chuchaqui
Joined: 02 Oct 2003 Posts: 13 Location: Baltimore, MD
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Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2003 5:30 pm Post subject: TESL versus TEFL - pros and cons |
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I have been teaching ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) to middle schoolers the past few months here in the USA in anticipation of going to Latin America in about 7 weeks, where I will be getting a TEFL certificate and teach for a few years. Although I have no experience teaching English as a foreign language abroad, I assume that getting experience teaching it as a second language, in an English speaking country, would give me some insight as to what it is like teaching TEFL abroad
I do have some worries though. I taught Spanish in middle school last year (my first year as a teacher) and hated every minute of it. The majority of the students honestly did not see any point in learning Spanish and to be honest, I didn't either. Having obtained fluency in Spanish myself and knowing just how hard it is and how much time it takes to master another language, I was more than a bit discouraged knowing that, at best, one out of the 135 students I taught would ever take the time to gain a high enough level of proficiency in Spanish to do them any good at all.
I never wanted to teach Spanish and wanted to get involved in ESOL from the get-go. Now that I am teaching ESOL I can honestly say that it is MUCH more enjoyable than teaching Spanish, and I actually feel like I am giving the students something they need to survive.
The attitudes of my ESOL students are much different than my Spanish students; they have voracious appetites for learning English, and why wouldn't they? Not getting made fun of every day by their peers for their foreign accents is incentive enough for them to learn English.
I guess my fear is that once I start teaching TEFL, the students would have an attitude similar to my Spanish students and be very apathetic about learning English, because they cannot use it on a daily basis in their home countries.
Is there anyone who has taught both ESOL and TEFL and could comment on this issue? I would be interested to hear how it really is out there. |
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