Job Discussion Forums

[dduck]

[shirley]

I think Yaramaz is referring to the problem of relevance. When I lived in Prague my teacher was teaching me to say "Move the piano over there". I realize music is important to Czechs; however, most of us foreigners in the class did not bring our pianos with us but we did need to know how to get a hair cut, etc. The same problem in France, where I learned how to ask for a hotel room but not how to write a check or ask for money from my account or even read the phone book. Beginners studying the local language of the country they live in need survival language. In most ESL programs you can study survival English just to be able to go to the doctor or ask for meat at the butcher. I have yet to find a non-English language country that takes that approach to language teaching. At the academic level there is little difference other than the homogeneity of the language of the learners in EFL. Another difference is ESL teachers teach the "system" as well as the language. For example, when I lived in France I received a letter from the national health insurance office telling me it was time to "update my electronic healthcard". I understood the words and the syntax but I had no idea what it meant or how to do it or where to do it. These types of things are taught by ESL teachers but would not be relevant to an EFL student. I think that's what he or she is referring to.

[Stephen Jones]

There may not be a difference but there certainly should be. When you're teaching TEFL the classroom is normally the only place where the students are going to be able to practise their English, and may even be the only plaxe they are exposed to English.

On the other hand immigrants are exposed to English all the time in their daily lives. What they need more than practise is an understanding of what the rules are and an explanation of what they are seeing outside. So an ESL lesson ought to be more fomral than an EFL one.

And of course, there is the fact that in an ESL lesson, you often have to do things other than teach English. Cases of students who have never come across electricity before are rare, but there are many other survival skills that you need to teach.

[naturegirl321]

I think of TEFL as teaching in a country where English is not the first language.
TESL is teaching where English is the main language,
I think. . . defintiations are always changing . . .

[yaramaz]

When I wrote about the difference between ESL and EFL I was referring specifically to relevance for the learner. My students in Canada needed to know how to order a pizza, make a collect call, ask about bus fares or rent an apartment, read a map, understand a menu and what the foods on it were. Also, I found that it was vitally important to give them a solid base to build from early on-- a few vital verbs and their conjugations in several tenses so they could get a quick start to expressing their needs and wishes, as well as a handful of key words and phrases and idioms that would get them off to a good start. Here in Turkey that is not the case. My students learn some songs and talk about how Ali can or cant swim, or who their favourite pop singer is. They can learn simple present this year and simple past next year-- after all, what's the hurry? Both approaches teach English but they are not interchangeable.

My native speaking Turkish teacher is teaching me Turkish the way that he teaches English-- the Ali can/can't swim way. After several lessons from him, I still haven't learned the things I came there for- mainly, key phrases and structures and words that will help me to understand the bus schedules or government forms or what the non English speaking director at the school is saying to me. I want to know the most relevant verbs and adjectives and the suffixes that modify the verbs so that I can start piecing the puzzle together. 'Swimming' is not relevant because I am in the middle of a bloody arid plateau with no swimming pools or lakes around. Sure Ali can swim, but I still dont understand what the form I just signed says...

[cheryl]

[dduck]

Thanks y'all for replying.

[yaramaz]

The Turkish educational system is a curious thing. I have worked with some older (ie 50-60 years old) native speaker EFL teachers here who compared it to their own educational experiences back in the 40s and 50s. Language learning is fundamentally grammar based, and often taught in Turkish. They do a lot of call and response. Lots of memorization. Its very frustrating for native speakers because we were usually trained to teach in a very different manner, usually one that is completely opposed to this. I have some students who learn in spite of their classes... Most can't utter a basic phrase after 4 or 5 or 6 years of study. My grade 7 kids get about 9 hours a week of English lessons and they still can't answer a question that isnt yes or no or multiple choice. And yes, they will learn simple present one year and not go on to any other tense until the next year. I had a hell of a time last year because the text I was using (Click On 3, for those who care) had so many grammar and language points that were beyond the ken of my kids that I had to abandon it halfway through the year to help them catch up to their text....

[leeroy]

Here in London you'd assume that the students, being surrounded by English, would have a (relatively) good practical command of it. After all, they have far more opportunity to experience and acquire English in a natural setting compared to those, say, in Mongolia.

Interestingly though, the advantages of living in a native speaking country aren't always as apparent as you might think. With Asian students especially, they tend to live, work and socialise with people from their own country. Some places in London are like "mini-Korea", others "mini-Poland".

Amazingly, I've had students who have been in London for 8 months but have never spoken outside the class. Why they would choose to come to London to learn English and spend all their time speaking in their L1 is beyond me (it is defeating the object, right?).

[dduck]

[shmooj]

There is one context I can think of where the boundaries get blurred and so I'll call it EFL as ESL.

To exemplify: I often teach students one-on-one intensive classes in preparation for a five year or more stay in the US. Of course, the pace is high, the pressure is on and they are learning how to cope in functional English despite not (yet) being surrounded by the English they will need to acquire this stuff outside the classroom.

I've yet to be here long enough to welcome back any of them. If I do, you can be sure I'll be asking them how un/helpful my little classes with them were!

[denise]

I had another blurry-boundary situation:

In the States, I taught intensive one-to-one courses to visiting foreign students. These students were not immigrants and were not planning on studying in the States--they needed English for their jobs back home in Japan, Slovakia, Russia, etc. (A bit like us English speakers traveling to Guatemala or wherever to study Spanish--we are in the environment but not studying the language for second language purposes). So there I was in California, surrounded by all sorts of authentic materials and real contexts (which I DID use), knowing that they'd be hopping on a plane and leaving behind the majority of those real-life situations and real-life needs. I had to balance authentic materials and contexts with the more standard grammar-based EFL approach, and I had to leave plenty of room in my lesson plans for stuff directly related to their business needs--writing letters, emails, reports, etc. Those sorts of things they could just as easily have learned in an English class in their own country.

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