Teach English in Xinzhuang Zhen - Linyi Shi

I got excited when i heard about the TEFL Certificate which enables non-natives to teach English worldwide. While taking the online course, having seen most of the adds require being native speakers, makes me think about if they have any rightfulness in their opt or not. The most important and explicit difference of a non-native ESL teacher is observed in teaching grammar. A non-native teacher sets up a strong grammar foundation with all the necessary components needed to make the right sentence structure. Because to build up a strong and righteous building, you must have a good foundation. That is how non-natives learn English and they teach the same way how they have learnt . Black or white, there is no grey; a sentence is right or wrong depending on if you apply grammar rules or not. Starting from the first letter to the dot of a sentence, each unit has it’s own function and appropriate place in a sentence. A teacher shouldn’t skip any grammar rules while expecting from students to understand the logical process of how a sentence is made. If a native English teacher doesn’t really aim for teaching grammar, accidentally he can miss some grammar points or even he may underestimate so doesn’t mention some grammar details to the students thinking that it’s an unnecessary information or it’s so easy that he lets students take it as granted, hopefully one day they will memorize it. Because Engligh language is something dogmatic to him, because he has known the language without making an effort on learning it consciously, he can miss the importance of grammar while he is teaching. Grammar is the most essential and basic difference of a non-native teacher because what is invested in grammar is all reflected on students’ other skills of learning. If a student has the right amount of grammar knowledge, he/she won’t sacrifice from accuracy for fluency. Assuming enough time is given to the student to learn language, he will be accurate and have the optimum speed simultaneously. Advantages of a being a non-native ESL teacher arise from the reason of English language not being their first language. And what they do is to teach their second language to the students whose first language is not English either. The common point of the teacher and students is English as their second language so a non-native teacher inevitably makes empathy with the students. A non-native teacher knows what it is like to learn a totally foreign language, how it feels trying to give meaning to a totally meaningless combination of letters at first sight. First there is a tendency to take it like your first language, trying to figure it out why the sequence of words are weird and not like in your native language. It takes time to rise awareness of language in students’ perception. Learning native language is not same as learning second language. Because you can’t satisfy all the requirements of learning native language in learning second language process. Even if you can satisfy the external factors, you can’t settle the internal factors. He has gained his mother tongue. This implies that teaching a non-native language can’t and shouldn’t be like teaching a native language. ‘Learning mother tongue’, ‘learning second language’ and ‘teaching native language’ and ‘teaching second language’ are all different experiences. Teaching a non-native language experience can be gained first through learning a second language to put your feet in students’ shoes. For example; my native language is Turkish and second language is English. If i hadnt known English as a second language and if i had started to teach Turkish as a second language to non-native students -non-native Turkish learners-; it wouldn’t have been the same experience as i would teach Turkish after learning English. The best way to see and to get to know yourself is to go out and have a look at yourself from outside. Learning second language enables you to understand what a language is. Mother tongue is a collection of automatic sounds you produce to mean things, people, states or actions. If you learn a second language, you see what you have been actually doing in your mother tongue. Learning the third language will be a different experience, because while learning the second one, you have already gained the experience of learning a new language. Language awareness will develop easily and you will less likely try to make sentence structures as same as you do in your native language. Out of any combinations, being a non-native English teacher teaching in a third country -neither English nor your native language territory- gives the most satisfaction while teaching English. If she/he loves both English and teaching, not only students but also teacher will be highly motivated in teaching/learning process. Not only for the students, but the teacher works also for herself/himself to produce language to communicate with students where English is their only common language. When students learn a new vocabulary or structure which enables them to express themselves in English, they feel joy that they can’t feel while using their mother tongue. Learning a new language is opening a door to new worlds on the horizan. It’s not less than conquering a new continent or making an invention. This creates a light in students’ eyes. It is a mutual feeling. It is a pleasure to give someone the opportunity to learn a new language, to share students’ feelings while learning English. This study is not a complete comparison of native vs. non-native English teachers. It’s a compose of advantages of being or having a non-native perspective over natives . If a native teacher can develop a similar approach to teaching English in these items, he can create the same effect on learning.