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Teaching a foreign language | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| LebensForm Senior Member Austria Joined 5058 days ago 212 posts - 264 votes  Studies: German | Message 1 of 9 24 June 2011 at 3:11am | IP Logged | ||
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I know that it is better to teach a language that you are native in,but I've been told that I would make a good German teacher, not really sure what this is based on lol, but I really enjoy the language and think that I am pretty good at it, so far, I'm definitely not fluent yet and still have more schooling, plus 6-12 months study abroad in Germany/Vienna but i thought about becoming a German teacher, I would like to do something in which I use my German everyday because I don't want to lose it. How realistic is it to become a German (or any other foreign language teacher) when that may not be my first language, (I was born in Germany, but that is irrelevant now because I have lived in the US most of my life, so now I'm not sure why I mentioned that lol), just curious on thoughts and opinions on this. Do you know anyone who has taught a different language? Thanks all.
Edited by LebensForm on 24 June 2011 at 3:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5138 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 2 of 9 24 June 2011 at 3:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Out of all the Spanish teachers I had, my favorite was a very enthusiastic woman born and raised in Minnesota. I still vividly remember specific things she taught us. She did university studies in Spain. The worst was a bitter Uruguayan born and raised woman who did her university studies in the US.
So, there ya go. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6957 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 3 of 9 24 June 2011 at 5:09am | IP Logged | ||
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For me, a language teacher whose native language is English is usually preferable to one who speaks my target language natively, all other things (teaching skill,
enthusiasm, etc.) being equal. This is for the same reasons given in the "textbook written by non-natives thread": they know what specific problems you might have and why, and they can offer insights about how to overcome them. They've had to figure out the same things you're struggling with before, and can hopefully answer your questions in a way that makes sense to you, unlike a native speaker who might never have thought about the question before and might dismiss it with an "I don't know, that's just the way it is", or might not even understand your question in the first place. Of course this is not true of all native-speaker language teachers (incidentally, I happen to be one myself!) but I find it's the case more often than with teachers who share the students' native language. The points that students are most concerned about when it comes to being taught by a non-native speaker are accent and accuracy. If you want to be a teacher of German, I recommend you work on your pronunciation as much as possible and (here's the hard part) have the genders and the case endings down pat. It's embarassing to have to look up a word's gender in the middle of a class, and it's positively horrifying to discover after a class that something you've taught was wrong, and that you'll have to apologize and correct yourself in the next class. Edited by Lucky Charms on 24 June 2011 at 5:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LebensForm Senior Member Austria Joined 5058 days ago 212 posts - 264 votes Studies: German | Message 4 of 9 24 June 2011 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | ||
Has this happened to you? Sounds like you may have some personal experience? Thanks though, for your replies, good to know others opinions. Ya the cases and genders are always a pain lol, especially for all the acceptions. Thanks again, now off to my "hopefully not my permenant job" lol. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5389 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 6 of 9 24 June 2011 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had 4 German teachers: a French woman, a man from Burkina Faso, an Indian woman and a Quebecois woman.
So it's quite possible. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6019 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 7 of 9 24 June 2011 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | ||
That even happens to natives. A Spanish guy once tried to tell me that "agua" was masculine. If he'd simply been using the word in conversation, he would have used it correctly, but when he tried to think about it, he got it wrong. (Agua (water) is a "false masculine": the water is el agua, but only because Spanish doesn't allow la (the normal feminine article) before a stressed A at the start of the next word.) Being an "informed" speaker is more important than a "native" speaker when it comes to teaching. Ideally you'd be both, but when it's a choice, informed is more important. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5855 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 9 24 June 2011 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I work in a kind of high school (= Realschule) and all our English and French teachers are Germans. I can't estimate how good they teach because I am not allowed to sit in their lessons. Generally language teachers who are not native can explain the grammar of their foreign language easier because they have own learning experience with this language.
Fasulye 1 person has voted this message useful |
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