TESOL Week 7 Culture and Psychology

Of course, culture and psychology are closely entwined. Your make-up, which consists of your upbringing (culture) will define the way you operate in life.
This includes your IQ (intelligence quotient), EQ (emotional intelligence), PQ (physical intelligence) and your SQ (spiritual intelligence). There is a new one which has been added AQ=adversity intelligence. Let me summarise the indicators of a clear mind, a whole person, a well-rounded individual:
IQ= it is your intelligence test score, as per a written exam.
EQ= it is a measure of your interpersonal and communication skills.
PQ= Ability to listen, identify and respond to one's internal messages about your physical self wrt weight, fitness and diet.
SQ= The ability to behave with wisdom and compassion while maintaining inner and outer peace.
Now I could waffle on for hours about psychology and what makes one tick, but for the essence of this blog, I am focussing on CULTURE and one's psychology and how it would apply in my TESOL classroom. and
AQ= It is your understanding and measurement of your resilience. Your capacity to work and deal with unavoidable and undesirable circumstances. It means maintaining a well-balanced life in the face of adversity.
I teach English in a township school, where the pupils are schooled in their home language, Xhosa, until Grade 4, when they are suddenly expected to be schooled and write exams in their L2, English. Unfortunately, because of many factors, these children are wholly unprepared for this. In the South African schooling system, there is no failing or holding children back, so many of these children reach high school, Grade 8, and they cannot read and write for meaning and so they progress and when they reach university or college they are actually still at a primary school level of comprehension.
Let me break down these many factors which aid and abet this situation:

• English is the language of the suppressors (old Apartheid, English and Afrikaans).
• Teachers are not qualified.
• Those teachers who are qualified, do not care to teach, more days off than on.

Cultural differences are HUGE in South Africa. This is a huge headache from the apartheid years, as well as the inherent differences between the African cultures (as there are many different ones), the Indian culture, the Afrikaans Coloured Culture, the Afrikaans White Culture and the White English Culture. What does this all mean in a mixed culture classroom?
There can be a lot of hatred and confusion between these cultures and if the culture of the school does not effectively deal with this, there is plenty segregation still found at break time.
My classroom would be one of cross-cultural learning and total inclusivity, which is achieved with knowledge, gaining trust and acceptance of each other.
In the Shine Literacy lessons, we are a learning partner (no teachers here) and we are there to assist the Xhosa learner to gain a good level of English comprehension, so they are fully prepared to engage with their L2 in the following grade.


Prince Charles being immersed in a bit of isiXhosa culture at Nelson Mandela's funeral.

Sources:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/elements-well-rounded-person-iq-eq-pq-sq-aq-ainur-amanzholova/