Pronunciation is an integrated and integral part of second/foreign language learning since it directly affects learners’ communicative competence as well as performance to a substantial extent. Notwithstanding, the teaching of EFL pronunciation has received varied treatment from having no room in the synthetic syllabus and the grammar-translation method to being the cardinal focus in the situational syllabus and the audio-lingual method in which emphasis is put on the traditional notions of pronunciation, minimal pairs, drills and mini-conversations. And with the advent of communicative language teaching in the late 1960s (Richards and Rodgers, 1986), the role of pronunciation in the EFL curriculum started facing questions: whether the focus of the programmes and the instructional methods were effective or not. Teaching pronunciation until then was ‘viewed as meaningless non-communicative drill-and-exercise gambits’ (Morley, 1991: 485-6). However, with a shift from specific linguistic competencies to broader communicative competencies as goals for both the teacher and the learner (Morley, 1991), the need for the integration of pronunciation with oral communication is clearly realized.

Until very recently, the teaching of English as a foreign language in many territories of the world including Bangladesh would give primary emphasis on the reading and writing skills and secondary and/or little emphasis on listening and speaking skills. But, particularly in Bangladesh, since the introduction of communicative language teaching a few years back to different levels of education, especially primary, secondary and higher secondary levels where English is taught as a compulsory subject, the listening and speaking skills have started enjoying some sort of status alongside the reading and writing skills, although the former ones are neither seriously taught nor formally tested. That is, it is now evidently understood that the learner’s communicative competence as well as performance is dependent on his/her command of all the basic skills of the target language encompassing listening and speaking. Though pronunciation is overlooked in the syllabus, material and even classroom activities, it does have an inseparable link to communication through listening and speaking (Gilbert, 1984, Celce-Muria, 1987).

Both as a learner and a teacher-researcher of English as a foreign language, I am aware of the syllabuses, materials and classroom activities at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels in Bangladesh and in many other EFL settings as well, which unfortunately scarcely have any room for pronunciation teaching. Therefore, based on my experience and a number of existing studies in varied EFL settings, this paper examines and addresses four major issues concerning teaching EFL pronunciation to learners at different levels.

Firstly, I have explored and uncovered the reasons for overlooking teaching pronunciation.

Secondly, I have endeavoured to justify the teaching of pronunciation together with the other skills of the target language.

Thirdly, I have tried to ascertain a level or variety and the aspects of EFL pronunciation that should be taught.

Finally, I have discussed some pronunciation teaching approaches and advocated a variety of techniques/ activities for teaching EFL pronunciation in the classroom.

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Why is EFL pronunciation teaching ignored?

Teaching English pronunciation is still surprisingly and shockingly neglected and/or ignored in many EFL settings including Bangladesh, although the listening and speaking skills are now somewhat included in the syllabus and taught to equip the learner with adequate communicative competence. At the primary, secondary and tertiary level in Bangladesh, an English pronunciation course or English pronunciation as a component in the English course is hardly given any considerable place at all. In China, an English phonetics course is simply left to chance or given no room (Cheng, 1998). As in Bangladesh, some teachers in Taiwan might argue that English pronunciation is not important at all, for very few tests would require students to show abilities related to pronunciation or speaking (Lin, Fan and Chen, 1995). Similarly, English pronunciation is arbitrarily overlooked in Thailand (Wei and Zhou, 2002). In Mexico, pronunciation is described as “the Cinderella of language teaching”; that means an often low level of emphasis is placed on this very important language skill (Dalton, 2002). It is then conspicuous that teaching EFL pronunciation has little room in the syllabus, material and classroom. But why?

Though very few studies are found to have been carried out to reveal the reasons for neglecting the teaching of EFL pronunciation, based on my experience as a learner as well as a teacher-researcher of English as a foreign language, I would endeavour to disclose the secrets of the peripheral position of EFL pronunciation.

