Why ESL teachers are the best teachers and the best learners

I had a French teacher, back in 1967, believe it or not, in 7th grade – who was extremely strict and we were scared of her. A parent confronted her and found she had done her student teaching in a violent inner city school and was terrified of the students there. We were in a rural school, with many teens coming from farms. She soon changed her tactics, but she caused great harm in learning French. I learned because of the disciplined teaching, but learned no conversational skills from her. An older and wiser French teacher came along after her who was well traveled in France, she was wonderful.

As an ESL teacher and a teacher trainer I can 100% totally agree with you. ESL is about being fun, playful and using positivity, and it is the enjoyment that keeps kids (& adults) learning and growing as confident English speakers.
Great post Benny!

I agree with you! Though I am new to this field, only started about less than a year ago- the reasons you stated are the reasons I got into it. Also, I notice the tips I give people I assist I have begun to use on myself. I am an American English speaker who’s trying to learn Indian languages- Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi for a long time the traditional ways and very unsuccessful. But with some of the tips I gave in learning conversational English transferred to learning the Indian languages, I am making some progress. Thank you for sharing this.

Useful tips Benny, now I’m learning on English course at work and my teachers use techniques which you posted. My course concentrate at speaking (modify Callan method) but often we have a small talks about life too, it’s very helpful to my confidence and improving my English skill.

My 7th grade Spanish teacher spoke to us only in Spanish the whole year. On the first day, we learned to understand him and his gestures… and he very patiently coached us through “el baño por favor”… His teaching style made a lasting impression on me, and I think there was merit to it, but none of us were even conversational at the end of that year. I think I learned more about understanding foreign-speak than I did about speaking a foreign language. In fact, the following year I had Spanish II with a different teacher and after two years of Spanish I still couldn’t have even a basic conversation.

So I think the most important detail in your post is the part that got the least attention: it’s active participation that makes the difference. Getting people talking. Asking them questions and helping them learn how to answer. Learning to have a conversation. In spite of my lack of progress in two years of classroom, I learned more about conversations in my first 10 minutes on ICQ (remember when that was popular?) with a cute girl from Argentina… because I wanted to talk to her.

I agree with some of what you say but I think that you are not really comparing like with like. The approach to teaching languages varies from country to country. In Holland I know from experience that there is a big emphasis on grammar when teaching languages and yet Dutch people nearly all speak English well and most can manage in German plus others. I think that grammar is very useful if you already know the grammar of your own language. Too much of it is boring but ignoring it altogether is taking a very useful tool away from learners of a language.
You are a big proponent of learning languages through the target language. I learned French and Irish without hearing a word of English in my school career. I came out of it well but I have to say that I did not understand Irish grammar until much later because they never explained the terms into English. I learned by instinct but explanations in English would have made things a lot easier. Sure teachers should use the target language as much as possible but it shouldn’t be a dogma.
Another point that I think is very important is that school syllabuses normally concern literature and culture as well not just language. Reading poetry in French or German or Spanish is not always fun but it is necessary. In this case also explanation in the local language can help understanding literature.

I’m always pleased to hear that some teachers do this in “regular” classrooms

It all depends on the person. Some people do like to analyse a language and understand the structure behind it. I’ll admit that I am partially in that field too. But to most people these explanations are boring and will not help them when they learn their first language. You’re right of course that knowing the words and how they sound is the key!

Excellent post, Benny!

>>All I remember about my German classes in school was constantly being wrong, feeling stupid and a suffering through a marking system that emphasised my mistakes rather than focusing on progress.<<

I remember that from my high school German classes, too! Fortunately, my University German instructors were much better. Sadly, my first Italian instructor did a lot of the ‘looking over your shoulder’ to jump on your mistakes. I think he meant well but I really differed with his style of teaching.

I’m an ESL teacher, too, or have been, and I love it! I too find it gives me energy and motivation to learn languages. I think learning languages also makes you a better ESL teacher because you know what the students are going through and will be better able to understand and help them.

That pirate treasure hunt sounds like a great idea, too! I bet your students loved it and learned a lot without even trying that hard!

Hi there,
Could you suggest any particular trainer for ESL? I live in Australia but am overwhelmed by the amount of course suppliers all with their spin on TESOL qualifications etc. I did look into a few times but always ended up too confused with who and which qualification is the useful and recognised one! By the way, love your posts! Keep them coming.
Cheers,
Michelle

Hi Benny,

I’m both an ESL teacher and a “traditional” English teacher and you make some excellent points. I am all for more communicative classrooms and I try to use my ESL experience to actually get people talking, regardless of what kind of class it is. However there are some hurdles that make this very challenging:

* Class size – ESL classes in language schools are often 10-15 students. This is an ideal and manageable size. Everyone gets to talk, it’s easy to monitor, it’s the perfect size for playing games in two teams or groups of three. Secondary school classes in Holland (where I teach) are usually 25-30 students. To my embarrassment, I often find myself ‘losing’ students – reflecting on a class I just taught, I realize some students have not spoken or even participated at all. But hey, I guess I’m still lucky, in China a normal class is around sixty students!

