How angry would you be if your child's teacher laughed at them?

Sometimes when we feel nervous/embarrassed our memory of the situation is altered and it feels much worse than it actually was.

Realistically you aren’t getting 3 teachers fired but I would address it

3 teachers in one class wow America could never 🤣 Hopefully it was harmless laughing bc she said the wrong word and it made the anthem funny? I would speak to the teacher/admin but try to imagine Arab student in an American class saying something silly like “who’s bright stripes and bright farts” of course a bunch of 6 year olds laughed. Other countries tend to be a lot less sensitive than Americans so try to consider that too. Hopefully it’s resolved and you also take that time to teach your baby that it’s okay to make mistakes, maybe point out a few you make during the week to reassure her it happens even to adults💙

Talk to administration because they should know better, but I as well don’t see 3 teachers getting fired over this.

Nah fuck all this justifying what are 6 year old learning from repeating a national anthem out aloud infrint of each other..? Yeah nothing it was an unnecessary embarrassment and I'd be pissed. Arabic is a very har language to learn and harder to pronounce for non natives who have not been learning for long.

I’m so sorry, that’s horrible. I’m a teacher (4 and 5 year olds) in England and most of the children I teach have English as an additional language and are still at the beginning stages of learning English. I would never put my students in that position in the first place! What were they thinking to ask her to do that independently when they clearly know she’s not ready! They should be ashamed of themselves! Part of teaching children a new language is giving them confidence, not tearing it down 😢 I don’t think there’s any chances of getting the teachers fired, but in my opinion they should not be teachers with attitudes like that!

As someone who speaks different languages... I have gotten other classmates and teachers laugh at me or giggle when I have the wrong pronunciation and therefore give a different meaning. I didn't take it personal, also laugh in private and I am still trying to correct my pronunciation to prevent any unintentional jokes. But I am not a little girl in a new environment, so at least the teacher could have been more sensible... Unless it was hilarious and she couldn't stop herself from laughing. Talk to the teacher so she can be more self aware about it and ask the students to behave more empathetic. However, I agree with the above that she shouldn't be expected to know the anthem of a country she is new to.

Clicked the wrong one 😂 I would be fuming!

@Mou you guys don’t pledge allegiance to your country and god everyday in the UK? 🤣 it’s definitely strange when you think about it but it was a normal everyday thing in the US (20yrs ago when I was a kid). In Texas they pledge to the American flag and do a separate pledge to the Texas flag lmao.

@Korissa I don't know the law of this Arabic country, but this girl is new to the country and she shouldn't even pledge anything to that country. Why was she asked to participate?

I’m learning my husband’s language and whenever I say anything in it everyone laughs but I can tell they are just happy/excited that I’m trying rather than laughing at me. So it could be that? And a 6 year old might not be able to tell the difference. But poor thing it sounds like she was really upset about it. I’d teach her to get back on the horse though, if she skips school tomorrow it might make it worse for her

I have no idea what the culture is like in this country or school, but as a teacher of multilingual learners in the US this would 100% never happen in my school. We never ever force students to speak if they don’t feel comfortable, and we give them a multitude of different supports and ways of showing what they know as they slowly start to learn the language. What adult, especially a teacher, laughs at a child who is learning something new?! I don’t necessarily fault other 6 year olds for starting to laugh because they’re still learning what is and isn’t appropriate, but as a teacher you can nip that in the bud and use it as an opportunity to teach how to be welcoming, supporting, etc.

As a TA who has children whose first language isn’t English, that is absolutely vile! In my class we have a few children who have EAL and all the other children are completely understanding that English isn’t their first language and are compassionate to that. I can only think of one instance when a child laughed at a mistake one of my EAL students made and the English child was taught about how everyone learns different things and that actually the child had to learn two languages at once as well as the other things they learn in school.

@𝔾𝕚𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕖 Idk if you could detect the sarcasm in my response lol. But I assume that all students participate as residents of the country. Some parents would have an issue If they singled her out and told her not to participate too. Singing the national anthem/saying the pledge is a common occurrence in schools here.

Teacher being bully is a nightmare and actually much more common then we think... I would be fuming. First I would ask my kid what she thinks of it and if she wants me to do something about it or not. She may suffer consequences from any of our intervention so she must first agree with it.

