Obstacles to EFL (English as a Foreign Language) Learning
I’m an English Teacher in Madrid and in this video I talk about what I think are I’m an English Teacher in Madrid and in this video I talk about what I think are some of the biggest obstacles that ESL (English as a Second Language) students in Madrid have to face.
Forget the background, heredity, interests and experiences of the student when teaching a language. It may all sound nice and sweet, but what does it have to do with their comprehension? Comprehension is the goal. If they can’t comprehend, having them speak in class is meaningless. Do they have to comprehend everything right away? No, getting the gist is good in the beginning. The more they understand, the more they’ll begin to talk.
The goal of comprehension also depends on the job at hand and the time alloted . Is it a school, a business a private student.
When a company calls and tells you that they have a convention in three months and need you to teach their staff functional English, what are you going to do? Asks them about their families? Have them go through scenarios — at the hotel — at the the airport — at the restaurant? That just won’t cut it.
At the end of the day what do you want? Students who feels good about themselves and the world, or students that speak and understand English? At the end of the day/term/assignment, all of my students speak and understand English. Yes All.
I couldn’t disagree more about forgetting the students’ background, etc. I’m afraid. I would recommend exactly the opposite. Start with the individual (interests and all) and build from there. They’ll likely be more interested in comprehending something that’s important to them than not. There’s a huge difference in the motivation to comprehend when having them speak about something that’s meaningful to them and when not. They just tune out when disinterested.
Students’ needs and wants differ very much from each other. I have: university students preparing for the CAE exam who expect to follow a pretty strict program, a low-level student who requests high-level real-world texts and videos, an intermediate student who only wants conversation, a pre-intermediate student who only likes to follow a course-book and gets nervous in conversation (feels it’s a waste of time), etc.
Regarding your comment: “at the end of the day . . . students who feel good about themselves?” I don’t understand how students feeling good about themselves comes into conflict with their learning English. In all humility, I can’t lay claim to your superb 100% though I’ve gotten plenty of students to learn English. I teach my students how to speak English from the very first day, but does this count as “speaking?”: “What’s this/that?” “It’s a pen.”
Prospective teachers who read my dialog with David Cruzing below should get a little further insight into another possible obstacle when teaching English: disagreement with colleagues and bosses as to what constitutes good English teaching methodology. Sometimes we just start out at opposite ends from each other with a completely different set of assumptions, etc. Even the superstars can’t agree as to the best approaches, etc.
Thank for this posting. I teach English in Japan, and my experiences are very similar to yours. I used to teach elementary students almost exclusively. Now I teach adults almost exclusively – mostly coorporate clients and individual classes with students who have very specific goals. I agree with your comments about using your students personal experiences to fuel conversation and about possible disagreement with other collegues and superiors.
is it possible for an adult to obtain a 3rd language? do they still have “it”?
Muy buena exposiciòn . Tengo una pregunta.
¿Es posible enseñar un buen Inglès sin haber estado en un paìs de habla inglesa por algùn tiempo?
Really wanting or needing to learn another language makes a difference in making it a priority.Also the individuals method of studying decreases anxiety,increases confidence.
Hi Steven,
I am from Brazil and I am enjoying a lot your movies.
your pronunciation is very good, I got understand every thing about you’ve told in your movies, ” FANTASTIC ”
And Congrats about your movies qualitys,
the sound is very clear.
By
Cassoli.
yes!
Great!
Hi.. i am from Kuwait and i really enjoyed the video !
thank you very much, teacher !
So what DOES help someone learn English?
like your vids…thanks for sharing!
regarding lack of time for study…completely agree…have experienced the same…perhaps aim should be to facilitate a kind of learning lifestyle…things which can be easily done at home, minus much effort…on-line and off-line…some random exs: provide vocab stickers for object identification around home, provide useful portable study guides and/or exercise stuff, provide or suggest games which may be left out on the kitchen table…this sort of stuff…just some random ideas…
I think mixing the information with entertainment seems to be the most promising. There’s nothing like “play” to get people to “work.” I’ll have to check out your videos a little more closely over the holidays. Loved the second life health care one . . . by the way, I teach 10 hours a week to nurses in a University among other things.
agree…seems there is a lot of potential in on-line and/or off-line games…and many games have yet to be developed which might be good motivators and easy to pull out and use…i’m quite involved in e-learning but from experience have seen that many of the students i’ve taught had zero interest in being in front of a PC due to the fact that they have to work in front of one all day : /…thus the need for more off-line possibilities…easy to play games/activities, etc.
learning options are exploding like never before, but it seems even more options are needed…to address the lack of time issue, the pc at work issue (no desire to use it at home), the motivation issue (demotivated due to previous school experiences and/or other things), the burnt out issue, etc…options need to be made available which excite, are easy, and have a noticeable effect…
Same experience here. I can’t get most of my students online (even in the University where their grades depend on it), not to mention get them to do much of anything at all outside of class. I’m thinking that a site like Second Life might well come along, but for students of languages. There are companies developing things for some schools’ systems in the States. We’ll just have to wait and see.
re my vids, i don’t have a lot of my own up…just a few, but i do favorite a lot of second life/virtual world related videos which my be of interest…would love to connect via facebook if you are there…will do a search for madridteacher and see what turns up…thx again for your vids…like the open and honest approach you take…
re second life, it’s certainly not for everyone…huge learning curve and very time-consuming…but for those who can come in with purpose and quickly master the skills they need to make proper use of the medium, there is certainly a lot to benefit from…the immersiveness of the medium…the multicultural aspect…word to object recognition…and constant confrontation of new language and associated experiences…but SL is not for everyone…think students who avoid PC learning need more help..
sorry to bombard you with comments:)…no need to reply to all…just agree with the points you are making and think there is definitely a need to address these issues…to further facilitate things so as to increase the likelihood that students will both want and be in the position/condition to learn outside of the classroom…i’ll try to stay in touch via facebook and here on youtube of course…thx again!