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Honest question: how do you teach English if you aren't bilingual in the foreign language? It seems like if the students have questions, you won't easily be ab

Honest question: how do you teach English if you aren't bilingual in the foreign language? It seems like if the students have questions, you won't easily be able to answer them.

otoburb 10y ago
TEFL is usually a term reserved for teaching English to [young] adults. The teaching methodology is almost always quite different compared to teaching English to primary & secondary students. Not being bilingual is rarely an impediment.
dougk16 10y ago
Sure, questions welcome! For the most part I was limited to classes intermediate and above when I started out so there's some basis for communication. Of course the best part of travel is learning the native language. After a few months you can probably start teaching beginners, especially once you get a feel for the kinds of questions students ask. People usually have the same confusion points. Some "immersive" methods such as the Callan method explicitly do not want you to use the native language at all, even if you know it.
n_coats 10y ago
A lot of times you will end up teaching in a school where children or people know conversational English and are studying to become more proficient. I have two close friends (husband and wife) who spent the last 6 years teaching English in Thailand and Bali. In Thailand they taught at a private learning school and in Bali they taught at a school where the wealthier families sent their children. Per the larger discussion: While there, they lived on one of their salaries and saved the other. I think they left with $15k and returned with roughly double that. I know during there time over there, they took off around a year and half total to travel and relax. They didn't live in glamorous places and eat at fancy restaurants. Instead they lived more like the locals to some extent, but this mentality/lifestyle allowed them to stay longer and ultimately come back home in a better place than when they left. My wife and I visited them in Bali for four months last year (I am a remote software engineer). By association we adopted their lifestyle and had a fantastic/extremely affordable extended traveling experience.
Avshalom 10y ago
most EFL/ESL schools it's actually official policy to not speak whatever non-english language is local.
alanaut 10y ago
I taught english to school students in Kenya back in 2007. When teaching english, you learn the most while working with kids. They are more patient and you learn just as much as them during the process. After only a month, I was speaking Swahili. Right now, there is a huge opportunity to teach english to Spanish speakers in Chile and Argentina.

Honest question: how do you teach English if you aren't bilingual in the foreign language? It seems like if the students have questions, you won't easily be able to answer them.

otoburb 10y ago

TEFL is usually a term reserved for teaching English to [young] adults. The teaching methodology is almost always quite different compared to teaching English to primary & secondary students. Not being bilingual is rarely an impediment.

dougk16 10y ago

Sure, questions welcome! For the most part I was limited to classes intermediate and above when I started out so there's some basis for communication. Of course the best part of travel is learning the native language. After a few months you can probably start teaching beginners, especially once you get a feel for the kinds of questions students ask. People usually have the same confusion points. Some "immersive" methods such as the Callan method explicitly do not want you to use the native language at all, even if you know it.

n_coats 10y ago

A lot of times you will end up teaching in a school where children or people know conversational English and are studying to become more proficient. I have two close friends (husband and wife) who spent the last 6 years teaching English in Thailand and Bali. In Thailand they taught at a private learning school and in Bali they taught at a school where the wealthier families sent their children. Per the larger discussion: While there, they lived on one of their salaries and saved the other. I think they left with $15k and returned with roughly double that. I know during there time over there, they took off around a year and half total to travel and relax. They didn't live in glamorous places and eat at fancy restaurants. Instead they lived more like the locals to some extent, but this mentality/lifestyle allowed them to stay longer and ultimately come back home in a better place than when they left. My wife and I visited them in Bali for four months last year (I am a remote software engineer). By association we adopted their lifestyle and had a fantastic/extremely affordable extended traveling experience.

Avshalom 10y ago

most EFL/ESL schools it's actually official policy to not speak whatever non-english language is local.

alanaut 10y ago

I taught english to school students in Kenya back in 2007. When teaching english, you learn the most while working with kids. They are more patient and you learn just as much as them during the process. After only a month, I was speaking Swahili. Right now, there is a huge opportunity to teach english to Spanish speakers in Chile and Argentina.