Firstly, the absence or exclusion of EFL pronunciation from the curriculum/ syllabus is indicative of the fact that the curriculum/ syllabus designer has deliberately or ignorantly overlooked its significance. Hence, the curriculum/ syllabus designer’s qualifications, expertise and honesty could be seriously questioned.

Secondly, the locally produced materials and/or the imported overseas ones used to teach/ learn EFL do not usually embody pronunciation components and lessons. This indicates that the local materials developers are either unaware of the importance of pronunciation or not capable of designing pronunciation materials or just blindly confined to the syllabus devoid of pronunciation components. Besides, the overseas materials incorporating no pronunciation tips and lessons attract our teachers and others concerned because very many of them do not have any formal and adequate training in English phonetics and phonology as well as EFL pronunciation teaching.

Thirdly, as most teachers do not have useful strategies or techniques for teaching EFL pronunciation and as they do not know what strategies are appropriate when they meet a specific problem, they simply avoid pronunciation instruction in the classroom by employing shrewd tricks. Dalton (2002) rightly says:

We are comfortable teaching reading, writing, listening and to a degree, general oral skills, but when it comes to pronunciation we often lack the basic knowledge of articulatory phonetics (not difficult to acquire) to offer our students anything more than rudimentary (and often unhelpful) advice such as, ‘it sounds like this: uuuh.

Finally, it is a fact that a substantial number of persons (of course more than fifty percent in Bangladesh) currently working as English curriculum/ syllabus designers, materials developers, educators, classroom teachers and test writers/ question setters in EFL settings have either literature background or insufficient training in ELT and hence tactfully avoid and/or consciously exclude EFL pronunciation items from the syllabus, lessons from the material and instruction from the classroom activities.

Why should EFL pronunciation be taught?

The usefulness of teaching second/foreign language pronunciation is a widely debated issue in the language teaching world. Purcell and Suter (1980:286) hold that pronunciation practice in the class has little effect on the learner’s pronunciation skills and, moreover ‘that the attainment of accurate pronunciation in a second language is a matter substantially beyond the control of educators’. Contrariwise, Pennington (1989) questions the validity of Purcell and Suter’s findings, and states that there is no firm basis for asserting categorically that pronunciation is not teachable or it is not worth spending time on teaching pronunciation. However, Stern (1992: 112) maintains ‘there is no convincing empirical evidence which could help us sort out the various positions on the merits of pronunciation training’.

Nonetheless, pronunciation is definitely the biggest thing that people notice when a person is speaking. Let us look at an anecdote:

Whenever I spoke to a person in America, they kept asking me “What? What?”. I would repeat my sentence again and again. Finally they would say “Ah-ha!” and then say my sentence, using exactly my words! It was very humiliating. I knew my words and grammar were good, but nobody would understand me, just because of my pronunciation (Antimoon.com).

Hence, Gilbert (1995: 1) believes that the skills of listening comprehension and pronunciation are interdependent, and contends ‘if they (learners) cannot hear well, they are cut off from language. If they (learners) cannot be understood easily, they are cut off from conversation with native speakers.” Likewise, Nooteboom (1983) suggests that speech production is affected by speech perception, and stresses the need of pronunciation in both listening and speaking. Wong (1987) points out that even when the non-native speakers’ vocabulary and grammar are excellent, if their pronunciation falls below a certain threshold level, they are unable to communicate efficiently and effectively. Tench (1981:1) rightly maintains-

Pronunciation is not an optional extra for the language learner, any more than grammar, vocabulary or any other aspect of language is. If a learner’s general aim is to talk intelligibly to others in another language, a reasonable pronunciation in important.

Varonis and Gass (1982) examine the factors affecting listening comprehension in native speakers of English exposed to L2 accents, and conclude that grammar and pronunciation interact to influence intelligibility.

