Job Discussion Forums

[jimi1999uk]

Hi all. I was wondering if you guys could shed some light on a couple of questions I have?

My bio: I'm in my 30's, British and recently CertTESOL qualified (although no teaching experience aside from the Cert itself).

I've been offered a job in E. Europe teaching "conversational" classes to teens. From what I hear this is quite common for ELT teachers in this part of the world. You have one national teacher doing the grammar and the native speaker tasked with getting the buggers chatting in another seperate lesson

I've only spoke to one other ELT teacher about this post and he said the "conversational" lessons that he saw in E. Europe might not be that great for gaining experience as a teacher. I forgot to enquire more deeply with him at the time. SO it with this I come to you fellows and felenas (why is this not a word in Eng).

My questions are:
What does a "conversational"language assistant type role look like in practice?
How different is it from "proper" ELT?
What kind of things are expected of me?

Or ANY other information about teaching teens, language assistant roles or other information you think useful to me.

Thanks alot (whoops, I almost put two kisses in there at the end. Blah to hell with it. I love you all).

xx

[Glenski]

Conversational English is popular worldwide. I'm a little surprised your TESOL didn't explain what it is. Simply put, it is where you do your best to teach spoken and listening skills to students who presumably already have some measure of the grammar under their belts. Some places will combine those for the lower level students.

Conversational English means you present real-life situations where students need to use their speaking and listening skills (shopping, buying a train ticket, getting directions, small talk, etc.). In many cases students (of all ages) have some basic grasp of the grammar but have never opened their mouths to use it.