TEFL Zhuanghe

People spend their lives wondering if they should learn another language. The answer is obvious to anyone in the tesol or tefl field. Any amount of foreign language experience will be invaluable to both the teacher and students. The teacher must allow the experience to help enrich the classroom to make learning something enjoyable rather than something that’s required. If the teacher has foreign language experience, it reinforces the teacher’s understanding of the english language. When I was studying japanese, for example, I learned of the gerund—what it was and how to form it. A few years later, I encountered the gerund in my english class for the first time. While my classmates struggled to understand what a gerund was, I already had a good understanding of it. Had I not studied a foreign language, I would have felt as lost as the other students. teachers with a background in a foreign language should allow their experience to help them develop their view of english. This helps the teacher to see that english isn’t just the language that they speak on a daily basis, but a language made up of many complex parts. Only then can a teacher come to fully appreciate the language with its many quirks and difficulties. The teacher must see the language through the perspective of a language learner. This viewpoint is another benefit of foreign language experience. This course has shown me that teachers have a lot of barriers to overcome in a classroom—at home or abroad—and it will be up to the teacher to take the first step. Barriers like culture, age, and language will be the most difficult, and they will stand in the way of establishing a rapport with the student. Whether the teacher and students can find common ground with one another can affect successive classes and the overall learning experience. If the teacher can relate to the students in a way that shows that they are both learners, some of these barriers can be removed. A teacher in the role of a learner can more easily understand the difficulties of learning certain language points because the teacher has probably had that same difficulty. The teacher can understand why reading and writing is easier to master than speaking and listening. The teacher can share the students’ burdens and difficulties and overcome them together. In learning a foreign language, a teacher is sure to have come across numerous games and activities. These can easily be adapted for english language learning and tailored to fit both the needs of the group and the individual student. teachers are constantly in need of a variety of activities to maintain student interest. Here, the foreign language experience becomes vital to helping students stay motivated learners. A background in foreign language can help the teacher if the teacher can speak the students’ native tongue. Although it is largely frowned upon, the teacher can communicate with the students. The teacher must be very careful not to overuse the language. Imagine walking into a classroom on the first day and speaking to a class of blank faces. What if no one speaks or understands english? Knowledge of the students’ first language will undoubtedly be helpful especially to beginner students who will need gentle guidance and encouragement. Using the students’ native tongue can be a way to ease the students into learning the english language. When I was studying spanish in high school, the teacher spoke to us in english, using our native language to help us learn a new language. Another major benefit to knowing a foreign language is that it makes the teacher look more ideal to prospective employers. I’ve looked at several ads that wanted a teacher and many of them wanted the teacher to have some knowledge of a foreign language. This is ideal if the teacher does not have a Master’s degree or a background in education or linguistics. Foreign language experience is valuable for any teacher with benefits that not only aid the teacher but the students as well. If a teacher can put that experience to use, the outcomes are endless.