Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Nangu Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Linyi Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.
I have chosen the topic “English as a Global Language” because for me this feels especially relevant, given that I am currently travelling. I am currently in Nepal, over 4.5 thousand miles from England and every person I meet speaks to me in my mother tongue. Great Britain’s colonial history has meant that English is widely spoken across the globe. What is interesting is that English is not the most spoken language. Chinese is the most spoken language by quite some distance, over 1.2billion people speak Chinese. Spanish is the second most spoken language. Native speakers of English only number about 360million. However many people across the world choose to learn English as a second language. I believe there are two primary reasons for this. The first is as I described in the opening paragraph - English is an incredibly useful language for travel. People who want to travel or who work in tourism will find life much easier if they learn English. The second is the amount of English in popular culture. The United States has a massive cultural output which shapes much of modern tastes and trends. People learn English because they want to watch the latest Hollywood films or understand the most popular HipHop albums. I consider myself very fortunate to have been born a native English speaker. However, it does make learning other languages less appealing. This is not to say that I do not want to learn other languages but it removes the necessity. I speak to some degree many different languages. For example, last year I lived in Berlin. I had private tuition and also picked up a fair amount of the language while I was there. I was able to hold conversation about topics with which I was comfortable and was able to read magazines and watch and understand some television. I left Berlin and came travelling. I was sad to be leaving Germany before I had felt really confident with my language skills but I assured myself that I would practice with German people that I met. If I did not speak English I would be forced to attempt to speak German to people I met. However, because as I have previously described people that travel do learn English, any Germans that I have met can speak my language fluently. If I want to communicate with them in German it is a struggle for both them and for myself, and when another common language is available we will always switch back to English. One thing that appeals to me about the TEFL course is that I can teach anywhere in the world. This will give me the opportunity to live overseas and really learn another language properly, while sharing the gift of English with others. The prevelance of English for tourists worldwide means that by teaching students English you are giving them the ability to travel themselves one day. I cannot think of a more inspiring gift that I could impart and I am excited to start teaching.
