Take a Walk in My Shoes - Experiencing the Barrier of Language

“What is different in Malaysia?” I ask my new Korean students, carefully enunciating each word.

“So hot.  Ma-lay-si-a so hot.  Korea have the winter.  So cold.  Here, always sun,” a student explains as she points out the window of our classroom to the blazing afternoon sun.

She is one out of a group of students I work with who, just weeks ago, relocated to our rural Malaysian town from South Korea.  

Life is very different here, from what I understand. 

Teaching English as an Additional Language (EAL) in Asia, I have a unique opportunity to engage with young students from many cultures who speak many languages.  

However, English is the only language spoken in the classroom (and the only language I speak fluently).  That's not true during play time, though.  You can hear echoes of Mandarin, British English, Tamil, Korean, and Bahasa, and sometimes a combination of these, through the school.

But, when everyone needs to understand each other, guess which language we speak...  

English. 

Lucky me, a native English speaker, I’m advantaged in this situation.  

On the contrary, put me in a room full of native Korean speakers, and it’s me who is clearly disadvantaged.

Time to take a walk in someone else's shoes...

Yesterday, 10 of my EAL students had their first opportunity to chat with our one and only Korean-speaking teacher.  While we strongly encourage speaking English in the classroom, they were encouraged to speak Korean for this chat.  I listened in and provided questions in English which were translated in Korean.

I was humbled as I “walked a mile in their shoes.”

I sat with them completely clueless to what was being said.

While I listened to the Korean language flow through the room, I tried to pick out similar sounds.  I heard one or two.  I tried to read facial expressions and pick up on mannerisms: a few laughs, smiles, nodding heads, rolling eyes.

I caught a handful of English words; a couple numbers, my own name, and a few school subjects.  In a 30-minute conversation, that’s all I picked up - a couple words from my own language.

Where I felt unfamiliar, they found familiarity.  

Where I lacked understanding, they were understood. 

I officially felt “in their shoes.”

I walked away with a greater sense of empathy from this experience of walking a mile in their shoes.  Their languages and experiences are quite different to mine.  Those differences are part of what makes life so awe-inspiringly beautiful.

Rather than dismiss others or blame them for being different, let’s seek to understand and see the beauty in these differences.

Let's all go "walk a mile in someone else's shoes" today.