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As teachers of upper school children, we realized right from the beginning of our teaching career that we didn?t know enough about the basic structure of the english language. We went in with the main aim of, to be honest, having a better chance of getting a job in an International School. Even though we have achieved this, we have also gained so much more ? some expected, some unexpected. The expected gains were a better understanding of the english language to help us in our teaching. The unexpected was a different way to look at our lessons ? we are trained university educated teachers, so we thought we knew that part already, however it is important to remember that there are always other ways to look at things, even something as simple as lesson plans. We also learnt that we know how to teach EAL students, even though we haven?t really ever taught them. We have taught, though, students with learning difficulties and special needs, for example, and that required many changes that we would now make in an EAL class. Many of the tasks that we modify for learning difficulty students, such as many diagrams, visual stimulus, choice of text etc we will continue to use in the EAL classroom. We do however, need to learn even more on the structure of the english language and spend more time actually using this, as we think it is something that is learnt with time, just like a foreign language, (even though it is not a foreign language for me). We plan to use (and we actually have in our 2 months as a teacher in cambodia) about the use of pronunciation, and the kids actually enjoy and appreciate it, as they say it makes them feel more comfortable and confident in speaking (as our younger ones are pretty quiet). That?s been a really positive benefit of using what we have learnt in my classroom which we are planning on continuing and increasing ? and we?re actually teaching english literature, not the structure of the english language. We?ve learnt that we already know quite a lot, we just need to ?tweak? some of it to help us teach our EAL students more effectively.
