Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Gene Autry and The Pinafores
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen
Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
You would even say it glows
All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games
Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say
“Rudolph, with your nose so bright
Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”
Then how the reindeer loved him
As they shouted out with glee
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
You’ll go down in history”
Have you considered what would have been of Rudolph if not for the support of Santa? How many Rudolphs do we see in our schools every day? Are we, as teachers, rooting for the Rudolphs out there? When Karshen shed light on the need to lower our students’ affective filter, that’s exactly what he was talking about.
Maybe Rudolph wasn’t the most talented reindeer, the most gracious at guiding the sleigh, or he simply was too embarrassed by his big red nose to even try. The fact is that he was no different than the introverted student at the back of the class who rarely participates, who has convinced himself that he doesn’t have a way with foreign languages, that won’t risk volunteering for the roleplay because he is too afraid of mispronouncing a word. Or even the student who is constantly picked on for their hair, their nose, their ears, their body type, or whatever unique feature that once he gets out of school will either become irrelevant or the topic of years of therapy (true story about my round cheeks and my long gone extra low weight).
As far as language learning goes, I have my ballet teacher and a very stubborn mom to thank for. As long as I kept straight As in English class, I could dance, and dancing was all I cared about when I was a teenager. The endless drills, the irregular verb list, the boring exercises, the countless “repeat please”, all of them made me storm out of my room one day and yell that I hated the English language and would never use it ever again after I received my certificate. Yell your plans at the universe and let the stars laugh at them… Not too long after my tantrum I set foot in my first classroom as a teacher, and have never left ever since.
As Krashen said, a number of affective variables can hamper language acquisition, such as anxiety, motivation, self-confidence, and personality traits. Students who are introverted, have low self-esteem and have found no motivation for learning a language, tend to create a mental block that prevents comprehensible input from being used for acquisition. It is not uncommon to hear adults say that they have enrolled in multiple language schools and still haven’t been able to learn a second language.
This doesn’t mean that rapport and motivation alone will do the job, or that, once you’ve connected with your students, it’s all unicorns and rainbows from there. If there were a magic formula for making someone bilingual, teachers would be sporting Ferraris. But take Rudolph, for example, or even clumsy teenage Carol who got picket for the solo in Don Quixote, not because she was the best dancer, but because she was hardworking and reliable, they both grabbed the opportunity that was given to them and made something wonderful of it. Sometimes, all students need is a helping hand and a kind heart! How’s that for a New Year’s resolution? Who will be your Rudolph in the coming year?
Further readings
https://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash-english.html
https://ndpublisher.in/admin/issues/TLv11n1f.pdf
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000231596
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1230415
https://teach.com/what/teachers-change-lives/motivating-students/
Ana Carolina Calil
I’m a passionate educator with 23+ years of ELT experience and a master's degree in Applied Linguistics and an MBA in school management. I have focused my career on building strong and cohesive teams in order to make learning happen beyond the classroom walls. Currently working as a coordinator at Colégio Arvense, my mission is to help teachers with the design of great learning experiences.
