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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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 Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 10:08 pm Post subject: How to best prepare for teaching English overseas (STUDY) |
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I definitely understand what they're getting at. It would make teachers more happily appreciated, though it sounds a bit too conformist at parts, as if cultural differences isn't itself part of the experience and to be respected by each side: just because one is in China doesn't mean you gotta teach the Chinese way, though tolerance and compatibility and trade-offs are of course wise.
Anyways, read for yourself. Some decent insights:
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Each year, thousands of people travel to a foreign country on their way to positions teaching English to the people of their host country.
Often these teachers wonder how to serve the needs of the students in their classes, how to apply the ESL methods they have learned to the ESL/EFL environment they find, and how to earn the respect and thanks of the people they will teach.
This article is the result of two surveys conducted in Hungary and China. Both surveys asked teachers and students who have worked with American or other native-speaking English teachers to express a consumer's view of what works and what doesn't when a person is a visiting teacher of their native language in another country.
Before You Go
Learn non-American varieties of English, especially British. Students in other countries are confronted with many forms of English. Historically, British English has usually been preferred.
While this situation is certainly no longer so clear, students now are exposed to teachers and materials from at least North America, Britain, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand, and they are frustrated by instructors who correct what they learned from another native speaker.
As a minimum, instructors teaching overseas need to be able to recognize the variant vocabulary, pronunciation, and syntactic forms of British and American English.
Ideally, they should be able to help students master the written forms of either major variety and should be familiar with the forms found in other countries, as well.
Learn about your students' language and about common error patterns. The biggest advantage of the L1-speaking teacher over the native-speaking teacher is that the L1-speaking teacher can quickly make a complex grammatical point by a comparison to an L1 structure or by using L1 terms.
The more you can learn about your students' language before you arrive, the more effective you can be in the classroom (as well as in every area of living).
Learn about the culture and about the educational system.
It is crucial to a good teaching experience to match your instruction with the expectations of the school and with the needs of students.
While this seems obvious, some respondents commented that English-speaking teachers would not prepare students for required exams or would fail to adapt their grading system to the local system.
The Chinese respondents, especially, felt that the native-speaking teachers failed to modify their teaching to the Chinese way of learning. Thus, it is necessary to find out as much as possible about the kind of teaching, grading, etc. that you will encounter.
Respondents on both surveys raised the issue of the attitude of English-speaking teachers towards the host culture.
Many of them found their visitors lacked basic knowledge of their culture, or ignored basic differences, or actively exhibited a prejudice or sense of superiority.
Prepare non-offensive materials to take or send. No matter where you are going and no matter how much you think everything has been worked out, you will probably teach some classes you didn't anticipate. You may teach an entirely different set of classes.
This must not deter you from sending or taking teaching materials because depending on where you are going, you may find no easy access to photocopying, no slide projectors, no books, or a wealth of completely unfamiliar materials.
�How can you prepare materials when you don't know what you'll teach?
Take a lot of good material. If you have a favorite set of materials, prepare to take or send them with enough copies for a class. Take a large variety of material. Students in most countries want to see American videos, too.
Some tapes of American TV shows are a good idea. Why did we say "non-offensive"? Some material is obvious: materials that depict sexually explicit or violent acts are obvious.
But many of our ESL materials are offensive abroad for their content, their presentation, or their cultural assumptions.
Many of our ESL materials assume students are in the U.S. and want to live here.
These can be offensive to students overseas who simply want to study the language.
Materials that present an American view of sensitive issues or that look critically at the points of views of others may be equally offensive.
Teach diligently and explain methodology. A great deal of teaching overseas is teacher-centered, and teachers are expected to plan each part of the lesson thoroughly. Students and teachers responded negatively to what were perceived as unplanned classes.
Conversation classes are particularly likely to be viewed as just "talk."
In China, when told that American class activities try to make learning fun, students and teachers asked "but when do you learn?" Learning to them cannot be fun. You will probably want to explain the pedagogical benefits of your methods, why you are playing a game, etc.
Work within the system. This means, first of all, work within the educational system of the country and consider the examination or evaluation system in your teaching.
No matter how you value American English, if students are tested on British English, you will need to help them with British forms.
No matter how much you value speaking, if students are only tested through written exams, you will need to give written English enough attention.
Recognize that you are entering a place where people have been teaching and learning EFL, and they have often gone through rigorous training.
