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Nickyboy
Joined: 03 Jul 2004
Posts: 21
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 Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2004 6:23 pm Post subject: Forgetting important stuff |
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Hello people,
My first post! Whoo-hoo!
Anyway, are there any fellow Brits out there who whilst doing their TEFL course got really stressed over how little they knew about the technicalities of their mother tongue? I'm referring specifically to grammar of course. Did we learn this at school or am I being stupid? I left school in 1992 and went to a pretty standard comprehensive.
My concern is that I'm already forgetting large chunks of it and it's only been two months since I 'graduated'. I'm leaving for Vietnam via the US and Australia in 6 weeks. Really looking forward to it but hope I can regain the confidence I built up during the course and blag a good gig for 12 months. Anyone else planning to go to Vietnam incidently? |
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migo
Joined: 04 Jul 2004
Posts: 201
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| Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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Well, in Canada they don't really teach you grammar through high school and in the second year English course I was taking the teacher (correctly) assumed nobody in the class had knowledge of English grammar, based her lessons around that and the class went beautifully. It's also been my experience that foreigners (especially Europeans) have a better knowledge of English grammar than native speakers while in most cases still being unable to speak it as fluently as native speakers.
Take from that what you will.
I would, however strongly recomend brushing up on your grammar. I'm planning on teaching ESL overseas in about 2 years when I finish my BA. I'm getting some informal experience in the area, and I'm finding that I really need to solidify my understanding of English grammar (especially terminology) to be able to teach effectively. |
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Nickyboy
Joined: 03 Jul 2004
Posts: 21
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| Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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Cheers for your reply migo. I will brush up on it; I don't really have a choice!
At least the rules and terminology don't change, meaning, once you know it, you know it.
I really enjoyed teaching my Greek students in Crete during my month with Via Lingua. I managed to blag my way through grammar lessons due to good preparation and rigid lesson planning. This is obviously the way to go.
Anyway, sorted out my RTW ticket today. Kicking it all off with a week in New York....!!! |
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migo
Joined: 04 Jul 2004
Posts: 201
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| Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Yeah, good lesson plans are always ideal. Good luck with your work! |
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shmooj
Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1758
Location: Seoul, ROK
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| Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 11:03 am Post subject: |
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| Nickyboy wrote: |
| I will brush up on it; I don't really have a choice! |
Yep, you do and you've made it - you chose a job teaching English. No sympathy here...
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At least the rules and terminology don't change, meaning, once you know it, you know it. |
heh heh well providing you only remain an EFL teacher for about 5 years, you'll be fine. However, English is a living language and the biggest problem with this statement is that what you know and what other English speakers know can differ incredibly. Rules, what few there are, can be notoriously difficult to isolate too. Also, knowing it and knowing how to teach it are hugely different things, as you are now finding out. And it is this knowing how to teach it part that changes as you develop as a professional. This is where the load is. It is one thing to know how to form the present simple but it is a very different thing to facilitate someone's acquisition of it for even one of the several functions it has in English.
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| I really enjoyed teaching my Greek students in Crete during my month with Via Lingua. I managed to blag my way through grammar lessons due to good preparation and rigid lesson planning. This is obviously the way to go. |
blag.... ? Well it is a first resort but experience of what works and what doesn't is really the best thing. This will come with time. My strongest advice would be to chill out on the lesson planning and allow yourself to be caught short by students throwing you curves. This is the fastest way to learn. Tell students straight up that this is difficult for you too. They will find you a more empathetic teacher and you will learn right along with them. Good preparation and rigid lesson planning can be blown out of the water five minutes after you walk into class by something out of left field. You need to ride with the punches so "rigidity" can sometimes be your worst enemy.
I can relate to your situation. I felt very much the same way when I was starting out 8 years ago. I wish someone had taken me aside and told me not to get too hung up about knowing so much but rather finding out as you go along WITH the students. Reflecting on that has really helped me... and, I've been told, my students too.
