Jaeyoung Lee (Jay Lee)

November 23, 2018

My Best English Teacher, Joe Villenueve

My Best English Teacher, if you may hear it hilariously, is just my battle buddy during my military service and, believe it or not, he did not attain a certain degree related to either in English itself or even in Education. His Name is Joe Villenueve, 19 years old American guy, mostly taught me in any English spoken circumstances. At this time of the year in 2012, I was stationed in Camp Casey in Dongdu-cheon, a small city located in about 50km up north of Seoul. My English tutorial class with him ran depending on either his or my condition but the maximum time I remember I spent with him was even more than 24 hours a day. I remember this was during the U.S and R.O.K joint military exercise period. I was completely improved a lot by him following these his efforts: 1) He corrected my pronunciation each time I made a mistake 2) He updated me with new and useful vocabulary words or expressions they use in America but I never knew 3) Simply he was a good listener. I applied these three concepts to categorize him whether or not he is a good English Teacher: Involver type, Explainer type and Enabler type. His styles in teaching English to a foreigner as a second language is more close to an Enabler type than both Involver type and Explainer type as far as I know.

Mr. Joe Villenueve was more of a modern style teacher. He used the modern teacher’s typical integrated teaching skills. He was not purposely using the modern teaching techniques but I guess he was naturally born as a good listener and a motivator. Our relationship during the tutorial was horizontal and respected each other since my language to him was not his first language and to me as well the English was not a first language. He seemed pursuing to prepare challenges for me and enjoyed seeing my progress each time I jump to a higher level. For the idea of only a traditional teacher refuses to use any modern techniques, my answer is no. I assume that they are not purposely refusing the modern techniques in their classroom setting but a variety of facts affects the retention. I guess the main reason that influences their teaching style is their characteristics. Modern teaching techniques require teachers to be patient with slow learners sometimes. This to me I guess is the most challenging part of being a good teacher because in the fast transition of the semester in the public school, a teacher cannot be dedicated to one academically poor student when there are more than 30 excellent students waiting for the next lesson. However, This is possible in a small setting of an English Class like I was with Joe during the face to face English Tutorial. I am still figuring this out to make it work effectively.

Mr. Joe Villenueve was an enabler type, because he repeated the words to enable me to pronounce the words begin with ‘R’ and end with ‘l’ properly. I had been stricken in years correcting this pronunciation mistake even after certain time more than 5 years spent in the Philippines to learn English but with him in less than a month or two, I was able to realize how these mistakes could correct and discourse in English Speaking Environment. He suggested me uncountable numbers of the word used in similar circumstances I was repeating to make the mistakes such as Rear, Real, Roll, Role, Call and Core etc.

Honestly speaking, Joe Villenueve was not a properly trained English Teacher, who looks also need some education for teaching but maybe he was naturally using the three teaching techniques suggested by Psychologist Carl Rogers: Empathy, Authenticity and Respect. It was maybe because he was my good friend although some individuals in our unit did not find him so. Fortunately, He seemed interested in learning my language too. thus, we became good Language Exchange partners to each other. I gave him the same opportunity the other day with some challenges for Korean, was successfully implemented with my patience even though his academic achievement was not higher than mine for English.

To sum up the whole related episodes with Mr. Joe Villenueve, Even though he has still got a way to learn more to perform as a professionally organized teacher, his nature is what I should apply to my students in the future: Empathy, Authenticity and Respect because these are the factors decided my idea that so far he is my best English Teacher, which I also need to learn and improve a bit more myself to deliver a positive energy to whom my talent is in need.