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I'm sorry in advance if this question has already been asked, but recently a friend of mine approached me with this idea since I study English and am pretty good at it. I don't have any experience with something like this and honestly it's kinda frightening to me. How do you teach somebody whose language you don't speak a second language which isn't your native? Granted, I'd say my English is pretty okay, but still. Having to deal with Skype is another issue. So, does anyone have any experiences with this? Any advice?

Hey everyone! I'm Ernst, I'm 18, and I'm from Arizona, USA. I'm fluent in English but am currently attempting to learn German and ASL. I've been trying (not very hard, therefore not so successfully) to learn German for the past few years, but I want to get more serious about it and am hopeful that this forum and all of you will help motivate me! German and American Sign Language are the main languages I want to learn right now, but I'd love to know Latin and tons of European languages (French, Swedish, Russian, etc.) in the future!

I teach English in Japan and the kids here are super unmotivated. There's not much I can do. Sometimes I plan games, but they don't always work. Instead of getting them interested in the language itself, what I've learned to do is make them interested in me. I make jokes in class (even if they can't understand it), I (playfully) tease them, and I try to create a "friendship" with them. That makes it easier for me to control the class so even if they hate English (which they do), they'll go through with the lesson. Developing a "friendship" with my students also makes it easier for them to come up to me to have casual conversations. I can't motivate them to actually open their books and study the grammar, but at least I can get them to attempt to talk to me in English.

This is very weird. Here in Romania, at least, everybody speaks English. I mean, you can literally find very few people who don`t at least understand the language, even if they cannot speak it, and those people are all older generations. The younger ones all speak English very well. And the same was true back when I lived in Germany and Austria. Interesting..

Aww @Mameha....thanks so much, you say the kindest things! I wish we had more people like you in the world What a coincidence, ei? Yes, I knew that Ferrara was referred to as 'the city of the bicycle' because people there cycle everywhere. In fact, my host family was very surprised to learn I couldn't ride a bike. The lady then tried to teach me, but we never got anywhere because my coordination is so bad, I was rubbish! We just kept collapsing in fits of laughter, so we gave up. So I'd take the little girl to school on foot, then pick her up when she finished. Oh man, I have VERY fond memories of Ferrara. Before we moved to Ferrara, we were out in the sticks, just outside of Ferrara in a little place called Stienta......I LOVED it, too!

It doesn't matter, they're all correct indeed. The only differences are: 1. Mein name ist = my name is. 2. Ich bin = I am. 3. Ich heiße = I am called.

I know this is for teachers, but I want to share something as a student. I have always been interested in foreign languages, so I never needed much motivation. However, I had many classmates speak to me about a teacher we once had. They told me he made learning French enjoyable when they thought they would hate it. They only took it because they were forced: their parents wanted them to take it, no room in Spanish, language requirement, etc. But they left his class with such a love of the language that they would sometimes use it outside of class or ask me to help tutor them. He used to make games for the class, like he would say the name of a character or actor or some very specific object and we would have to flip through our French books and find it/him/her. The we would have to say the page number. He wanted us to say it in French. If we didn't know how, we could say it in English and he would tell us in French and have us repeat it until we said it properly. He had one big rule that resulted in big trouble if broken: DO NOT MAKE FUN OF ANYONE. You could gently tease or make jokes to put the person at ease, but you couldn't be mean. That resulted in a peaceful class where everyone got along and helped each other. He would also make little ungraded quizzes to see where everyone was and fashion lesson plans around what the majority didn't seem to know.

I think "sleep with the fishes" is related to the mafia. It means when someone has been murdered by the mafia and they've dumped the body into the ocean - so they're sleeping with the fishes. I don't think you would use it for a regular death, it's quite specific. Some more that I know are: "Pushing up daisies", meaning someone is dead and buried. "Dead as a dodo" or "Dead as a doornail", meaning definitely dead. "Croak", which means die. I think this is an Australian one. You use it like "He croaked".