Teacher here 🙋‍♀️ I’m so sorry she was upset 😢 She has every right to her feelings. Ask the teacher what happened. Your daughter’s account could be missing something. And you could advise the teacher to not ‘joke’ that way with her again. I find you need more than one perspective to understand a situation fully x

@Korissa I could completely detect your sarcasm :) I think parents would be up in arms if we had to say sing the nation anthem daily in our schools. And that I think is why you'll find UK people especially wpuld also cringe at US schools doing anything similar, like I'm sending my kid to school to be educated, not to be brainwashed 😂

So I'm not expecting anyone to get fired, my husband is just that angry about it. My daughter is a citizen here, it's my husband's country, and we have no problems with the teachers getting her to participate. If they left her out of everything because she can't speak well yet it wouldn't be helping her learn. Now she doesn't even want to say anything in Arabic because she was ridiculed in front of almost 40 people who she's only known for 5 days. Even if how she says things is funny or cute in her mispronouncation there is 0 excuse for grown people that are teachers to laugh at a student when they are trying their best. My problem is why were the other kids corrected when they made mistakes and not laughed at as well, this is clear bullying and an embarrassing singling out that was completely unnecessary and a bit traumatic for her.

There are very few immigrants here, so the schools aren't used to kids not being able to speak Arabic. But the school admin and the teacher herself said it wasn't a problem and that everyone speaks at least a little bit of English with the English teacher and some admin staff being fluent. She's not having too much trouble understanding, but pronouncing things is difficult and will take months for her to get perfectly. I grew up with a lot of ESL students in my classes, I don't remember any of them being laughed at. We tried to only encourage them to participate.

A lot of women, just in general, here seem almost offended that my husband married and had a child with a women from a different country. I don't know if some of that mentality is part of this. My daughter looks just like all the other kids here, the only difference is she doesn't speak Arabic well yet, but she's trying so hard to learn. Tbh I blame my husband a bit for not teaching her Arabic from birth, but it is what it is now, and she is learning quickly she just needs some patience and encouragement.

I mean it's unlikely the teacher will get fired, but you should definitely be furious. They'll likely tell you that she was misunderstood, but my stance there would be "if that was her understanding then we still have issues because why have she walked away with that understanding?"

I feel you completely OP, my hubby is from an Arabic speaking country and it's all very similar for me, he didn't make enough effort teaching ours yet, the attitude there is the same out only difference is our kids look totally British and white passing. Bless your daughter, hopefully dad's family practises with her lots so she can build back some confidence xxx

I feel you completely OP, my hubby is from an Arabic speaking country and it's all very similar for me, he didn't make enough effort teaching ours yet, the attitude there is the same out only difference is our kids look totally British and white passing. Bless your daughter, hopefully dad's family practises with her lots so she can build back some confidence xxx

@Mou My in laws are also furious, they think she's doing really well for only being here for a few months. They are constantly trying to teach her new words and give her encouragement. My MIL is going to arrange a private tutor, one that helped my BILs kids with English, so that she can have some 1 on 1 time with a teacher. It also doesn't help that the schools teach in formal Arabic instead of the dialect that's used on the streets.

Obviously getting a teacher fired is a bit much but I would approach the school about it. It might not be a big deal for every kid but it was for yours. You don't want to discourage them from trying to learn the language so it does need to be addressed.

Oh tell me about it! Egyptian Arabic for us is totally different to modern standard Arabic, lol only three alphabet is similar!

@Mou We're just over in Algeria so very similar to you guys in Egypt, plus there's a lot of French mixed in as well here which makes the language even further than formal Arabic. If the alphabet used the Latin letters she would pick it up much quicker, but it's all new and a lot of letters look so similar to others and they all can make 5 or 6 different sounds as opposed to 1 or 2 sounds per letter in English. I tried so hard since she was like a year old to introduce her to Arabic and ask my husband to speak to her only in Arabic, but my husband was lazy about it and didn't do much to teach her.

My bestie is a kiwi and her hubby is Algerian. We have so many shared issues like this honestly. Absolutely salute to you for moving there and putting your little as priority. When my hubby and hers chat we both sit wondering how the hell they understand each other 😂

@Mou It's taken me 7 years to be able to understand the language just a little bit. I honestly really like it here, and it's important to me that my daughter knows her culture and her family. I come from a very multicultural family, 3 out of 4 grandparents were immigrants and the last was Native, but all the culture was lost and I grew up knowing really nothing about my family. I have no family left living but my husband's family is quite large so we moved here to be closer to them too.

Yall have to remember it’s a whole different culture just wipe the chip off your shoulder and just talk to your daughter

@Kyra what chip exactly?

@Kyra There's no chip, pretty sure in any culture a teacher laughing at a new student who doesn't speak the language well yet would be considered disrespectful and inappropriate.

@Kyra chip? Are you saying as parents we should be ok with our children being humiliated?

Learning a language forces you to be vulnerable, especially when learning through immersion as your daughter is. Even as an adult it is very common for a native speaker to chuckle at the attempts of a foreign speaker - it isn't meant to be malicious, but can easily hurt the confidence of the one trying to learn. I would remind your daughter that she has the heart of a lion to be doing this. I hope the teachers do better.