Posted: June 27th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: TESOL Information | No Comments »
Some who came upon the title of this post probably thought it would be a post on what makes a good teacher. While partially that is true but it is actually a little more personal than you may have expected. One of the assignments of my training for TESOL was to pick the characteristics of the 3 most influential teachers throughout my childhood. The three teachers that I picked differed in age as well as the characteristics I found good.
The first teacher I picked was my first grade teacher who was close to retirement age and what I think made her good was that she respected a student’s individual abilities and didn’t judge the class as a whole. I wrote about my struggles of being left-handed in a right-hand world and thinking that maybe something was wrong with me and I was not normal. She helped me adjust my way of doing things to where I felt as normal as the right-handed people in the class.
The second teacher I picked was a teacher who injected humor and storytelling into his lessons on history. By doing this he made history my favorite subject and still of great interest to me. This characteristic is one characteristic that teachers or teachers- to- be should try to attain in my opinion.
The third teacher I mentioned was a young teacher straight out of college who could understand what kids of our age were going through due to being close to our ages. He had a characteristic that I look for in a leader as well as a teacher. He could relate to students but still had an air of authority which still let the students know he was in charge. So you see this is some of the characteristics that I hope to show during my career as a teacher which will in turn influence my students positively.
I read a story a few days ago about this guy who got fired by a major airline. To get back at them he wrote and distributed a book about how to travel cheaply. He got death threats and all kinds of hassles for the secrets he told about how airlines rip you off. If you want to read about this guy and see what his book is all about Click here to view more details
Posted: June 9th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: TESOL Information | No Comments »
Back in the day before telphones and computers were common if you needed to get a message to someone fast it was usually done by telegram. Telegrams were morse code messages sent from station to station and delivered personally to the receiver. Since the messages were sent by morse code they had to be transferred to regular words and to save time the messages were sent excluding conjunctions or articles.
As children mature and learn English they use what is called telegraphic speech. If a child says “water now” we know that he means “I would appreciate some water immediately.” Like the telegram the child is speaking using only two to three words to get their point across. But unlike the telegram the child is using telegraphic speech because of lack of language skills rather than for convenience.
In most children the telegraphic speach stage occurs between the ages of 18-36 months or when a person is just beginning to speak a second language. In this stage the child or speaker are able to understand much more than they can verbally show.
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Posted: June 4th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: TESOL Information | No Comments »
Well it’s been awhile since I’ve posted on this site but believe me the last couple of weeks have been very busy and interesting. I have been studying and doing assignments in functions, learning strategies, and teaching methods. I’ve also been reading and concentrating on different concepts introduced in context to TESOL teaching. Other than that I have my tagalog studies that I feel I may never finish but may take me the rest of my life! LOL!
All that’s left to do before I apply for certification is my thesis. I probably should already know what I want for the topic but right now I don’t. I’m not on any time limit but the sooner I get started the sooner I am done and can start looking at jobs. If anyone has suggestions on topics I will be glad to look them over when choosing. Right now my head is full of information I have just learned so I may take a day or so to clear my mind and then begin seriously getting started.
In the meantime I’d like to share a website for a school in the Philippines that I would consider as my favorite candidate for a job if I meet the qualifications. It is close to my house and I have spent time at the school and really loved it. Just click on the provided link to check it out.
Brent International School
60 Minutes to Learn The Thai Alphabet
Posted: May 30th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: TESOL Information | No Comments »
I imagine in earlier days teaching ESL was all done in basically the same way. But with the technological advances in recent years ESL teaching and learning has become much easier. Take for example podcasts, which are digital media files that are made available for download via web syndication. If you have a computer or MP3 player you can download these files and play them back whenever you feel like it. You can subscribe through an RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication) and get new files whenever they become available. Somtimes podcasts are short 3-5 minutes or they could last as long as one hour. My first experience with podcasts was through Itunes where I picked up music files, for free, and loaded them on my hard drive. One day I went looking for a podcast concerning learning Tagalog and found quite a few which I have subscribed to. I now have a free source of language teaching available whenever I have the time to study. Likewise, I can download them to my Ipod and listen while I’m jogging or working out at the gym. Just recently I searched on Itunes for TESOL and ESL files and returned 19 results of subscriptions for TESOL and 150 files for ESL. Most of these are free and yours to use in your teaching of ESL.
Other input sources that I’ve studied about are music and video. Music or songs are probably one of the easiest and most popular sources available and one that I surely will use. Just about everyone loves music and no matter what age there is some way you can use music in the classroom. Take for example lyrics to songs, you can teach rhythm patterns or rhyming words in class and how they work in the English language. And with the popularity of English songs worldwide many of the students will be familiar with the words to the songs. Young people will usually spend more time with the songs than they do studying material from the classroom.
As far as videos go, they follow many of the same things you would do with music or podcasts. As a teacher you could record DVD’s and play them for the class or record something off of TV or even show a movie. The advantage of using video in the classroom is that the students can observe someone who speaks English as their first language conversing or livng in their own environment. I plan on using these and other input sources as I teach children and possibly adults in my career as a teacher.
