Job Discussion Forums

[Sweetsee]

What role do strong conversational skills play in a TEFL career?

[Chasgul]

Strong conversational skills mean that you can get your students talking more easily because your reactions to what they say will be contolled and positive.

On the other hand, good conversational skills will allow you to negotiate better, whether with your boss or your colleagues.

[Sweetsee]

Hi Chasgul,

Good points, Chasgul. You have no doubt spent some time in the conversation game?

I think what I am trying to get at is some folks don't appear so friendly, sort of borrowing from another thread regarding speaking to foreigners. What I mean is these folks who get all weird seeing other foreigners, they must suck at conversation teaching and thereby never get into good positions.

Chasgul, you must be a proper teacher, am I right? May I ask what kind of gig you have presently?

I teach full-time at a private co-ed senior high school, all image.

Thanks by the way for replying here, just sent the family off to London.
I enjoy reading you.


Enjoy yourself Sir,
s

[Chasgul]

I wouldn't say that I'm a 'proper' teacher, if only because I tend not to teach in schools if I can avoid it.

For the time being I give private lessons and free-lance with local schools so that I can fulfil the teaching-hours requirement and (eventually) try for the DELTA.

As for the bad reactions of some people, what can you expect? Not everyone has anything approaching maturity in terms of personality. Note the way most people nowadays go out with the guys/girls, or go on a girls'-night-out. Nobody wants to be a grown-up and call themselves a man or a woman. I think it's symptomatic.

[Sweetsee]

Good morning Chasgul,

Thank you for that and good luck in attaining your goal.
I am not familiar with the DELTA but you will get it.

Interesting comment you made regarding maturity. Here in Japan
no one goes out on their own. It is virtually unheard of, outside the
foreign community of course, always in groups of the same sex, making it impossible for those individuals on their own to easily mix in social settings. When they do get together it is specifically to hook-up with members of the opposite sex. They have a word for it which eludes me at the moment but 6 or 8 members meet in a group with hopes of pairing up. What do you think about that, from a western perspective Chasgul?


Enjoy yourself,
s

[Chasgul]

Group-dating is not a new thing: in the old days people went to/were invited to parties with other people of an 'equal social standing' with the idea that they would meet somebody 'suitable'. These days people tend to meet their partner either during their education or else at/through work. Besides, if you go out with a group then you have people to discuss the opposite sex with, which many people find helpful.

On another topic: I consider my posts as part of an ongoing conversation and do not greet you at the beginning of every post. It would appear that you consider each post as a separate entity. Do you think this is the result of individual or cultural differences? Or perhaps education?

[Sweetsee]

Good day Sir,


Very interesting point Chasgul and very difficult for me to answer that question but I would say it is a combination of things, mainly respect.

Individual differences:
1) I have on rare occasions been addressed by posters here and like the feeling it gives me.
2) I value our conversation.
3) I respect your command of the English language.
4) Our conversation may be ongoing but the time frame is not.

Education:
1) I teach my students to always use eachothers' names.
2) I teach my students to always greet people.
3) I teach my students respect.(want to delete)


Warm regards,
s

[Chasgul]

Some thoughts and queries about respect:

When you say that you teach respect, in what sense do you mean? I assume that you teach self-respect and respect for others. The latter actually being politeness and/or etiquette in most cases. The problem arises from my POV in which respect is something that must be earned and therefore teaching someone to respect others is effectively self-contradictory.

Do you feel that it is within your mandate as an EFL teacher to address what might well be cultural issues? Do the pupils you teach not have others whose mandate it is to address these issues?

And a cynical cap to the tri-colon crescendo: Where do you put teaching respect in your lesson plan?

[Sweetsee]

Yo hold up holmes,


Thanks for setting me straight, word up. I'm feeling to edit out what I said about respect, you know what I'm saying?

With respect to my current position, I do not consider myself an EFL teacher. I am a language facillitator/basketball coach.

In fact, I briefly referred to respect during the course of a yoga based lesson where I mentioned the moniker of one American rap artist/record label owner--KRS1.

Yo, where is the other colon at holme?

All right then.


I be I you be you too,
s

[Chasgul]

KRS1 who doesn't take planes, I assume. Liked the track they did with Goldie, but then again I like Jungle.

As a facilitator I jump to the conclusion that your official mandate is some kind of 'conversation assistant', is that right? Have you played your students tracks from various artists to get them used to listening to English in a musical setting? Do you discuss the way different people react to the same words depending on socio-cultural factors?

As a basketball coach, do you find that that is a good outlet for stress, giving you something else to do other than think about the idiocy around you, or is it another source of stress, the expectations of the team/school/parents sitting on your shoulders?

[Jyulee]

(Pardon me, I don�t mean to intrude )

On the whole I�ve found teachers to be very nice to each other (in real life at least, it�s not always like that on internet discussion forums) - staff rooms, for me, have been chattier places than most offices. Even in Japan.

But, an emerging idea here is that "being good at having conversations helps you as a TEFL teacher" - does it really?

How much of your time do you spend having conversations in the class? Honestly? Although I might be setting up and coordinating communicative activities and class discussion, it�s quite rare that I "chat" to students in the same way I would with a friend at the bar. I expect that people with friendlier personalities are usually better at conversation, and that friendlier people often make better (or, at the very least, more popular) teachers. So, the link between "being good at conversation" and "being a good teacher" is not a direct one, although we might often see the two together. Well - that�s my theory anyway!

On a second note, I think it was Halliday that came up with the idea of interpersonal and experiential(?) communication. Well, I�m not sure about the terminology, but the first is chat with no real substance (Hi! Nice weather today.., etc..) that solely helps people bond, be polite, get to know someone or "be nice". Well, you get the idea... The second is communication with actual information (The computer doesn�t work. Have you seen my pen?, etc..).

Although we all use both forms in everyday life, different people respond to different ratios of interpersonal/experiential communication depending on who they are, and the context. Some people might think it rude to only speak to someone when wanting to give/recieve information, while others think it pointless to waste time on mindless chit-chat. Maybe this aloof guy doesn�t say hello because he doesn�t see the point?

[guest of Japan]

I don't know what Halliday called them, but Gillian Brown and George Yule refer to the two types as "Interpersonal" and "Transactional".

[Chasgul]

I'm not familiar with the theories, but, I assume the idea is that encouraging your students to 'chat' in English means that they begin to use the language in a different way: they no longer associate it purely with textbooks, rules and exams.

Another idea is that the warm-up element in a lesson could be a 'chat' leading into the topic. Good conversational skills are vital in that situation or else the 'chat' can either dry up, go on for hours, drift off-topic or become an argument between students. I suspect that the idea is a bit of a generalisation and needs closer examination.

[Chris_Crossley]

I am currently doing a four-week summer job at a private language school in Wuhan, where I am teaching students at all levels, from basic to advanced. Even at beginner level (one up from basic), I try to get the students to TALK in class, albeit about the topic rather than small talk.

It may take some people a bit of time to reply, yet the students' confidence in actually talking, rather than just listening, appears to be growing. Some of the Chinese admin staff have told me how appreciative the students have been of my efforts to get them more actively involved than they normally expect when they have local teachers.

The sooner that people become involved in actually conversing, including to each other in class pair work, the better they will eventually become as speakers. It may sound obvious, but the fact is that many Chinese ESOL learners at lower levels are simply not encouraged to speak, especially when they go through years of "learning" English at middle school. Some just dry up when asked to say something, that is true, but that is because they are not used to thinking for themselves in the classroom even in their own language, never mind a foreign one.

Conversation skills certainly do have their merits - and their rewards.