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guty
Joined: 10 Apr 2003
Posts: 365
Location: on holiday
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 Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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Jzer,
You have taken my comments out of context.
The original topic is about whether knowing a second language makes a someone a better language teacher.
My point is that many of us who speak a second language didn't learn it in the classroom, so why would knowing one make someone a better teacher?
Thanks for the teaching tips though. |
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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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| Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 3:22 pm Post subject: |
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| My point is that I imagine most EFLers have learnt their other languages by being in country, like ESL, more than in a classroom. And, unless you are teaching in an english speaking country, this clearly does not parallel the experience of the students |
In terms of quantity of meaningful language input, this obviously is different than the experiences of your students, and in my experience, this accelerates acquisition considerably, doesn't it?
But don't you find that there are still similarities in the language learning process itself? (For example, a tendency to invent structures similar to your first language, difficulties in assimilating features your language may not have, such as gender, tendency to use similarly formed structures as if they had similar meaning to your L1, and a tendency to learn "non meaning words" such as articles with less accuracy than "meaning words" such as most nouns?) My experience is that the process remains similar, even if the context, and speed, is different.
Best,
Justin |
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rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:00 pm Post subject: |
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| guty wrote: |
Jzer,
You have taken my comments out of context.
The original topic is about whether knowing a second language makes a someone a better language teacher.
My point is that many of us who speak a second language didn't learn it in the classroom, so why would knowing one make someone a better teacher?
Thanks for the teaching tips though. |
Hi Guty!
Your comments are reasonable regarding people who learned a language in the target country.
But if the languages were learned in the classroom it would not be relevant. I did say, all other things being equal.
I also want to extend an apology to zorro. I did not want to seem insulting.
Teacheringreece had some excellent points about so-called specialists. And Guty is right that
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| I think we need to separate the knowledge of language from the study of it |
. I've seen too much theory get lost in the clouds and be no help to grunts on the ground trying to learn how to form a sentence (or how to teach them). |
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zorro (3)
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
Posts: 202
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| Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:16 pm Post subject: |
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Hey Rusmeister,
Thanks for the apology. I should apologise to you too. I probably should have made my ideas clearer. How was you (or anybody) to know that I have been taking a course on critical discourse analysis which strongly influenced my ideas? I'm afraid the ideas have gone to my head a bit. I want to turn everything into an ideology!!!!!
Maybe I should get out more  |
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John Hall
Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 452
Location: San Jose, Costa Rica
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| Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:22 pm Post subject: |
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Empathy
Patience
Motivation
Openness to New Things
Experience Having Learned a Second Language
Knowledge of a Second Language
Good Communication Skills
Knowledge of English
Proficiency in English
These are just some of the things that help make a teacher of ESL/EFL a good teacher. Are there any others that I have left out?
You don't need to have all of these to be good in our field. Neither is there any one which is essential. However, the more of these qualities that you have, the better you are likely to be.
IMHO, teaching is a skill that we learn, regardless of which qualities from the list we have or don't have to begin with. A good learner can learn how to get around or compensate for the elements above that he or she does not have (except perhaps motivation?). Not having one of the qualities listed above may make things more difficult for the teacher, but should not be used as a criteria for judging whether someone is a good teacher or not. |
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zorro (3)
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
Posts: 202
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| Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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I couldn't agree more John Hall.
Nice summary. |
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