Job Discussion Forums

[jg]

I like the range from high beginner to high intermediate. I have found that its often too difficult and boring to coax/prod the lower levels to speak and be active, and the more advanced students just need opportunities to chat or are learning specific kinds of English (business, nursing, etc) which isn't my bag, and is not really ESL anyway. The only advanced class I ever liked was one in which we read a Graham Greene novel which one of students later told me she finished outside of class; the ending moved her to tears. When we first started it she barely understood a thing, so I was quite pleased.

I still really get a kick out of teaching some verb tenses and grammar constructions, and I love it when the students reach that point where they can begin to express their ideas and are eager to learn more ways to share their worldview, ideas, etc. Call me crazy but conditionals and phrasal verbs give me goose bumps every time, they are like drugs!!!

I also really only like ESL - I taught jr. high math in the states and didn't care for it, nor did I much care for teaching English lit to jr. high students in my hometown. If ESL ever bores me its back to the office drone stuff.

[go_ABs]

Absolute beginners who are kids. I like going in to a classroom and knowing that although they can't say anything in English now, within a few lessons they'll be having a short conversation with me.

The progress is easy to see, and it's always fun to get there.

[Roger]

I had the most rewarding experiences with PRESCHOOLERS aged 3 to 5/6 - their minds are not deform,ed, loaded down with heavy Chinese preconceived nitions and are flexible.
They positively love good lessons - in which there is action and reaction.

The older they get the more stulfiying their education has been to their minds and brains.

Alternatively, I love teaching MATURE adults - but these come in trace element numbers!

[struelle]

I'd go for beginner with solid basics. Arguably the Chinese English teachers are best suited for the total beginners as they can rely on L1 and translation, etc.

Once they have the rudiments of a foundation, however, it is very instructive for such low level students to have a foreign teacher, so that it pushes them harder. For that reason, motivation tends to be very high at that level, and students make impressive gains - at least what I've found.

Steve

[mandu]

i enjoy teaching nursery and k1

[tw]

Absolute beginners (adults) - To hell with the Chinese teachers. Here, the FT can be sure that students will start on the right foot. The FT doesn't have to correct bad pronunciation habits for such words as "usually", after the students have been pronouncing it incorrectly for years. This is the level to teach if the FT wants the students to be free of any Chinenglish influence. The downsize is of course, the FT needs to be VERY patient because this can be both the most challenging, and the most rewarding level to teach. This is also the level the FT doesn't have to worry about students with having an attitude problem.

[Roger]

[Midlothian Mapleheart]

Edited to remove offensive content.

Middy

[Chris_Crossley]

"What's your favourite level of students?"

This is the inevitable "crunch" question that you may sometimes end up having to answer at an interview, whether it is a face-to-face interview or a telephone interview.

I remember being asked this question when I went for a face-to-face interview in November 2003 with the then-DoS at the EF International Language School in London. I was prepared to answer it by saying that it was beginners or near-beginners because that is the level that is the most challenging as one is trying to get concepts across to them in a foreign language even if their knowledge of the foreign language is limited.

The DoS nodded and moved on to the next question, but somehow I sensed, from the way she was looking at me when I was answering, that she thought: "You would say that, wouldn't you? You only want to give the answer you think I want to hear, not what you really think!"

At the end of the interview, she revealed that there were actually no vacancies "for the foreseeable future"! Not only that, but she told me that, even in London, the school accepted teachers who had no teaching experience overseas, whether with EF or anyone else. I was dumbstruck - not only was my time (not to mention my dole money!) wasted in going there, but that school employed complete newbies whereas people like myself with two years of experience overseas never got so much as a look-in?

Within a month of that interview, I was back in China.

[jg]

Steve said,

[tw]

[Roger]

jg,
I think we should take it out in a SEPARATE thread but I will give you a brief answer.
Let me point out two facts: I myself come from a multilingual family background and I know through the experience of my language immersion that I never needed a translator. This is a fact borne out by others' experience and by one more reality:
Point 2: The more Chinese English guiding our learners get the less independent they are, and the more fossilised bad English they internalise.
In fact we all should know what to abhor in this country - the horrible Chinglish that's without a peer in most countries (I know there have been similar mixed-language versions before but I find it difficult to enumerate any two countries where they mass-produce such a phenomenon!).
I repeat: I had a heck of a time with preschoolers grounding them in the target language without using their mother tongue. Inveitably some learnt certain concepts in English before they learnt these concepts in Chinese - but who is the worse off for that?
I think you are under the same misguided bias that learning a foreign language is learning to translate between two languages. This is WRONG and is the main stumbling block of our English learners. The goal of English instruction must be to render these learners functional in the target language - i.e. making them independent of their mother tongue and its conceptualisations.

[SillySally]

OP withdrawn

[tw]

[SillySally]

Yes, you are right and I was wrong! I am sorry for being so Silly.