One thing I've never got about teaching English abroad...?

Question

How is it actually done? I've never found any info about this specifically... seeing as a lot of jobs don't even require you to speak the native language of the country you'll be teaching in - how do you teach people? For example if in Germany, how can you explain things to them about English without first knowing German?

Answer 1

You need very basic German or whatever. The best way to learn a foreign language (English included) is just to start speaking it really. You learn a few phrases, then different words then the sentence structure and verb conjugation and so on, rather than the other way round which is how it used to be. If you dont speak any of the language of the country youre going to teach in it will be difficult to explain how to do it.

Answer 2

it's amazing really.  i moved to Sweden from UK 1 year ago and went to classes FULL of immigrants and they only spoke Swedish to you because there wasn't a common language even tho'  the teachers all speak English , but there were students from Poland, Croatia, china , Russia .....  but with the aid of pictures and common sence it's amazing how you learn.  i am now quite fluent (well i get by and have passed the exam which employers look for) .   I suppose it's how children learn.  Everyday i pick up a new word.

Answer 3

you might feel that this is hard but no it isn't. i teach English for Arab students. they don't know English at all. and i don't know Arabic. i first started to teach them simple words  using realia. then by acting i started telling them simple statements which they can understand through context believe me it is not difficult as it seems you are gonna to succeed.

there is a journal called ELT journal it dives you techniques for teaching English as a second language without using the mother tongue. i am sure that it will benefit you.

good luck

Answer 4

There's a sit-com called "My Name is Earl" that did an episode on this very thing.  Earl has a list of things he did wrong in life, and he's trying to make things right by fixing what he did in the past.  He made fun of some foreign visitors to his town because they couldn't speak English well. So, he became a teacher in a night school: he was teaching English as a second language.  He had no idea how to go about it, and he was only able to really teach them, "My name is Earl", because of course he couldn't get them to understand he didn't want the phrase parroted, he wanted them to say their own name after "My name is..".

Long story short, you can actually get hired to teach English as a second language even if you do not know the native language of the student.  But it sure would help to know it!  The first link is to the web page for "My Name is Earl".  The second link is to About.com. They have FAQs about teaching English as a second language (ESL) on US soil and in foreign countries.  Hope it helps!!  (PS About.com will also have links on the page that you can use to dig even deeper.)

Answer 5

Agree with Juan.  They learn faster if you don't know or at least speak any of their language.

It is done by splitting the process up into lots of very small steps.  From 'Hello' 'Hello' onwards.

Just look at a coursebook and you will see how it works.