Most work hard to keep abreast of current methodology. Hence, it is a good idea to identify the EFL methods used in the country and incorporate some into your teaching.
If the primary or only method of teaching is rote learning, students are used to it and may consider it the only legitimate method. You may need to use a bit of it (or at least have students use it on your materials) until you can demonstrate that the other activities are producing better effects. Your L1 colleagues are a great source of knowledge in this area, and you can learn a great deal from them.
One of the most poignant comments in the responses was that "some can't understand that they've come to work in an already existing system, which they don't necessarily have to change."
This criticism of native-speaking teachers is, we think, well deserved. We have seen several EFL teachers who tried to show people in other countries the way to teach English. Even worse, are those who try to "show these people" how to live.
Recognize your role as an outsider.
As an outsider and foreigner, you are going to be treated as different and special -- in both ways you will appreciate and ways you won't.
On the good side, being an outsider allows you to make mistakes in the language and culture--both in and out of the classroom.
They won't expect you to know everything. It usually means you can ask for help. Also, it has the added benefit that you won't have to serve on committees, attend meetings, and do a lot of other work that people have in their home countries at their home job.
On the negative side, you can't select the ways in which you'll be treated special. When being an outsider is not to your advantage (like having to pay more than other teachers), there will be nothing you can do about it.
In your own culture, you're an adult, generally a responsible one. Overseas, you are a young child with less of a knowledge about how to be a responsible adult than a six-year old.
Your assumptions about what a responsible adult is are all wrong, and you have to get used to that and start learning how to grow up in that culture.
In the end, you will profit by expanding your ideas of what it means not only to be an adult, but to be human.
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Don'ts
If you're not a trained TESL/TEFL teacher, don't go.
The attribute most frequently criticized in the Hungarian survey was a lack of training in teaching English.
One student put it baldly: "Sometimes they come only because they can't find a proper job in their own country."
In countries where teaching is taken most seriously, lack of professional preparation is noted and resented by both students and teachers as are the consequences.
One comment summed up the criticism nicely: "Being native is not enough." As professionals in TESL and TEFL, we should not encourage untrained students and friends to go abroad as teachers.
Don't take a hidden agenda. A second theme that emerges as problematic is that of people taking a hidden agenda.
If your real goal is to convert people, religiously or politically, or to establish business contacts, or do research, your students and colleagues will probably resent your actions, not consider you a true TEFL professional, and show a lack of trust in other areas as well. You may even endanger the program you are working for.
Summary
Be prepared. Expect that you will be valued for your knowledge of the language, culture, and customs of your English-speaking country, and do whatever you can to enhance that knowledge before you go.
Also, while your teaching style may be different from that of your host country, the differences may be valued.
Above all, your enthusiasm for your students and your collegiality with your colleagues will be appreciated.
Be humble. Do not assume that your methodology is better than that of your hosts, that your training is more advanced, or that your are somehow more privileged just because you are a native speaker or a citizen of a particular country.
Be flexible. No matter how much planning you do, you must expect the unexpected when you teach overseas.
Many of the problems that arise are because you are in a foreign culture. On the other hand, teaching and living overseas allows you to rethink who you are, and it is the crises that teach you the most.
Rather than trying to avoid problems, try to accept the challenge that each problem offers about what you will learn about the culture, about teaching, or about yourself when the crisis is solved. |
http://www.joyjobs.com/center/esl.htm |
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wylies99
Joined: 13 May 2006
Location: I'm one cool cat!
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| Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 10:19 pm Post subject: |
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Ummmm- not to nitpick, but the author STRONGLY dislikes the USA and all things American.
Plus, count the double negatives in that article- go ahead, I'll wait.
How many did you count? There were other mistakes, too.
Should this person be giving advice about speaking and writing English? |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 10:29 pm Post subject: |
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| wylies99 wrote: |
| Ummmm- not to nitpick, but the author STRONGLY dislikes the USA and all things American. |
The article is meant to speak TO Americans who go overseas to teach English. It speaks of the solutions to the problems polled in Hungary and China. Not hard to imagine what they are talking about once you take a second to see it from their perspective. |
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giovanni
Joined: 16 Oct 2006
Location: NO
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 1:57 pm Post subject: Re: How to best prepare for teaching English overseas (STUDY |
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It's English teaching, not anthropology. We don't have to be quite this paranoid about constantly checking our ethnocentrism.
