When I told my students I’m still learning their language, they started to open up, too

From ScienceMag:

I stood in front of the class, terrified of deviating from my carefully prepared script. Teaching had always been one of the reasons I wanted to pursue an academic career. But now, as a Ph.D. student, I needed to do it in Norwegian, a language I had begun to learn when I moved to Norway 2 years earlier. I had spent weeks preparing, writing down every sentence I wanted to say—not only the scientific ideas, but also the transitions and even how I would introduce myself. When the moment came, every sentence felt like a test. Each poorly chosen verb or mispronounced word felt like proof I didn’t belong at the front of the room. Instead of listening to my students, I was listening to myself. By the end of the class, I was completely drained from the effort of pretending not to be a beginner. I knew I could not keep teaching this way.

Norwegian was not the first language to make me feel like a beginner. I grew up on Borneo in Indonesia, in a family where education was a rare luxury. My mother had no formal education, yet she was the first person to teach me English. After hearing a children’s song about numbers on the radio, she sat with me while I wrote and repeated the words. Later, I moved to another island for university, then returned to a different part of Borneo to teach before completing a master’s degree in the United States and finally moving to Norway. Each move meant learning another language, and the last two meant using it to teach.

That exhausting first class in Norway was only the beginning. I kept teaching in Norwegian as a required part of my Ph.D. position. I still thought that as a teacher I needed to sound fluent, confident, and completely in control. Yet with most of my attention on avoiding language mistakes, I had no bandwidth to ask questions, tell stories, and react to students. I was no longer myself in the classroom. Making matters even worse, my painstaking preparation was eating into the time I needed to finish my dissertation. Something had to change.

Eventually, I decided to try something different at the beginning of my courses. Before introducing the syllabus, I introduced myself. I told my students where I come from and that I was still learning Norwegian. I warned them that I may stop halfway through a sentence while searching for a word. I might mix up he, she, or they; my mother tongue doesn’t have gender pronouns, and this is one habit that has never become automatic for me. Then I added: “I hope you will learn from me, but I will also learn from you.”

I had feared my admission would make students trust me less. The opposite happened. They became more willing to ask questions, offer unfinished answers, and speak before they were certain. It felt as though my honesty had made room for theirs. When I began to invite them to tell me anything they thought I should know to help them learn, some shared learning difficulties or challenging situations at home they might not have otherwise volunteered. And once I stopped trying to sound perfect, I became less anxious and more present. I could see when my students looked confused and try another explanation. I could even ask without embarrassment, “What’s the Norwegian word for …?” and then laugh when I could not pronounce it anyway.

A few years later, the teaching I once dreaded helped me secure a permanent position. Now, this routine is integral to how I teach. It is not an apology, and I am not asking students to expect less from me. I want them to know the classroom is a place where learning can be visible. Sometimes it is slow, awkward, and full of mistakes. That’s true outside the classroom, too, whenever we enter a new research field, try an unfamiliar method, or take on a new role. Yet the more experienced we become, the harder it can be to admit we’re still learning.

I often think about my late mother sitting beside me after we heard that song on the radio. She did not know much English, but she shared the words she knew with me. She showed me what I now try to remember every time I enter a classroom: You do not need to know everything before you can help someone else learn.

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