Job Discussion Forums

[spiral78]

I'm overwhelmed! What a clever bunch of regulars we have..... and me with my paltry 2 1/2.....so far!!

So, here's the next logical pertinent question: what do you all think about the relationship between being a good (or at least interested and enthusiastic) language learner and being a good language teacher?

My own take is that it's a vital ingredient, even for newbies. Not to infer that I think functional knowledge of an L2 should be an entry-level requirement, but I do think that interest and enthusiasm in learning as well as teaching language is a BIG plus.

First, having some language learning experience is obviously important for a teacher of languages. Even though not all learners learn the same way, there are insights into the processes (both affective and cognitive) that one can only gain by doing.

But it's also a pretty big plus in terms of being happy living in a new culture. There are some advantages to not knowing the local language (or not well), as you can easily tune out when you wish. But daily living outside of the expat scene, and making friends among the locals are two signs that a newbie teacher might stick it out and actually take on ESL/EFL as a profession, or move into other positions in his/her new country.

My take, anyway.

[jr1965]

Near fluent in speaking and reading Spanish (Castellano).

Able to read and understand standard Italian, though my command of the spoken lang is now very rusty�probably because I don�t have anyone to speak the lang with�and I�m lazy. Italian was my grandparents� native language; I heard it all the time growing up and was required to attend Saturday Italian school from age ten through high school. I hated it then, but I�m now thankful I was made to do it. I will say that being required to study this lang--on Saturdays--helped me later to appreciate how my students sometimes felt about studying English.

Can read Hangul and still understand some basic Korean when spoken, though the only practice I get now is watching LOST and listening to Jin and Sun speaking to each other in the lang.

[Guy Courchesne]

[Henry_Cowell]

I believe that the more we study languages as adults, the better our teaching skills and insights will be. As it becomes more and more difficult for us to learn a new language (with age), we realize the difficulties and stumbling blocks that our students themselves frequently encounter.

As a result, I think we should be language learners throughout our lives so that we never forget what the acquisition process is like.

[Sweetsee]

Not speaking any foreign languages and teaching one would be a bit like teaching tennis and not being able to play.

[englishgibson]

interesting point with that tennis, since i also teach it...it's a lovely sport, and it does need to be explained properly before one hits the court...wouldn't want to get that tennis elbow

[christee]

Fluent in German, can get around in Turkish and am working to increase my ability.

I'd love to learn more languages to the point of fluency, but I find you really have to live in the country to learn the language well.

Knowing a language is important, but I agree that the enthusiastic desire to learn a language, and the effort one puts forth, is what really contributes to one's ability as a teacher.

[guangho]

Hungarian and (it's been rumored) English. I can mutter in a cryptic, anti-social way in Korean, Chinese, Spanish and Hebrew. Cryptic and anti-social is my speciality. I mean.....

[englishgibson]

some of us are rather linguistic ... it does bring all kinds of benefits, doesn't it

peace to all linguists
and
cheers and beers to all hard working FTs around the world

[dmb]

I don't claim to be fluent in Turkish but it is at the advanced edge of things. However, after almost 15 years here it would be embarrasing if it wasn't.

A little bit off-topic. I read recently (in Grabe and Stoller) that those with a high metalinguistic awareness make better readers(learners?) Why then are there so many EFL teachers who can not string a sentence together in L2. I am pretty sure that the majority of EFL teachers are actually crap at foreign languages themselves.

I have no academic research to back this up. Only my experience of the 1000s of teachers I have met over the years who can only order a beer and a kebab in Turkish and little else.

[spiral78]

So far as NOT speaking a second language, I haven't studied the issue either, but I think it might be more true among newbie teachers (like with just a year or two in the field) than with people who've been around a while.

I have to say that every teacher in my department in Canada speaks at least one foreign language at a functional level, and most have more than that. And it's not just because they are Canadian and were forced to study French at school. Only half of them are Canadian - the rest are American or British. My experience in Nederlands and Luxembourg and the Czech Rep was the same -

In my personal experience, I think most teachers who've been around a while are pretty good at languages.....

[dmb]

[rusmeister]

[spiral78]

The old chicken-or-egg conundrum....shall we take a poll? Or two....

[Jyulee]

What exactly does "fluent" mean in the context of these posts?

Does it mean "Sounding completely 100% like a native speaker of the language in question"? Like "So good at the language that other native speakers are fooled into thinking that you were born and grew up in the country in question"?

If so, I doubt I will ever be fluent in any language except English.

Sure, I can hold my own in most interchanges in Spanish. I can chat in bars, ask bus drivers where they go, and discuss Colombian politics until the cows come home. Most newspaper articles don't phase me in the least, and I can sing the theme-tune to more than one Latin American soap opera.

But this, to me, is a loong way from being "fluent". It is obvious to any native speaker of Spanish that I am non-native within 3 or 4 words of me starting to speak. I know people here who have spent 20+ years in Latin America, and who speak Spanish Very Well Indeed, but I would not describe them as fluent - as, to me, they do not speak Spanish as a native speaker would.

Perhaps this is all about the semantics of what fluency is, but I suspect that most people who start learning a language as an adult will never achieve true fluency in it.