~July 2007 K-1 Filers~

[StillThePrettiest 3]

that's because a lot of people STILL think 'knowledge of a subject' is the same as 'ability to teach that subject'

makes me SO annoyed

[Ovaltine Jenkins 5]

Yeah there are lots of different types of teachers...some of them are like genius and know everything possible about the stuff they are teaching but they don´t have the ability to explain it to the kids in a way that they get it. So it´s not easy at all

[StillThePrettiest 3]

when I was teaching foreign languages it used to baffle me how often someone would be automatically considered the best candidate because they were a native speaker of that language... quite apart from the fact that specially if you're teaching beginners, being a native speaker can often be a bit of a drawback - you don't know the pitfalls, or where misunderstandings are going to arise, and you probably haven't applied system and method to your learning of that language so it will be harder to help your students do that - it just seems a nonsensical assumption; we don't apply this to our own language; you don't just go and get some random English-speaker off the street and expect them to be better at teaching English than someone who has TRAINED to learn, and to teach

[Jeraly 4]

Haha - I know plenty of native English speakers who would be terrible - I'm not perfect (although I do try ) but the grammar you hear sometimes...

[BabyBlueSusie 1]

when I was teaching foreign languages it used to baffle me how often someone would be automatically considered the best candidate because they were a native speaker of that language... quite apart from the fact that specially if you're teaching beginners, being a native speaker can often be a bit of a drawback - you don't know the pitfalls, or where misunderstandings are going to arise, and you probably haven't applied system and method to your learning of that language so it will be harder to help your students do that - it just seems a nonsensical assumption; we don't apply this to our own language; you don't just go and get some random English-speaker off the street and expect them to be better at teaching English than someone who has TRAINED to learn, and to teach

true that...i think learning a second language also makes it much easier to teach english, because you can better understand the students' train of thought...a monolingual, native english speaker with no training would most likely be a terrible ESL teacher....at least in the beginning because people always tend to oversimplify their native language

[mox 298]

when I was teaching foreign languages it used to baffle me how often someone would be automatically considered the best candidate because they were a native speaker of that language... quite apart from the fact that specially if you're teaching beginners, being a native speaker can often be a bit of a drawback - you don't know the pitfalls, or where misunderstandings are going to arise, and you probably haven't applied system and method to your learning of that language so it will be harder to help your students do that - it just seems a nonsensical assumption; we don't apply this to our own language; you don't just go and get some random English-speaker off the street and expect them to be better at teaching English than someone who has TRAINED to learn, and to teach

My Russian tutor is a native Russian speaker and holds degrees in both Russian and is in the middle of her English degree. She's a really good teacher, but I know what you're saying about the drawbacks of being a native speaker. Sometimes she'll make certain assumptions that I have no clue about, and we kind of have to stop, back up, and work through the misunderstanding. She's good enough that it doesn't happen often enough, but it does happen.

On the other hand, the fact that she's a native speaker gives me great insight into how the language is actually spoken. We'll be going through some materials, reading a sentence or something, and she'll tell me that a certain sentence or word is grammatically correct, but here's how real Russians say it these days. (and I'm not talking about slang here, but more about how language just naturally morphs.)

[Jeraly 4]

That sounds really cool - I am so jealous!! I want to learn a language too!!! I'd love to learn Japanese but I'm not sure where I would start!

[rae_and_scott 1]

That sounds really cool - I am so jealous!! I want to learn a language too!!! I'd love to learn Japanese but I'm not sure where I would start!

You could start for free by downloading podcasts. I don't have time in my schedule right now to go to a class or have a tutor so I have been trying to learn Portuguese by listening to a few different podcasts. It's really not the best method at all (I used to have a private tutor and that was great), but it's definitely a starting point.

And I agree with what you all have said about how some people can know their stuff but that doesn't necessarily make them good teachers. I had so many bad teachers in my program in college! It was frustrating.

[StillThePrettiest 3]

mox, she sounds great

but note that I said 'often' - the exceptions to what I said, above, are the sort of people you describe, both natural teachers AND highly versed in the subject at hand... in my experience they don't come along very often

[mox 298]

You could start for free by downloading podcasts. I don't have time in my schedule right now to go to a class or have a tutor so I have been trying to learn Portuguese by listening to a few different podcasts. It's really not the best method at all (I used to have a private tutor and that was great), but it's definitely a starting point.

And I agree with what you all have said about how some people can know their stuff but that doesn't necessarily make them good teachers. I had so many bad teachers in my program in college! It was frustrating.

A tutor or classroom instruction is of course the absolute best. The worst is going to Borders and picking up a phrase book for tourists. I've done both.

I used to recommend Rosetta Stone to those who can't (for whatever reason) do a class or tutor. I've done that as well too, but now that I've been working with a tutor, the shortcomings of Rosetta Stone are glaring. Rosetta's claim to fame is that they teach you like children learn the language. So they give you a picture and then a word or phrase. No grammar, just the picture, phrase, and an audio clip of the word or phrase being said. You're supposed to contextually figure out what the word or phrase means. For learning some vocabulary, it's not bad. It's when you start getting into more complicated situations that can only really be explained through grammar that it self destructs. I hit a point where the way the words changed seemed completely arbitrary and incomprehensible. It forced me to memorize instead of understand. And since Russian depends on suffixes (and really complicated suffix rules) to build sentences, it just got to be too much. Maybe it works better with Latin-based languages, dunno, but I'd think Japanese on Rosetta Stone would be a disaster too.

Anyway, that's my language rant for the day.

mox, she sounds great

I'm really lucky to have met up with her. I was initially going to go with another woman, but every time I tried to schedule something with her she would never return my call. This was a couple months ago, and yesterday I got a voicemail from her saying "hey sorry, I've been busy, do you want to schedule a lesson sometime?" lol.

but note that I said 'often' - the exceptions to what I said, above, are the sort of people you describe, both natural teachers AND highly versed in the subject at hand... in my experience they don't come along very often

Yep yep. Don't disagree with a thing you said. Was just using my own experience to demonstrate your point about the disadvantage of having a native speaker. My tutor has a better handle on English grammar than most native speakers, and we still occasionally run into the issues you mentioned.

[Jeraly 4]

I wouldn't have a clue how to start learning Japanese because they don't use a western alphabet - I am guessing it would be similar to learning Russian although at least Russian has discernible characters!!

I mentioned to Jeremy a while back that I wondered whether Japanese children had spelling tests and how did they do them!?

[mox 298]

I wouldn't have a clue how to start learning Japanese because they don't use a western alphabet - I am guessing it would be similar to learning Russian although at least Russian has discernible characters!!

Well, it doesn't look easy, that's for sure.

The Russian (Cyrillic) alphabet is actually very easy to learn. I'm a slow learner and I had it down in under a week. Kanji looks like it could take much longer.

I mentioned to Jeremy a while back that I wondered whether Japanese children had spelling tests and how did they do them!?

LOL!

[Jeraly 4]

You laugh but seriously - how else do Japanese children end a Friday afternoon!?!?

[StillThePrettiest 3]

they make paper cranes

[Jeraly 4]

Awww... and if they are rubbish they have to repeat them all weekend then get re-tested on Monday!?