Moreover, Wong (1993) argues that the importance of pronunciation is even more distinct when the connection between pronunciation and listening comprehension is taken into account. Wong (1993) also demonstrates that a lack of knowledge of pronunciation could even affect learners’ reading and spelling. According to Baker (1992), pronunciation is very important and learners should pay close attention to pronunciation as early as possible. Otherwise, the result will be that advanced learners find that they can improve all aspects of their proficiency in English except their pronunciation, and mistakes which have been repeated for years are impossible to eradicate. Scarcella and Oxford (1994) similarly postulate that pronunciation should be taught in all second (/foreign) language classes through a variety of activities. With the emphasis on meaningful communication and Morley’s (1991: 488) premise, that ‘intelligible pronunciation is an essential component of communication competence’, teachers should include pronunciation in their courses and expect their learners to do well in them.

Therefore, we should countenance what Morley (1991) puts forward: The question is not whether pronunciation should be taught, but instead what should be taught in a pronunciation class and how it should be taught.

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What should be taught?

The question ‘What should be taught?’ encompasses two different points: (a) the level, variety or accent of EFL pronunciation and (b) the aspects, components or features of EFL pronunciation.

The level, variety or accent of EFL pronunciation

It has long been believed and accepted that ESL/EFL learners have to try to get as close as possible in their pronunciation to one of the dominant native-speaker accents, such as Received Pronunciation (RP), the USA equivalent. However, the time covering the last fifteen years or so with the trend of globalization has brought about such a significant change in the role of the English language throughout the world that it is unavoidable to reexamine and rethink this situation. English is currently the world’s most widely used and principal international language, as a result of which there are now more exchanges between non-native speakers of English than between non-native speakers and native speakers. It is, moreover, predictable that in the near future at least this situation is not going to change in favour of the minority of native speakers, and so suddenly the hegemony of their specific accents is under fire (Walker, 2001). Macaulay (1988) and Crystal (1995) also question the idea of a native-speaker accent as a model or norm for ESL/EFL learners.

What accent of English should the learner be exposed to then? Kenworthy (1987) puts forward the concept of “comfortableintelligibility’ as a suitable goal for the majority of learners. Morley (1991: 496) supports Kenworthy’s view and advocates that the goal of pronunciation should be changed from the attainment of ‘perfect’ pronunciation to the more realistic goals of developing functional intelligibility, communicability, increased self-confidence, the development of speech monitoring abilities and speech modification strategies for use beyond the classroom. The overall aim of these goals is for the learner to develop awareness and monitoring skills that will allow learning opportunities outside the classroom environment. Robertson (2003:4) quotes Morley (1991) in saying that ‘intelligible pronunciation is an essential component of communicative competence’.

Influenced by both the strands stated above, I am in favour of both a dominant native-speaker ascent, such as BBC English or standard American accent and an intelligible accent, but in a practical, convenient and useful manner. I, of course, advocate an intelligible accent; but to acquire that the learner has to be exposed to appropriate and adequate input being constituted of a standard or dominant accent, for instance, the Queen’s English, or a locally produced variety like Indian Accent, never an amalgamation of two or more dominant accents. However, the ultimate target of both the teaching and the learning of EFL pronunciation would be an intelligible accent.

The aspects, components or features of EFL pronunciation

EFL pronunciation teaching should cover both the segmentals and the suprasegmentals as well as the training of the speech organs, such as lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, palate, tongue, vocal folds, ears, etc.

The segmentals embody vowel and consonant sounds, preferably phonemes, as well as syllables. A phoneme is a set of similar sounds showing meaning differences or differentiating between words. And a syllable consists of a vowel as a compulsory element and one or more consonants at the onset and/or in the termination as optional elements, which is pronounced with a single contraction of the lungs. The English language has twenty vowel phonemes (twelve monophthongs and eight diphthongs) and twenty four consonant phonemes. While the vowels are articulated without any obstacle in the vocal tract, the consonants are produced with some blockage of the air passage. The treatment of the segmentals basically includes sound contrast in words, pronunciation of vowel and consonant phonemes. The phonemes which are not available in the learner’s mother tongue and problematic to him/her should receive special treatment in the teaching material and methodology and sufficient room in the learner’s practice.

