Teach English in Huangpu Zhen - Anqing Shi

TEFL for non native english speaking teachers When I was in the sixth grade in Yokohama, japan, I heard a song in english in a commercial on TV. I didnt know who the singer was and what song he was singing. My friends sister had the single record and I wanted to copy the words. There was no copy machine available at that time for home use since that was in the early 70s. I borrowed the record and started copying the lyrics one letter by one letter, one word by one word, one line by one line and one verse by one verse. I was literally imitating the letters because I didnt even know english alphabet. At one moment, I wondered why one letter had a long tail below its bar and the other had a very short tail. I couldnt even distinguish between a letter f and a letter t. I started learning english at junior high and I studied for three years and kept learning at high school for another three years. english was one of the subjects that I studied along with math, science and other subjects. The classes I took was probably labeled as english as Foreign Language, and the classes were in a monolingual group environment and taught by non-native english speaking teachers. The method the teachers used was one of the traditional methods, Grammar-translation, and we were sitting in rows and columns in a classroom. We started as absolute beginners at junior high. I was very much excited in my first english class and started learning from alphabet. Finally it made all senses and I learned the difference between a letter f and a letter t. Through the International TEFL and TESOL Training (ITTT) online tefl course, there were units for grammars. I knew all the items in the units. I realized that I had learned correctly and learned well. One advantage that I had was that I was able to listen to the radio aimed for US military family members in tokyo-Yokohama area and I applied what I had learned at school while listening; I heard their sentence structures exactly as I had learned and phrasal verbs as I had learned. Recently, I started subscribing a newsletter from Kenneth Beare called, About ESL, and for the past couple of weeks, there had been very busy posting activities on one issue on the site, Native english Teacher Only? I agree with each posting from various teachers both native and non-native: some say natives only and the other say non-natives can do, too. Or some say speaking and teaching are two different matters and some say non-natives have some experience in learning and they know what difficulties students may encounter. These are all true and I agree with them. What I want to express and emphasize is that I learned from non-native teachers and I learned well because I had interest in learning english and I absorbed whatever available to me. Getting a great guidance from teachers on course explanations and practices and drills is one and applying them is the other. The former comes from teachers and the latter comes from students. The former relies on teachers techniques and experience, and the latter relies on students willingness of learning. Some people argue for knowledge of idioms but how often do we speak in idioms? How is it important to use idioms in daily lives? Idioms are some decorative forms in language arts and they can put some fancy colors in our conversations and writings. And they are items to be tested for college exams and standardized tests for colleges as part of trivia questions. Do we really have to know them? The answer is no in my opinion. When non-native teachers (or native-teachers) come across some idioms that they dont know, they can learn with students at the same time. Every class is a learning opportunity for both teachers and students. I dont believe TEFL for non-native english speaking teachers (30) 2/2 that teachers have nothing to learn from his/her own classes. Any teacher with a determination of teaching and learning continuously will be a great teacher and any student willing to learn will be a great student. In my opinion, it really doesnt matter if I have a native teacher or non-native teacher. Id rather appreciate his/her passion and technique of teaching and passion of learning further more. Math teachers study for the subject and are certified to teach. Can 6th grade math teacher teach college level math courses? The answer is no. They have to be certified to teach certain grade and they have to have certain level of knowledge of the subject. I have to say the same theory applies to teachers of english as a Foreign Language. They have to be certified and have knowledge for the level they teach it doesnt matter whether they are native or non-native. When we take statistics, it might show more native teachers may be certified for higher-level classes whereas more non-native teachers for lower levels. But it is also possible that some non-native teachers are certified for higher levels. It all depends on how much individual teacher masters the subject and how well they are trained to teach. Teachers knowledge should expand as they experience more and that comes from how much teachers are willing to teach and learn more no matter what their native tongues are. The junior high school student, who learned her first alphabet in her english class, wanted to test out her english skills that she had learned and left her home and her country to live in the U. S. A. She has establish her life in english ever since and once again, she wants to test out her english skills, but this time not just to use them but to teach them. She is not sure if her opinion of non-native teacher in a classroom reaches out to the rest of the world, but she is determined to carry out her desire of teaching, just as she was determined to use them and she hopes she will make it. She searched the song she had heard on a commercial on TV which all had triggered her interest in learning english. That was Julie, do ya love me? by Bobby Sherman.