* Difference in motivation – In ESL classes, people are often there because they want to be there. There’s often different ages in a class, sometimes different backgrounds. There’s of course the odd student who is there because someone is making them but in my experience most of my classes consisted largely of people who wanted to learn English. The difference with a room full of reluctant Dutch teenagers is huge! A lot of my time and energy goes to classroom management, getting students to stop playing with their iPods, talking about their weekends (if they’d do that in English, I wouldn’t mind, but sadly they don’t) and sleeping. This is something I hardly ever had to pay attention to in ESL classrooms.

* Time constraints – In ESL settings, you often have a class for a couple of hours a day. This gives you time for games, flexibility to let the students stay in their flow and to deviate from your lesson plan. In secondary school, most classes have English for one ninety minute class a week. This messes with the idea of immersion as well, you know it takes some time to ‘get into’ a language and often the time allotted simply isn’t enough to accomplish that.

* Curriculum constraints – In ESL, usually the director tells you: here’s resources for your level, go create some nice classes! I love the freedom to play around with it, experimenting, finding new ways to get my kids to talk. In traditional teaching, there’s stuff to get through, files to complete, grammar to be explained (and yes, we have to do that, although lately there’s some talk of teaching grammar in chunks, rather than with rules, which I’m very pleased with!), stuff to be handed in, standardized tests to be prepared for…

* Mindset – Languages have the reputation of being hard to learn (you know all about this!). To teach a secondary school class entirely in the target language therefore has the effect of alienating you from students, many of who don’t want to be there to begin with. I’ve found it very difficult to create rapport with a class if I only speak English, and therefore it’s tempting to fall back on Dutch every now and again. I think this one will be the easiest to fix though. I just need to be consistent…

Don’t let this list of Yes, but… – points fool you: I completely agree with you! It is time for change when it comes to traditional teaching (because it’s just SO inefficient) and I do my best to be part of that change. So if you have any tips on how to get around these things I’d love to hear them! Sorry for rambling on for so long, keep up the good work and have fun with the Hungarian!

Some excellent arguments there Welmoed! These are the very challenges that make the academic system a very difficult way to efficiently teach a language. Most of these are problems with how the school organises the classes and can never be the teacher’s fault.

Although I should add that most of my ESL children (obviously not adults) really did not want to be there and only went because their parents told them to.

I did teach in a traditional school once as a substitute teacher and I found many problems, and I can see how a teacher may get demotivated in that environment. Even though I had a particular course to follow, I still talked about it passionately and attempted to interact with as many students as I could and I found this was very effective. However, keeping that up from 9-5 5 days a week is exhausting!

As well as this, those at ESL courses tend to come from well-off families (since the courses are usually done in private schools and would be somewhat expensive). Public schools with people from many backgrounds creates a new challenge, and injecting enthusiasm into some students who really think there is nothing they can ever learn is very very hard.

My advice to you: lots of Red Bull

No, I read the article, I think you’ve just misunderstood me.
I’m not talking about knowing what a pronoun is, I’m talking about knowing how to use them. I’m talking about a language class, not a linguistics class. Teaching them explicitly doesn’t even require you to say the word “pronoun” even once.

When I talk about “abstract”, what I mean is non-concrete vocabulary. In an native-language-only environment, it’s very hard to teach things like modals — should, could etc. It’s the modals that express attitude and feeling — real communication. But the native-language only learner is forced to talk in facts, commentating the world around him.

Most of the abstracts in language can be tied to a close equivalent in other languages.

Take adverbs of frequency.

These are completely non-concrete, and when we introduce them, we tend to use a gradable cline of the form:
always – often – sometimes – occasionally – rarely – never.
Why do we use the gradable cline? Because there is nothing concrete to point to, so we rely on semantics to give us the meaning. But what’s wrong with “sempre = always”?

This lets us use the word much sooner than would otherwise be possible. And if our goal is communication, surely it’s better to spend as little time on teaching the words and as much time as possible on using and practising them in communication?

I went into TEFL in 2007 after a couple of years of thinking about it, and it was noticable looking at the job ads on the internet that the importance of the CELTA was increasing year on year.

A particular problem is that more and more schools are signing up for British Council accreditation, and the British Council only accepts schools with properly qualified teachers.

Of course, there are the “method” schools that don’t require any certificates at all, as you will be trained in their strict methods by the schools themselves. The main three I know of are Berlitz, InLingua and schools using the Callan method. Any of these will let you in on the strength of an interview, but the big chains like Berlitz and InLingua have a bit of a reputation for treating their employees like dirt — which they can get away with, because they know that you’ll have problems walking away and finding another job without any general qualifications.

