Job Discussion Forums

[norwalkesl]

[Sashadroogie]

Nope, sorry if I was a touch unclear.

I am based in Europe, and in any school in all the countries I've worked in here, the travelling conversation teacher re-locating from the Far East especially was never a good bet. An interview for a position in my language school ( teaching non-English speakers too), face-to-face or by telephone, was very often a waste of time because these candidates were only very rarely able to demonstrate any concrete teaching skills, like how to teach vocabulary, present grammar, set up a speaking activity, give feedback, correct errors etc. You know, the basics of EFL? They very often didn't even know what these concepts were.

They weren't all from the US, by the way. It was not relevant what nationality they had, only that they all shared the same weaknesses as potential employees. And these were the candidates who had been screened for some basic ESL qualification. Not every candidate was like this - goodness no. There were some excellent teachers who had worked there too. But from what I gather, and this may be a mistaken assumption on my part - I'll stand corrected if so - it seems much more likely that someone, anyone, can be hired by schools in various of the countries in the Far East solely as a pronunciation model or 'conversation coach' or something. And 'personality' seems to be the only so-called ability required.

This simply won't cut it in my neck of the woods.

[spiral78]

I haven't taken the time to read the whole thread, but I'll second what Sashadroogie has just posted: teachers whose sole experience is in Asia often do not demonstrate skills that translate into other teaching contexts.

European students have very different motivations, and different expectations regarding goals of learning, and classroom approaches and methods.

In my own experience working with teachers in Canada and Europe, those with only experience in Asia often find it difficult to move successfully into what is usually a very different job.

[krayola]

What a fascinating thread!

It's hard to know where to start, but having worked in a 'conversation' school for 15 months I've come across a wide variety of opinions on discussion as a form of learning English.

Some students love the idea that they can share their life with the teacher and fellow students. I encourage them to. The more comfortable students are in the classroom, the more receptive they will be to learning. At the same time I'm wary of the boundaries of privacy and students hold all the power in that regard - if they don't want to discuss something, then fair enough.

If a student wants to talk extensively about a topic (and we've all had those people who could talk for a whole lesson), then I let them. Research actually shows that it's beneficial for students to speak at length. For some this can be a breakthrough moment. Of course prompting and error correction does need to occur from the teacher, but students shouldn't be discouraged from using the language. I also find these chunks of conversation to be an excellent time for assessing student strengths and weaknesses.

As for culture, my students have come to Australia to learn English. Even if we don't consciously discuss culture, it pokes its head in anyway, through the gifts that students bring me, the clothes that they wear, you name it. I do use my interpretation of my culture to make our learning more relevant to our environment though. There are some linguistic features of Aussie English that are unique and need to be brought up.

Lastly, I think teaching qualifications for our profession are completely inadequate. CELTA is a one month course with perhaps six to ten hours prac teaching? Renowned certificate, sure, but how much can a month really teach a newbie? That's a steep learning curve once you get in a real classroom. My primary school degree was four years and over four months of prac teaching. Lots of my course was still hopelessly unprepared when we graduated! So making the transition from *teacher superstar* Asia to Europe is not just a drag because of personality dependent teachers, but also perhaps because they don't know any better.

[gaijinalways]

Sashadroogie posted

[spiral78]

And the kind of teachers you're talking about are...

For the past 6 years, I have worked in universities: Canada and Europe. The teachers I have interviewed/trained in this context (having previous experience) are not newbies, but have CELTA/equivalent at minimum and related MAs max (no Phds yet...).


The teachers I have worked with who taught in Asian universities (Japan, Korea, and China) have not successfully made the transition to western teaching contexts. I freely admit that the pool of teachers in this category with whom I have worked is small (10-12). But for what it's worth, all that I have known whose primary experience is in Asia have been unsuccessful in the unis where I work.

Our students don't simply want more autonomy: the courses must be focused specifically on what they perceive as their needs: and they HAVE specific needs, linguistically.

To give you an idea of a common picture here: teachers sit a the back of the room and in a 2-hour class, I MAY have as much as 10 minutes of input - if things are going well. If not, as much as a half hour. It's not about teachers, here.

[Sashadroogie]

Oh dear, another multi-part quote response. OK, here goes. Bear with me, this might be too deep.

[Sashadroogie]

[JZer]

[JZer]

[Sashadroogie]

[Sashadroogie]

[spiral78]

Is the teaching of critical thinking skills part of an education class? I have taken several graduate education courses and they were all about the mthods for teaching language, such as using visiuals when teaching new vocabulary, teaching the four skills, etc.

In my experience nothing was covered about how to teach critical thinking skills


For now, I'm ignoring most of the thread - I will return later in the day when I can concentrate. However, I'll chip in now: critical thinking skills in English are a required component of language training courses in the uni where I taught in Canada, and I address them here in Europe in some courses. Critical thinking in this context is mostly linked to judging bias and opinion in spoken and written texts, so that an L2 reader/listener is less likely to be 'misled' on any level. This applies to real life, obviously, but also to professional and academic contexts.

Anyway, I have several modules of materials focused on critical thinking in my toolkit, and students generally enjoy and get really involved in these lessons...

[fluffyhamster]

[Sashadroogie]

Dear Spiral, thanks for that last contribution. Of course, shame on me! I neglected to consider the skills you referred to, i.e. listening and reading for inference etc., or any area of semantics and pragmatics. These are often described as examples of critical thinking too. But most definitely within the preserve of linguistic concerns, surely? However, as Gaijinalways has cited 'critical-thinking' as a non-linguistic skill taught in his/her classroom I assumed she meant something else - perhaps logical deduction or arithmetic as in GMAT. But apparently that was not what was meant either. Apart from some vague references to cultural issues, I'm still at a loss as to what he/she could have meant.

Fluffyhamster, forgive us if we gave the impression that we were dissing all teachers based in Asia. Absolutely not. The very many posters on this forum alone who regularly contribute sensible input while working in the Far East would be enough to dispel that notion. However, I still maintain, though only on empirical evidence, granted, that there is a higher likelihood of someone totally unskilled or unqualified working for a few years in a language school, or even some form of university, if they are based in the Far East, rather than if they were based anywhere else. I maybe wrong, of course, but that is what I have directly experienced while trying to recruit teachers and interviewing them, with the results that I have already described. There are weak teachers based everywhere, certainly, but I have not very often come across a teacher with experience in Germany or Australia, for example, who simply couldn't figure out how to teach Elementaries how to form past simple questions.

At risk of going off-topic slightly, look at the location of all the posters on this thread. I think that it can be seen that there is a clear trend, based on location, emerging regarding the EFL skill sets that two respective groupings consider to be par for the English course. There are exceptions, naturally. You for instance! But then you seem to be an exceptional guy all round