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No matter how you value American English, if students are tested on British English, you will need to help them with British forms. |
Well yeah, if British English in the curriculum that's great, but if the little K-children are planning on being an exchange student in Wichita and going to Harvard and living happily ever after in Los Angeles then there's no point. I wouldn't feel comfortable teaching someone British (Irish, Australian, etc...) colloquialisms and cultural points- isn't that just begging for misinformation?
It seems like a 15 year old American Anglophile wrote this. I half expected a "P.S.- Oasis is the best band EVER!!!!!!" tacked on at the end. |
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oskinny1
Joined: 10 Nov 2006
Location: Right behind you!
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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While teaching in Europe I got caught out many times because of British English. It is quite embarrassing correcting someone then having the entire class flip to a page that teaches the thing just you corrected (ex. "at the weekend").
I don't think this is anti-American at all. It is trying to give a lot of ignorant people (I being one of them) a heads up about problems you may run into. Granted, this doesn't apply to Korea so much, maybe in this case they should change all the "American" parts to "The Island Peoples". |
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hubba bubba
Joined: 24 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 4:40 pm Post subject: |
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yeah, sounds like it was written by a student.
They forgot:
Before you go, learn how to play Hangman, Board Bingo ond other types of group chalkboard games. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 4:59 pm Post subject: Re: How to best prepare for teaching English overseas (STUDY |
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| giovanni wrote: |
| I wouldn't feel comfortable teaching someone British (Irish, Australian, etc...) colloquialisms and cultural points- isn't that just begging for misinformation? |
They are talking about basic grammar and vocabulary stuff, like
"at the weekend" vs. "on the weekend"
Neither one is wrong so don't correct a student who says the former. But that's hard when so many Americans don't know British forms of grammar and vocab. I myself didn't realize that "in the street" was a legit and common English use of the preposition 'in'. Get a little more education of the English-speaking world is the upshot. I indeed recognized this point when I chose to go to New Zealand to get my CELTA, reasoning that I'd learn more about the English language, and yes, just talking to Kiwis and Aussies daily and hearing their news and reading their signs was an educational experience. You could help your students more if you spent a month in another English country prior to teaching. That's the sort of thing the article is trying to get at.
Personally, I think one can teach only American English as long as one is clear not to be judgemental and label other usages wrong, but simply say it's not American and in your class you're trying to help them with THAT FORM of English. Teach what you know. But by all means try and be sensitive to the fact that there are other English forms you yourself are not at all aware of, so tread carefully with the "That's not right" statements.
I imagine a funny scene from a film one could make: a Brit teaches a form, next year an American "corrects" the student, the next year an Aussie "corrects" the correction, the next the Canadian corrects the corrected correction, the following year the Kiwi...  it must be like that for some of our older students |
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wylies99
Joined: 13 May 2006
Location: I'm one cool cat!
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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Why would I "teach British English"? Most of these kids are going to NY or LA.
How do I "teach British English"?
SO MANY jokes come to mind, I don't know where to begin. 
Who uses TV shows in class? Teaching with TV shows is not a great idea.
But, maybe SOMEONE SOMEWHERE does this.
So forget about those "horrible" American TV shows. Let's show ONLY British TV shows to kids in Korea so they can learn PROPER English. How about I show them "Are You Being Served?" so they can learn to speak and act like "Mr Humphries"? Or how about "The Young Ones" so they can emulate "Vyvyan"? Or, the best for last- how about "Keeping up Appearances" so they can learn from "Onslow"? Want me to go on? |
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oskinny1
Joined: 10 Nov 2006
Location: Right behind you!
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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The point being made (at least by me, and I think by VanIslander) is not to teach British English but to be aware of the differences and to not incorrectly correct a student for it, as I have in the past. Not once was it said that British English is the only English that should be taught.
Using TV shows can be a good way for students to learn listening comprehension. See how much they can actually pick up and have a discussion afterwards. |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:16 am Post subject: |
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This is a good suggestion by Vanislander et al, of one way to prepare, but hardly the best way to prepare, I assume.
There are significant national differences in English that Americans are not generally aware of, including spelling, such as defense and defence, a difference found, I believe between U.S. and Canadian, as well as British.
While and whilst is another example. Whilst is not used in formal American usage, unless you are being pretentious. I ran into this as an editor while trying to teach a new reporter fresh out of college -- where he got the idea it was correct, I do not know.
