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TEFL Jerusalem

Check out Tesolcourse.com about TEFL Jerusalem and apply today to be certified to teach English abroad.

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This is how our TEFL graduates feel they have gained from their course, and how they plan to put into action what they learned:

K.Y. - Japan said:
There are lots of rewards when teaching english as a foreign language but it can also be very challenging. Being able to speak english doesn’t mean you will be able to teach it well. On the contrary, because we have leant it from birth there are lots of things that we have to consider that we never have before in order to teach it. Where we picked english up practically our students haven’t so we can not teach it how we have learnt it and this problem can become very difficult indeed .In this independent study I will analyze the difficulties that both teachers and students encounter with english as a foreign language. One of the major problems is pronunciation. The way we pronounce words cannot easily be picked up by foreign students. english has certain characteristics that are absent from other languages. Foreign students in japan for instance have difficulties pronouncing ‘R’ and ‘L’ sounds. They see them as the same and this is because the ‘L’ sound is non-existent in their own alphabet. Native speakers of the language do not need to think about these features. But when you teach english as a foreign language, you have to be able to explain and teach these minute differences and provide examples and drills. The worse part is that some mature students are so used to their own pronunciation that they may never pick it up. Grammar is also another difficulty that teachers are often faced with. For non-native speakers of the language some aspects of grammar are hard to understand. Because there is no exact equivalent of tenses and so on it is hard to choose the correct tense so students often find it difficult. On the teachers side we are masters of using english but often lack the theory behind it so explaining why a certain sentence or grammar is can become very confusing for us. Another challenge that we are faced with is to make the students ‘think’ in english. Most non-native speakers make mistakes in english because they are thinking in their own language and when translated to english it can become unreadable just like an international translator on the internet. It will translate but not correctly. Most natives and non-natives do not emphasis the balance of theory vs practical. Non-natives are too extreme on the theory and rely too much on that while natives are the opposite and rely too much on the practical or being satisfied on how something is said without knowing why. english is a forever evolving language and is too complicated to rely on just the theory side or the practical side so a greater awareness and improvement of both by both native teachers and non-native students must be acknowledged. The kind of students you have in your class is a point less looked at but is of equal importance to this study. As mature students have a bad habit of keeping to their style and are sometimes unwilling to adapt younger students tend to rely heavily on the teacher or others and show no independence or initiative of there own. Shy characters or unmotivated characters can also add to the difficulties of learning and teaching. Situations can be avoided if the teacher doesn’t automatically help the students straight away. Doing more than just teaching like establishing rapport, finding out about certain students and using that tactically as a way to teach can greatly help. Students who are shy or lack confidence can be encouraged if the teacher sets the right pace speaking slowly, clearly, using gestures and using the whiteboard, and prompting students for the right answer. Teaching materials and techniqu.s.can also aid in the difficulties of teaching. Visual images and demonstrations and even games or warm u.s.to change the mood can all help and will naturally help the relationship of the teacher and student. In conclusion, if the points mentioned above are improved then there is a greater hope that the solutions will out way the difficulties in teaching. People who take up teaching english as their career must appreciate the difficulties students from other countries face when they come to learn english. This understanding helps them teach their students more effectively and makes the entire process of teaching a rewarding and fulfilling job. While there are many challenges to teaching, the reward of helping a student learn a new language is worth the effort.


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