subject matter; they hadn’t discussed it in Chinese at school or home. It is considered irrelevant because is not required for tests or graduation.
There was English being practiced by those who wished to join in. The children had fun despite the serious nature of the topics. Perhaps it was okay for a foreigner like myself to bring these taboo subjects up. Along with English as a Foreign Language, foreign teachers must share our ideals of an equal society between men and women. The rising of the women is the rising of us all!
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.