All the best |
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waxwing
Joined: 29 Jun 2003
Posts: 719
Location: China
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| Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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| shmooj wrote: |
blag.... ? Well it is a first resort but experience of what works and what doesn't is really the best thing. This will come with time. My strongest advice would be to chill out on the lesson planning and allow yourself to be caught short by students throwing you curves. This is the fastest way to learn. Tell students straight up that this is difficult for you too. They will find you a more empathetic teacher and you will learn right along with them. Good preparation and rigid lesson planning can be blown out of the water five minutes after you walk into class by something out of left field. You need to ride with the punches so "rigidity" can sometimes be your worst enemy.
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Hmm that paragraph confused and interested me. First, you seem to suggest that 'blagging' your way is not a good idea, but then you seem to advise exactly that. Are you suggesting that a new teacher avoids booking up on, say, the different uses of the present simple before teaching it? Goes into the classroom and says 'today, present simple: it's what we use when we're talking about something we do now' or some such drivel, then when the students ask about 'I smoke cigars' or 'The train leaves at 3', just stands there like a tit ..? 
Of course the students will throw 'curve balls' etc. but I think we really have to try at least. Otherwise they have every right to complain that we haven't bothered. I would certainly complain.
I think the 'lack of rigidity' you describe is only an option for experienced teachers. |
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Nickyboy
Joined: 03 Jul 2004
Posts: 21
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| Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 7:39 pm Post subject: |
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Well well gentlemen, some interesting responses there.
On the subject of being caught short I will say this; it happened in Crete and wasn't such a big deal because my students did have a fundamental grasp of the basic rules, but just needed some reassurance. We 'felt' our way through till everyone was satisfied of the right and wrong way of using...bugger, can't remember exactly what it was now!
Anyway, I am well aware of language evolving, English especially, but the basic ground rules involving tenses and gerunds and conditional sentences and all that other lovely stuff, evolve very slowly, so it's easy to keep on top of these changes when you're heavily involved with the language.
Keeping up with newly developed idioms that idiotic teenagers liberally punctuate their everyday speech with is not something that keeps me awake at night, so bollocks to incorporating it into my lessons! Bollocks also to 'text-speak'. Annoys the piss out of me. C U 2mora in da pub, etc etc...
Finally I would agree that experience is absolutely vital.
I intend to learn from my mistakes and develop over many years, hopefully without becoming a frazzled and weary teacher in the process! |
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shmooj
Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1758
Location: Seoul, ROK
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| Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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| waxwing wrote: |
| shmooj wrote: |
blag.... ? Well it is a first resort...
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Hmm that paragraph confused and interested me. First, you seem to suggest that 'blagging' your way is not a good idea, but then you seem to advise exactly that. Are you suggesting that a new teacher avoids booking up on, say, the different uses of the present simple before teaching it? Goes into the classroom and says 'today, present simple: it's what we use when we're talking about something we do now' or some such drivel, then when the students ask about 'I smoke cigars' or 'The train leaves at 3', just stands there like a tit ..?
Of course the students will throw 'curve balls' etc. but I think we really have to try at least. Otherwise they have every right to complain that we haven't bothered. I would certainly complain.
I think the 'lack of rigidity' you describe is only an option for experienced teachers. |
Well I took blag to mean "pretend you know what you're doing" seeing as it wasn't used by the OP or yourself in any form I recognise e.g. this definition. Maybe the language has evolved faster than either I or Nickyboy has anticipated.
BTW the explanation re the present simple you quoted you won't find in any grammar book I've ever read...
I simply hope it was you being sarky...
You can stand there like a tit if you want but I guarantee you no matter how many books you read before you go in students are going to ask you things you cannot answer. You might as well swallow that fact and relax in anticipation of it instead of getting all tense and worked up in case they do.
Present simple is a good example of a tense which has a very high range of functionality and extremes of use that the vast majority of our students will never need to know. The pompous ass who has "booked up" will feel obliged to show what he knows in class and thus confuse his students by referring to irrelevant functions such as "There's this bloke, right, and he goes into this pub..." - a function I'm struggling to recall the name for - the immediate narrative or something...