Posted: May 4th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: TESOL Information | No Comments »
- One of My Lovely Nieces
What countries will you teach in? One of the first decisions that needs to be made after deciding that you want to teach and what age group you want to teach. As I have mentioned previously I love the Philippines and have lived there for extended periods of time since 1977. It is a beautiful country and it is close to many of the countries where the opportunity to teach English is bountiful. Countries such as China, Japan, and Korea see learning English as a necessity to prosper in this world. It is the language of business everywhere. As such, and also since my wife’s family live in the Philippines we will be based out of there in the area of Manila. We built a house in a very nice subdivision on the outskirts of the city and for what it cost, we are very happy with it. Actually, my nephew was one of the first residents of the subdivision and the lot beside him became available and we jumped right on it.
With the Philippines being our base we have not only the opportunity to take contracts throughout Asia, but the Philippines happens to be the country in which many Asian countries such as Korea have opened English language schools. Parents are actually sending their children and teens to these schools which provide them with room and board while they attend. Another factor in the favor of the Philippines is the fact that the calls center industry has recognized the Philippines as a top country to do business in. Don’t be suprised if when your computer breaks or you have a problem with your credit card account, you end up talking to a Filipino. The only problems in this case are that some Filipinos have an accent that can make them hard to understand while talking to a native English speaker. Couple that with them not knowing general American slang, and communication can be a problem. Many call center companies now give an English proficiency exam to potential employees. Many Filipinos that want to get hired obtain native English speakers as tutors. So the opportunity to stay in the Philippines while teaching TESOL is great.
I hope through this post that you see the opportunities in various countries available for TESOL and if you are a potential teacher you may want to explore them.
Posted: May 2nd, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: TESOL Information | No Comments »
According to wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia acronyms are “abbreviations that are formed using the initial components in a phrase or name. These components may be individual letters (as in CEO) or parts of words (as in Benelux or Delmarva).”
Some common acronyms for TESOL and their meanings are:
TESOL-Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
TESL-Teaching English as a Second Language
TEFL-Teaching English as a Foreign Language
ELL-English Language Learner
HLS-Home Language Survey
L1-First Language (A students native language)
L2-Second Language (Language being Learned)
NES-Non English Speaking
SLA-Second Language Acqusition
Reading, Writing and Learning in ESL: A Resource Book for Teaching K-12 English Learners (with MyEducationLab) (5th Edition) (MyEducationLab Series)
Posted: May 1st, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: TESOL Information | 2 Comments »
In the first lesson of my training for TESOL this was the first question asked. After looking at the options available and an explanation of each of the age groups you might pick up that this is a two part question. What I mean is you a little of the good and bad of each age group and the new student may realize they don’t want to teach to any of them and it’s best they find out right away.
Children age Five to seven years old is the first group. Basically children in this age group can talk about what they are doing and can tell you what they have done or heard. Children of this age group have vivid imaginations and sometimes these imaginations and reality clash. They are also very logical in that they will do what you say first. An example would be you “Before you turn off the light, put your books away.” To this age that may be understood as “Turn off the light and put your books away.” Young children may have a problem with sharing and will want to work alone but be around people and they love to play and learn best when they are in an enjoyable atmosphere.
Eight to ten year olds are relatively mature and most of their basic concepts like the difference between fact and fiction are formed. They will ask questions all the time but not the simple questions of the previous age group. These questions may catch you off guard at some time or another. Some of the other basic concepts they have developed are decision making, definite views of what they like and don’t like, and a sense of fairness. Children in this age group have some language awareness, in other words they know about words and structures of sentences so that will make teaching much better.
As far as above ten years of age most of the language skills of their own language have developed and also the maturity factor is to the point that we can teach a foreign language using the same techniques all the way to adulthood.
My answer to what age will you teach was the eight to ten year olds because I really am interested in this group. The children I have known in this age group were fun to talk to especially my nieces and nephews in the Philippines. I just seem to get along better with children of this age but I also would like to work with students at the college level. The children will be a blessing to teach and help to discover the English language and the college level I plan on teaching business English to help them in the job market. I hope I haven’t bored you too much with this post and I promise from here on in the site will be more personal than technical. If you’d like to learn more about my views on the different age groups you can link to a report I did for school here. Also I am leaving two links below to the textbooks I used while attending certification training for TESOL.
The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (Applied Linguistics Non Series)
Teaching English to Children (Longman Keys to Language Teaching)
Posted: April 28th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: TESOL Information | No Comments »
The acronym TESOL stands for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. There are other acronyms like TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language), EFL (English as a Foreign Language), and others that I may use within this site. But basically the TESOL will be the school of thought I will use the most. Hopefully you’ve picked up that this will be about teaching English whether it is to adults or children or ages in between. The students are at various levels of English speaking and comprehension from no English to a limited vocabulary. I will be going over techniques I plan on using and techniques that I have used. But I’ll try to keep the technical stuff to a minimum as this site is about my journey and not just my classes. After all I’m not trying to put you to sleep with the boring stuff.
In my journey, I will take you from my decision on what age group I wanted to teach, to what countries are available for teachers. Many countries need teachers of English, some more than others, and some countries are even sending their children to other countries to learn English. An example is the influx of Korean students to the Philippines because English is the common second language in the Philippines. There are schools for teaching English to Korean students popping up all over that country. So the opportunity for me to find a job is very good especially in the Philippines where I hope to be based. I will talk about this in a later post.