Jump to content
Linguaholic

Will you be confident to teach English?


whnuien

Recommended Posts

Learning English and teaching English are two completely different things to do. Even if you are a native English speaker, how high is your confidence to teach English to a group of people in a class?

For me, even though I have been speaking English for few years but I still haven't got the confidence of being an English teacher :( I think I can only do it with one person at a time in a casual way of learning :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Study With Us on Discord for FREE!

I would say that it is also important to have a solid curriculum and to know what your intentions are if you're going to teach English.

What approach will you take?  What are your expectations?  Your time frame?

Also important:  how motivated are the students to learn? 

One of the great things about teaching is that you yourself will also become a student.  Teaching is one of the best ways to learn! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm very fluent in speaking English, but I don't think I could teach it because I have to study the whole English curriculum, and it's really not the line of work that I want to do. But if you mean teaching in the sense of teaching someone how to write or speak English properly, then I can easily do that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think I may do alright in teaching advanced English but if I had to teach basics to someone completely from scratch, I will probably get too frustrated or bored. I wouldn't mind if I really had to, though, and I'm fairly sure I could pull it off especially if it's just one person, but I don't think I'd trust myself to come up with a complete lesson plan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Although English is my first language, I am not confident in teaching the language. I may be decent at it, but I always remind myself that as an American, we were taught English 13 years of our life. From Kindergarten until 12th grade did we learn English from learning the alphabet to writing essays. 13 years and perhaps even more in college depending on our placement exams.

My point is that there may be some individuals that can, but there are most that cannot. English is such a broken language that even people (such as myself) who are used to learning such a language for many years doesn't necessarily care as much to learn the details. When we're learning another language foreign to us, we tend to make sure every detail is right. But in English, grammar, punctuation and even spelling is often forgotten or hardly cared for.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do teach English to kids, but admittedly, I am not that good at teaching. So when it comes to beginners, I can teach them, but if they already have an id teaching ea about it, I would rather confine whatever I know to myself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm actually going to be teaching English in Japan in August. I'm SO SO nervous because my English is not perfect. There are tons of words that I don't know + I don't feel comfortable teaching grammar. I actually don't know HOW to explain grammar... I just know how to use it.

So to answer the question: No I am not confident that I can teach others English. But I'm going to have to learn how to do so in the next few months.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am very fluent in speaking English and it happens to be the first language that I learnt in school, plus I have passes in both British and Caribbean exams so I'm confident that I could teach it. Not being a trained English teacher could be somewhat of a set back though, but I strongly believe that with a teachers manual I would do quite well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sometimes I went through my friends letters, resumes, and notices to make sure there's no notable errors before they are distributed. While I am confident with something like this, I don't think I am up for the task of......let's say, teaching children.

Teaching a language to kids mean you have to start everything from scratch, covering the basics until the advanced part. Well, you know what they said, a great learner might not be a great teacher. I think I lack the charisma to teach >_>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Believe it or not, it's actually harder for natives to teach English. It's because lots of people don't actually KNOW and can EXPLAIN the grammar rules in their native language. They just know how to use it, but not teach it. Meanwhile a foreginer who is studying English will be able to teach better because he/she will have studied all the grammar rules and know how to explain it to others.

Interesting, eh?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that I could prepare some elementary school or highschool kids for their exams, using their books as a base to go by. But I couldn't teach English by myself without any real guidance, for example if someone came to me simply stating that he wants to learn English from me, I wouly find it very hard without him giving me any book or simialr resource of his to go by.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think I would be confident to teach English because I am not a native, so I don't think I would excel at it. Having this said, I do love to teach, so maybe I give it a try if it was at a basic level.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right, first thing's first: English is not my native language.

That having been said, I do occasionally tutor some friends who need help with it.

But full-fledge teaching? I don't think I would be able to do that. Not because I think I lack capabilities in English, I just think that I don't know how to teach. I wouldn't try to teach Portuguese (my native language) either, for that matter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wouldn't be comfortable to teach it at all. I mean, I'll admit that my English isn't that bad, but I can't teach it because since I grew up with the language, I've never questioned how and why certain sentences are phrased. If someone asks me the reason why we use a certain word over another, then I wouldn't be able to answer it at all >.<'

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel confident enough to teach english on some levels, but I probably wouldn't be the best teacher around...

My mother is an english teacher, and I get extremely good marks in english, so I could probably teach a bunch to beginners, but I might not have the patience to work with complete beginners.

So yeah, I think my main problem would be patience, having to accept that people are probably really slow at learning, and that I would have to take things really slow... Ugh, I probably wouldn't fit very well as a teacher.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I actually taught English when I was younger, I did well with my lessons, actually the tricky part is controlling the class.  The hardest classes were with young children and teenagers.  It was so hard!  There was a teenaged girl who gave me so much trouble, I planned my classes ahead, I once planned an ctivity in which my  students had to expose a topic in front of another class.  Well, the girl said she'd not do it.

Gosh, I had such a hard time with that class. Sadly I didn't earn their respect since the start, you actually need so careful when you first walk into a classroom.  If they sense any kind of weakness in you... I guarantee you will have such a hard time with that class!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I actually taught English when I was younger, I did well with my lessons, actually the tricky part is controlling the class.  The hardest classes were with young children and teenagers.  It was so hard!  There was a teenaged girl who gave me so much trouble, I planned my classes ahead, I once planned an ctivity in which my  students had to expose a topic in front of another class.  Well, the girl said she'd not do it.

Gosh, I had such a hard time with that class. Sadly I didn't earn their respect since the start, you actually need so careful when you first walk into a classroom.  If they sense any kind of weakness in you... I guarantee you will have such a hard time with that class!

Yeah, sometimes it's not the content part that gives us issues, but controlling the students, especially if they are kids. I don't know what's wrong with kids these days, they seem to be hyperactive!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think I may do alright in teaching advanced English but if I had to teach basics to someone completely from scratch, I will probably get too frustrated or bored. I wouldn't mind if I really had to, though, and I'm fairly sure I could pull it off especially if it's just one person, but I don't think I'd trust myself to come up with a complete lesson plan.

My husband is a qualified English teacher and part of his training in the past was to teach a complete beginners who knew only few English words. He mentioned that it was the hardest part to do even though he is a native English speaker. So being a non native I was able to help him with the task such as explaining to him of what might a beginner expects in the first few lessons of their course.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would be mildly comfortable with teaching it; I think as long as I give myself a brief overview of certain grammar terms again before teaching, I'll be able to handle everything quite well.

My grammar isn't perfect, but it's certainly better than almost everyone I know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...