Job Discussion Forums

[santi84]

For those who have taught in an area where English was not the predominant language, what did you do to learn the local language?

Local group classes? Private? Through a textbook & practicing out in public? Did you wing it?

While I would love to dedicate myself to a full-time intensive on-site course, I don't think that will be practical with my newborn and one hour commute to Montreal.

I'm trying to decide which route to go and could really use some input from those who have gone through this before (I teach ESL in British Columbia so I have not had this issue in the past). Thanks! I will be learning French. [/i]

[tttompatz]

[Dinah606]

I've had a very patchwork approach to learning Chinese. I started with the Rosetta Stone computer program before coming here. I won't write a long review of it here, but it has its benefits and its weaknesses. I think it works better if you pair it with some sort of classroom learning, in which grammar is explained, as the program doesn't do that.

Over the two winter vacations I've had here, I've attended a school where I can learn Chinese for four hours a day with a private teacher. During the semester, my school provides four hours a week of free Chinese lessons, in a class of about five students.

It's worked out well enough, although I still have a long way to go. One of my biggest faults is that most of my local friends speak fluent English, and I feel silly and flustered trying to speak Chinese to them, when their English is so much better. As a result, I'm great at all of the basic daily life things, like buying train tickets and getting dinner and such, but I find it hard to have meaningful conversations, even if I know a lot of the vocab.

[china-1994]

I just spoke to the locals- small talk.

[JZer]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

OP,

First, you are trying to learn French in Canada. It's not like trying to learn Chinese in China, nor Japanese in Japan. French Canadians are not all that different than English Canadians.

Second, if you are also Canadian, didn't you learn French in school? If you did, then you aren't a zero learner, you're a false beginner (you 'learned' a bit in school and then forgot all of it).

Your steps should include getting a French English dictionary and bringing it virtually everywhere with you (preferably in some sort of bag so that it isn't immediately obvious how little French you know). You should get yourself a few books on French grammar, and learn the most useful (simple present and imperative) first. Learn some vocab (the time consuming but most effective way is still write it out in English and French covering the other up as you go, and doing it over and over and over, until you really, REALLY know it. Later, when the language comes very quickly, you'll see that you start being able to learn words, phrases and sometimes bits of grammar very, very quickly). A huge amount of English vocab comes from French anyway, and there are a lot of English loan words in Canadian French.

It's not like French is easy. It's not. But if you actually make an effort and live in a French speaking area, then the greatest challenge will be id some French people start deriding you for not speaking perfectly, and then if you try to speak English to them, for not speaking French.

[santi84]

Yes, I'm Canadian, but I'm from Vancouver and we don't have to learn French past the elementary school level - I actually chose Japanese and Mandarin. I'm just a bit nervous about the challenges - this is a permanent move to a francophone community (my husband is francophone and it is his job transfer). I just haven't been in the same position as my students!

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

Then start learning French now. Just google it and you can learn a bit online. Ask your husband to help you a bit. Go to a bookstore and buy a book on French grammar, and a phrasebook. Depending on your time frame, look into seeing if you can take some sort of class before leaving.

It's no different than anybody whose gone overseas to teach EFL, except that the culture is almost the same, and it's a lot easier to read, and most of the packaging in stores will have both English and French on it anyway.

[steki47]

[fluffyhamster]

I didn't know you did martial arts, Steki - what did you study (have you studied), and how was it?

[steki47]

[fluffyhamster]

I started Judo around 8 or 9 but fractured my skull at Scouts (don't ask!) and had to give it up, so my main induction into serious (adult) martial arts came at university in the form of Shotokan karate (SKI), after trying out the other stuff that was on offer there (boxing, Aikido, and Judo a little again), as well as bit of informal Muay Thai-style training (padwork). I stuck with Shotokan for four or five years and got quite good at it (fast, flexible etc), but glandular fever rather knocked the wind out of my sails (lost my "kime" a bit), and I wasn't as keen on my hometown KUGB "civvie" club I'd had to switch to after graduating, so I just dabbled for a while - private Escrima/Kali and Jun Fan/JKD lessons, occasional Choi Kwang Do, you get the picture! Then, about five years after graduating I got onto JET (in Hokkaido) and tried some Shorinji Kempo, Kyokushinkai and Wado-ryu karate, Daido-juku, and Daito-ryu Aikijujitsu before finally settling into 3 years of Judo...didn't get much good at the tachiwaza/randori (standup) but got reasonable at the newaza (groundwork), because they do plenty of that first in northern Japan to help warm up the classes, and became quite an armlock and/or leg-strangle specialist (cycling between 60-120km a day getting to my district's senior high school really helped build up my leg strength and general endurance)!

By the way, there was a fair amount of martial arts discussion on the following thread (and there may be others!): http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=716114#716114

I'm getting a bit too old now to get into serious MMA-style training, but I'd like to still try some BJJ. (That reminds me, I have Royler Gracie's Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Submission Grappling Techniques and Eddie Bravo's Jiu-Jitsu Unleashed! still to read! ).

[steki47]

[JZer]

[naturegirl321]

Dating seems to be a good route, marriage is better I can fight with my husband in Peruvian slang now. Not that we fight a lot, but you get the idea.