So while there are still jobs out there that don’t require the CELTA or Trinity, it’s dangerous for anyone to rely on finding one. Recognised qualifications give you far more opportunities.

Actually, I don’t totally agree with you. As a french FLES (français langue étrangère et seconde) teacher, I know that all depends on the public you have in front of you. Some children need grammar, some don’t need. I try to speak and to make them speak most of the time, but sometimes, they ask me “pourquoi on dit comme ça ?” and they can’t manage to speak well untill they know why.
Anyway, I don’t mean that your way of teaching is not good, but I just wanted to bring some nuances.

Aussi, j’avais la flemme de lire tous les commentaires, donc je ne sais pas si ça a été dit, mais je pense que le fait d’avoir un prof natif qui parle naturellement permet d’apprendre la “vraie” langue, celle que les autochtones parlent réellement, et pas la langue “idéale” qui n’existe pas.

In the US, I had two experiences of studying a foreign language the bad way like Benny describes, and learned another foreign language in an ESL like school (learning German in Germany) that is more like what Benny describes as the good way.

But the best learning experience I had was combining the two, at what is one of the best schools in the world – Middlebury College Summer Language program. They had the academic rigor that can be disheartening at typical schools, but made it real by requiring every student to speak ZERO English the entire time they were there – INCLUDING when going into the quaint New England village to shop, eat, socialize.

Yes, I had to learn grammar rules and memorize lots of vocabulary and writing (this was Japanese), but the requirement to speak was key. Occasionally the teacher would use a little English, and you would see and hear English in the village, but it really was minimal compared to all the immersion you got in that quaint New England setting.

In the US, I had two experiences of studying a foreign language the bad way like Benny describes, and learned another foreign language in an ESL like school (learning German in Germany) that is more like what Benny describes as the good way.

But the best learning experience I had was combining the two, at what is one of the best schools in the world – Middlebury College Summer Language program. They had the academic rigor that can be disheartening at typical schools, but made it real by requiring every student to speak ZERO English the entire time they were there – INCLUDING when going into the quaint New England village to shop, eat, socialize.

Yes, I had to learn grammar rules and memorize lots of vocabulary and writing (this was Japanese), but the requirement to speak was key. Occasionally the teacher would use a little English, and you would see and hear English in the village, but it really was minimal compared to all the immersion you got in that quaint New England setting.

I have a story as a student rather than a teacher. This past summer I was studying French with a group of about 20 or so other American students in Toulouse. As per curriculum we would rotate classes and teachers throughout the weeks and the different teaching styles were very interesting to observe. (Sorry in advance if this starts to sound like a rant)

ONE: The first professor spoke to the class almost entirely in English (which she spoke perfectly), unless we asked for a specific word or phrase. She did this because she wanted to make sure even the most beginner students could understand everything. She was a sweet lady and genuinely wanted to see us succeed in French, but her methods of speaking to us in English on top of tired worksheet activities led to most people dozing off or staring out the window wishing for class to be over. Most of the students agreed how little they learned in that class.

TWO: Another professor was a feisty Frenchwoman, who also spoke perfect English, though she would only speak to the class in French, one up from the first class. This professor however was, how should I say, very abrasive. She would get in students faces (literally) and demand that they explain whatever they were asked or trying talk about to her immediately, not giving students time to think or really formulate a decent answer at all which in turn caused even the most outspoken and confident students to become very flustered and extremely hesitant about participating in class at all. The professor would also frequently LAUGH at mistakes that students would make when they did dare to speak up, incredibly discouraging. Perhaps she thought that embarrassment was a sufficient way for students to learn from their mistakes but all that really caused was the withdrawn students became more withdrawn and the outspoken students to speak much less and become slightly hostile towards the teacher.

The obvious flaws aside, her methods of singing, crazy dancing and acting out songs were particularly exciting ways of keeping students involved and give a reprieve from her drill sergeant style interrogation.

THREE: The third professor in the program refused to speak any English to his classes, and not even for the benefit of the students but because the man spoke NO English at all! Quite a shock, to me I would have expected a college professor who speaks a total of 6 languages would without a doubt speak English, wrong. Upon hearing this initially I admit I doubted how well this man could teach us, since he didn’t speak our language and as students we barely spoke his. This class turned out to be not only the most FUN, but also without a doubt the most educational of all the classes. Since we were forced to use the language, the French skills of all the students increased exponentially. Both students and professor used a lot of gestures, and google images (since the class was taught in a computer lab) to get our point across, and at the end of the semester that was the class everyone agreed they learned the most in and enjoyed the most.

Yikes this is long! Sorry for the length of the post, just had a lot to say on the matter.