Another reporter just out of a once respectable college did not know how to use quotation marks. She kept insisting upon putting all her punctuation OUTSIDE of the quotations. She had one "story" listing all 20 or so musical numbers in a high school production, with quotes around each title and the commas outside the quotes. I gave up and ran it as it was. Neither the ME nor the publisher noticed anything wrong. When I mentioned this to the publisher, he said writing was his weakest subject in college. And we wonder why so many Americans are semi-illiterate.
This went on for months with this reporter. No matter how many pages out of grammer books I put on her desk, she refused to bellieve that puntuation marks go inside the quotes (except for colons and semicolons).
I could not figure out where she got this misconception from. Then I noticed that books published in Britain often have the punctuation outside the quotes.
So young writers tend to pick up variations of usage and spelling from reading different national forms of English, even in America. However, by the time they come out of college, you would think that their professors would have set them straight.
And some of them learn nothing. I saw one English major who turned in news stories where each sentence within a single paragraph had its own individual set of quotation marks. Scary. Did she actually READ any books in college?
Being an American with a college degree is no guarantee of knowing proper Englsih. I can't help wondering how many reports of problems between hagwon directors and teachers are at least partially the result of incompetence on the part of the teacher.
At any rate, if you want my two cents on the initial question, here goes:
Get a copy of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and read the sections on grammar and punctuation, etc., at the back of the book. They aren't long. While you are at it, use the dictionary to make sure you know both proper spelling and usage for words.
Get a copy of Strunk and White's "Elements of Style." Read a few pages a day and let it sink in.
One of my pet peeves is "further" and "farther." Very few people these days seem to get this right. I just read a book about WWII written by a British author that always used "further" in reference to troop movements, when he should have said "farther," which is used to describe physical movement. My favorite is an ad for a fuel additive that promises to help you car go "further." The value of proper usage is not just technical; it is a sign of clear thinking.
Get a grammer book and read it. I don't think you need to teach English by drilling grammer rules, but the teacher better know what is correct.
Be humble. Nobody, I believe, learns correct English in the U.S. simply through osmosis of hearing and reading. Every professional writer who does not rely on an editor learns correct usage from studying grammer and using dictionaries. Dictionaries are not for wimps.
Even professional writers and editors do not always get it right. So don't be too critical of students.
Back in my early days of writing and editing, there was a secretary in the office from the Phillipines who learned English as a second language. She was a better proofreader than me. People who learn English as a second language can potentially learn English better than a native speaker. |
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wylies99
Joined: 13 May 2006
Location: I'm one cool cat!
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 2:21 am Post subject: |
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| Do you REALLY want a bunch of Koreans running around NY and LA asking for cigarettes, ahem, using the British name? |
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Kimchieluver
Joined: 02 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 2:47 am Post subject: |
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| wylies99 wrote: |
| Do you REALLY want a bunch of Koreans running around NY and LA asking for cigarettes, ahem, using the British name? |
Yes, I think it would be funny. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 4:30 am Post subject: |
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to squat and blow a f a g ?
to understand the humour in that as well as the literal description
would be a fine education for our students |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:39 am Post subject: |
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| wylies99 wrote: |
Ummmm- not to nitpick, but the author STRONGLY dislikes the USA and all things American.
Plus, count the double negatives in that article- go ahead, I'll wait.
How many did you count? There were other mistakes, too.
Should this person be giving advice about speaking and writing English? |
Not to nitpick, but I've read through the article three times now and haven't found any double negatives. In fact, the text is well-written and clear. I suppose you could complain about the use of 'special' as an adverb, but I imagine that is common enough in English usage.
So, I think the real question is whether you should be taking their advice to learn something about teaching English?
PS I also didn't notice a strong anti-American bias in the text either, and certainly not hatred. It is addressed to Americans about assumptions that I've seen a lot of untrained teachers have.
PPS VanIslander, nice find. |
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wylies99
Joined: 13 May 2006
Location: I'm one cool cat!
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:48 pm Post subject: |
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No double negatives? Your rite. Eye did knot sea any.
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If you're not a trained TESL/TEFL teacher, don't go.
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Since the author advocates teaching by TV shows (which is HILARIOUS), and prefers British TV shows, why not teach students to speak and act with that classic show "Monty Python's Flying Circus." That'll allow them to blend in anywhere around the world. They'll even be able to return a dead parrot and play soccer against any professional organization. Everyone will know they're at the doctor's office for an exam, and NOTHING ELSE. |
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