Rather than trying to cover an impossible number of bases before you go in (and, let's face it, the newbie teacher doesn't even know what bases are out there) they should concentrate on the ONE learning outcome in hand and politely pass back any other questions.
I have a mass of experience and qualifications but these count for nothing on occasions like today when a student asked me a question that I challenge anyone on this board to answer:
Why do English speakers use particular intonations for things?
We were working on high key to show interest/suprise, stress and slowed speech to show enthusiasm and rising intonation to show uncertainty. I simply said, "That is a very good question and I really don't know the answer and have no idea how to find it!" She let it slide I believe because I praised her question and responded genuinely.
So, my advice to Nickyboy and any other starting out is
a) don't try to learn it all at once - learn it as you go along
b) research your objective and only your objective
c) when a student throws something at you
i) thank them
ii) tell them it is a good question
iii) tell them that you don't know but can find out
iv) tell them that it is not something we are studying right now so we can move on with the class
d) note what the student asked and find out, informing them of your results if you think it will help
e) steer clear of teachers who say they know exactly what they are talking about re teaching grammar 
Oh, and Nickyboy... "We 'felt' our way through till everyone was satisfied of the right and wrong way" - now that's more like it... |
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zaneth
Joined: 31 Mar 2004
Posts: 545
Location: Between Russia and Germany
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| Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2004 6:39 am Post subject: |
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You might try getting on the good side of one of the local teachers. They'll hopefully have a good idea of what points are difficult for students there (I assume you don't know vietnamese). Some things you're all prepared to give a good explanation for and it turns out to be the same as in their language, a no brainer. Other points might be nearly impossible to grasp. It'll affect your priorities in teaching.
Having good rapport with local teachers gives a lot of other benefits as well. |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2004 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Do a google search for English Grammar. There's TONNES of sites. |
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High Plains Drifter
Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 127
Location: Way Out There
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| Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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| There ARE tonnes of sites. Maybe you should check out some of those sites yourself. |
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waxwing
Joined: 29 Jun 2003
Posts: 719
Location: China
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| Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2004 10:29 am Post subject: |
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Sorry I know this was a long time ago but I only just noticed the response.
| shmooj wrote: |
| waxwing wrote: |
| shmooj wrote: |
blag.... ? Well it is a first resort...
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Hmm that paragraph confused and interested me. First, you seem to suggest that 'blagging' your way is not a good idea, but then you seem to advise exactly that. Are you suggesting that a new teacher avoids booking up on, say, the different uses of the present simple before teaching it? Goes into the classroom and says 'today, present simple: it's what we use when we're talking about something we do now' or some such drivel, then when the students ask about 'I smoke cigars' or 'The train leaves at 3', just stands there like a tit ..?
Of course the students will throw 'curve balls' etc. but I think we really have to try at least. Otherwise they have every right to complain that we haven't bothered. I would certainly complain.
I think the 'lack of rigidity' you describe is only an option for experienced teachers. |
Well I took blag to mean "pretend you know what you're doing" seeing as it wasn't used by the OP or yourself in any form I recognise e.g.
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So did I. Where's the confusion with that? That's what it means.
| shmooj wrote: |
BTW the explanation re the present simple you quoted you won't find in any grammar book I've ever read...
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Of course, it was sarcasm, as should have been perfectly obvious from the phrase 'or some such drivel'. 
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I simply hope it was you being sarky...
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I'm staggered that you only hope it. Did you read what I wrote, or just skim-read? |
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monkeywrangler
Joined: 16 Aug 2004
Posts: 13
Location: China
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| Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:04 pm Post subject: |
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| I think knowing grammer rules is only necessary if you are teaching older students. In primary school there is more focus on learning vocabulary and situational discourse, i.e. grettings, in the restaurant, on the playground, etc. Any grammer rules you would use there are generally very basic. |
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