Reflection on Jim Cooper's "Teaching English"

    Chapter Seven of Jim Cooper's Down on the Island, "Teaching English," speaks about the troubles and issues Cooper faced upon his return to the island, specifically Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez , or RUM ( El Colegio). It is clearly stated and first pointed out by him that a change must occur in order for effective learning in any English class. Cooper then expresses how the student's desire and motivation to learn the English language still permeated the atmosphere in the classroom.
    A main point in this chapter is the detailed exposition of the system used to teach English that was being implemented at the time, coined the Michigan-Returned by Cooper. The system works via linguistic immersion and the so-called "oral/aural" method as core of the teaching. The teacher is to speak, at all times, in the language being taught in order for the system to work and for the students to be able to imitate and repeat the words in native or near-native phonetic proficiency.
    I grew up in  English-speaking environments, both at a private American school and in the household. Immersion was and still is the way English is taught to the students, starting from Pre-Pre K ( age 3). When I read Cooper's experience observing the young teacher saying and pronouncing certain words incorrectly, one would says heavily-accentuated, and the students then repeating such words incorrectly, it took me by no surprise. That is the reality in many schools and institutions and the reason why many students who indeed know English at a higher than basic level carry this thick-accentuated pronunciation when speaking English. Nevertheless, learning a second language is not easy, and by no means is it easier to acquire native accent by completely eradicating your own. Personally, I believe that if it weren't for my academic background and the fact that my Mom spoke to me in English every day since I was born, I would not be able to speak English, and perhaps not even be fluent in it, the way I currently do.
  Jim Cooper's tale of suddenly teaching English as the focus of his job, instead of Literature in its entirety, exposes the problems still present in Puerto Rico's educational system. It is mentioned in the chapter that politics has always been tied with the policy on English language teaching, the core of the problem being the emphasis Spanish must be given and how English is frequently set aside. In conclusion, Cooper's "Teaching English" presents and shortly elaborates on the problems existing in Puerto Rican education systems in regards to the methods of teaching English and how he was certain something had to be done, how something had to change, in order for the students to progress linguistically.

A common poster in many Puerto Rican School classrooms: