TEFL About TEFL
Find out what TEFL is all about and what all these terms like TESOL, TESL and TEFL mean.
From TEFLtastic: How The Future Of Textbooks Has To Be
If you’re into predicting the future, and you’ve already digested my five TEFL trend predictions, have a go at Alex Case’s how the future of textbooks has to be.
He says that some of the most important new-ish knowledge about learning has not really been incorporated all in one textbook…and he has some answers.
First of all, what’s this new-ish knowledge on learning? In his words:
What we teach is not the same as what students learn
There is a long delay and many stages between coming across the language for the first time and mastering it
People learn differently and so learn different things at different speeds
He goes on to suggest how textbooks themselves, workbooks, and also tests need to change to better reflect this current knowledge.
I especially like his suggestions for textbooks to break grammar points down, so they resemble bite-sized chunks rather than the family-size portions they come in now (if I understand and summarize this correctly). Granted, current textbooks are probably an improvement on past ones, but I’m with Alex here on breaking it down more. Why?
“… an approach where the stages are clearly divided also frees us up from having to use all those stages all the time and allows us to judge with each grammar point etc. whether students would benefit more from polishing something up or seeing something new, depending on our aims.”
I quote this with joy because, over at a site that rhymes with ESL ashtray, someone called me a “teacher without a clue” when I attempted to explain something along these lines. To be fair, I was nowhere near as coherent as Alex, so I will put my voodoo doll away and save this quote for another fruitful online mud-slinging fest.
I do not have strong feelings on improving workbooks, but Alex’s ideas on testing?
Someone frame this and put it up on the wall:
Date: August 13th, 2007 |
7 comments
Which Five TEFL Trends Will Still Be Around In Five Years’ Time?
The TEFL Logue is nearing its one year anniversary, which means over three hundred days of posting and nearly 850 posts full of my own unique variety of TEFL Logue cheer.
Had someone told me just over one year ago that today I would be a blogger with that many posts under my belt, I would never have believed it. But even one short year can hold a lot of surprises.
TEFL itself is a field where methods and, yes, also teachers, come and go at the drop of a hat.
So which TEFL trends will still be around in five years’ time?
Date: August 2nd, 2007 |
4 comments
Is The TEFL Logue Part Of The Dark Side?
I’ll come clean: sometimes I wonder if the TEFL Logue plays a role in the “dark side” of TEFL. What dark side, you may ask (or perhaps “which dark side”)? Let me explain.
There are certainly times when I have cursed the name of a field where it sometimes happens that teachers get paid late, feel exploited, or experience discrimination (see the lengthy comment). These things may not happen all the time, but I don’t believe the situations mentioned here are isolated cases at all. While I’ve made my point that I also find it offensive to liken teachers to victims of human trafficking or something – it’s fairly obvious to anyone who looks objectively at the field that sketchy stuff does go on. Sure, employers get a raw deal sometimes and not to mention students, but this blog is focused on teachers.
It also seems fairly obvious that the abundance of new teachers can be connected to poorer conditions overall; commercial schools don’t find it cost effective to invest in good conditions and pay when they can get people to do the work for low pay and poor conditions for a year, and then count on some bright-eyed bushy-tailed new ones to usher in when the “old ones” leave. Does the TEFL Logue play a role in convincing those teachers to go? Am I myself one of those teachers?
Date: July 5th, 2007 |
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Assumptions About Native Speaker Teachers
A recent blog post on “unqualified” native speaker teachers in China got me thinking more about expectations on both sides when a native speaker teacher is involved. It’s my opinion that one of the most frustrating situations along these lines is when there is some vague, mostly unspoken notion that native speakers and local teachers do actually have different roles, even though there is no explicit distinction made…and it’s taken for granted that the native speakers can’t possibly know anything about teaching or grammar.
I once heard a school owner tell a teacher – who happened to be a native speaker - with seven years experience that “We [meaning “not you”] understand how learning happens. It’s fine when it’s all fun and games, but when it comes to actually learning something, well…”, followed by a head shake.
Date: July 2nd, 2007 |
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Are EFL Teachers Expats?
While most sources define an expat simply as someone living outside their own country, a discussion arose on Dave’s ESL Café about this very topic, and most teachers seem to agree that they, at least, do not consider themselves expats.
It’s interesting to me in the sense of how people identify themselves or others; I don’t feel a great personal stake in whether people consider EFL teachers in general or me in particular an expat. Some teachers felt the title of “expat” usually goes along a high salary, or a relocation more focused on a specific job or position (the company sent the person abroad to do the same job; the person sought out one particular position abroad). Concerning the last point, I don’t think this would always exclude English teachers, but there’s still some distinction in my mind. Could the defining factor be that the employer is in the person’s own country, or is not a local employer? While I don’t know how much of a difference this always makes in practice (though sometimes it makes a big difference), it might best fit who people just consider expats and who they do not.
Date: June 21st, 2007 |
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Accent Reduction, Or: Intriguing Post-TEFL Job Opportunity
Having lived about four years now in different Eastern European countries, I bet I could trick 9 out of 10 Americans into thinking I’m from there by speaking English with an appropriate accent. I think EFL teachers who have lived in a country or region for a while would probably make excellent Hollywood dialect coaches…has anyone tried this?
This topic comes up because I’ve recently come across an article on foreign accents and one on accent reduction. I’ve never focused explicitly on accent reduction – obviously pronunciation and listening practice play a role in this – but an accent is different from just “bad” pronunciation. In the general English classes I’ve taught, even the higher levels, there is usually a syllabus to cover with items students and administration consider (perhaps rightly so) more important than accent reduction.
There’s also an argument for leaving an accent alone – if people can communicate, why should they have to sound exactly like Brits, Americans, Canadians, South Africans or Australians? English doesn’t “belong” just to native speakers.
Date: August 10th, 2007 |
2 comments
Alternative English Teaching Jargon From TEFLtastic
Alex Case of TEFLtastic has come up with not one, two, or three, but four separate lists of alternative EFL jargon. Here are a few of my favorites:
advanced learner: a proficient user of a foreign language. One who can correct their teacher once or twice a term and still thinks it is clever to do so. A learner who could do so even more but has learnt that they are actually there to learn something and move up to the next level is defined as proficiency level.
clause- Clauses are the largest grammatical unit smaller than a whole sentence. Not to be confused with ‘Klaus’, who is the man with the largest waistline ever to attempt to wear leather shorts. [Puts a new spin on Santa, doesn't it?]
I was also pleased to see a couple of TEFL Logue-coined phrases included too (though I should point out that Alex came up with the definitions):
Trinity-kins- Teachers fresh off the Trinity Certificate, with a innocent, childlike enthusiasm still in their eyes
CELToids- a new generation of impeccably-trained CELTA-trained pre-teaching machines ready to take over the world
Alex’s creativity got me thinking: Have I made any contributions to TEFL jargon?
Date: July 30th, 2007 |
1 comment
The Great DELTA / MA Debate
Pick up a chair of your choice to use as a weapon because TEFLtastic has a debate: DELTA or MA? I’m semi-kidding about the chair (that’s a Jerry Springer reference and chairs don’t work on the web) but discussions about qualifications can get heated.
I’ll clarify my own position first: I have a CELTA (which, on occasion, people seem to love to hate), and while people may make assumptions about my future plans based on my admission that I took the GRE…don’t jump to conclusions! Despite the vast amount of info I share here, I don’t make all my plans public.
In any case, aside from my support for the DELTA because, well, it rhymes real nice with CELTA, I recognize that without any qualification beyond the CELTA, I am not personally in the best position to speak authoritatively on the MA/DELTA debate. The TEFL Logue has featured an interview with a DELTA grad as well as guest posts from an MA holder.
Most people have experience with one or the other – but not both. So when you come across someone who does have experience of both…I’d say they are well worth listening to. And in fact, Alex Case of TEFLtastic fits that bill, plus he has had experience training people with different qualifications - including some with ESOL MA’s. Head on over to TEFLtastic to see what he has to say about all this.
Date: July 4th, 2007 |
3 comments
Advice For Discrimination?
From time to time, questions and comments come up about foreigners experiencing discrimination or worse because of their nationality, religion, race, etc. (and I’ve posted about it also here and here). I recently decided against profiling a certain country in the Spotlights on section after finding multiple online reports of physical attacks on black individuals – immigrants, travelers or others working there. Obviously I think this kind of behavior is not okay – with any travel there is an element of accepting the way of life elsewhere, but at the same time, some things are just wrong wherever they happen. I don’t believe that someone opposed to discrimination is “culturally insensitive” or unreasonably unwilling to accept a different culture. Nor do I think that discrimination is necessarily a way of life in countries where it does happen - though, if it goes unpunished or unquestioned, in my mind this certainly does reflect on the country as a whole.
Sometimes the answer given by people who do not experience that discrimination is “just don’t go if you know about it” (and closely conjoined is “you have no right to complain if you decide to go anyway.”) It seems rather obvious that yes, a person is more likely to have an enjoyable experience in a place where they are not discriminated against. And while I would most certainly respect the decision of a person who decided not to go for fear of discrimination or threats to their physical safety, and would not want to advise someone to throw caution about their mental or physical well-being to the wind, this “don’t go or don’t complain” from people who don’t experience that discrimination upsets me. It doesn’t matter if there is racism somewhere – it’s still wrong, and is not somehow lessened by “you knew what you were in for”. You can tie this attitude to various historical and relatively current events and it’s not pretty.
Date: June 23rd, 2007 |
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Differences Between British And American English
I’ve recently made my point that the differences between British and American (and generally among all variants of English) matter little; here is a rundown of some of the basic grammar/vocab differences I’ve found, which contribute to my opinion that they are relatively insignificant As British and American English are the most common terms I am used to hearing, I use those here, though I realize there are many other varieties of English and do not mean to slight them by not naming and comparing all of them here.
To start, I do think factors like intonation and the overall “pace” (meter?) of speech play a significant role in some of the overall differences, and some standard pronunciation differences like the “a” and “r”. But beyond this, here you are:
Get on (/along) well with, consist in (/of), at (on) weekends, and probably a few others like this
Stop someone (+from) getting angry
Mark (/grade) tests, have (/take) a look
All the overrated silly ones like lorry/truck
Occasionally a little extra present perfect and “have got” in British English
And then a few which can lead to rather humorous misunderstandings like trousers/pants and pants/underwear.
Date: June 7th, 2007 |
2 comments