The suprasegmentals are comprised of stress in words and connected speech, rhythm, pitch, loudness, length, quality, tone and intonation that play an essential and natural role in English speech production and perception. As the Bengali speaking learner’s mother tongue is syllable timed whereas English is stress timed, he/she inevitably finds mastering EFL pronunciation a very daunting task (Bell, 1996). Hence, the differences in suprasegmentals between the learner’s mother tongue and the target language are momentous topics that he/she should not only be aware of but should make a conscious effort to study and focus on (Thompson and Gaddes, 2005).

Moreover, the learner should be helped to retrain his/her speech organs which have so long been trained naturally and used to articulate the sounds in his/her L1. This tremendously helps him/her to comfortably and sufficiently use his/her articulators so as to produce the sounds of the target language in an intelligible manner.

How can EFL pronunciation be taught?

The question ‘How can EFL pronunciation be taught?’ comprises axiomatic, procedural and implemetational issues related to pronunciation teaching: teaching approaches and classroom techniques/activities.

Teaching approaches

In recent years, with the renewed professional support to enable learners to be effective and efficient speakers of English as an L2, there has been an incessant progress to bring pronunciation back on stage since, as a large number of prominent theorists and researchers uncover, it should be given preferential treatment. However, researchers and teachers are not yet completely convinced of which models, goals, approaches and methodology are more helpful for leaning and teaching pronunciation alike.

To have a look at the various approaches to pronunciation teaching, the ‘bottom-up approach’ begins with the articulation of individual sounds or phonemes and works up towards stress, rhythm, tone and intonation. On the other hand, the ‘top-down approach’ starts with patterns of intonation and brings separate sounds or phonemes into sharper focus as and when required. According to Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994), the former is based on the idea that if the segmentals are taught first, the suprasegmentals will subsequently be acquired without the need of formal instruction whereas the latter rests on the assumption that once the suprasegmentals features are in place, the necessary segmental discriminations will follow accordingly. The bottom-up approach and the top-down approach respectively correspond to the traditional approach and the research-based approach propounded by Scarcella and Oxford (1994). While the traditional approach is concerned with isolated sounds and native like pronunciation, the research-based approach deals with suprasegmental features and targets at communication.

However, based on existing studies, the top-down or research approach appears to be more effective in teaching L2 pronunciation. Jenkins (2002) maintains that starting holistically from voice quality and then moving to work on segmentals imply that the learner is pushed to adapt and use the target language articulatory settings with their articulators still geared towards the pronunciation of the sounds of his/her mother tongue. That is, teaching EFL pronunciation should commence from the suprasegmentals that are more indispensable and contribute more to intelligibility and accent than segmentals do.

Classroom techniques/activities

Due to pedagogical reasons, it might be helpful to think about the teachability-learnability scale as introduced by Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994) which suggests that there are certain aspects of the English pronunciation which appear to be easily taught; namely, phonemes, stress while others, such as intonation, are extremely dependent on individual circumstances and thus practically impossible to separate out for direct teaching. Therefore, it could then be sensible to think that instead of pushing learners to strive for perfect pronunciation, a focus on pedagogic attention to those items which are teachable and learnable and also essential in terms of intelligible pronunciation appears to be a more reasonable goal. Based on the exploration and critical analysis of the different approaches to teaching pronunciation and what seems to be teachable and learnable for EFL classroom settings, I will now propose ten techniques and activities that, according to influential pronunciation researchers (e.g. Morley, 1991, Scarcella and Oxford, 1994, Fraser, 1999, Thompson, Taylor and Gray, 2001) and my own experience, appear to be useful for learners and teachers alike:

a. Utilization of known sounds: In the early stage of learning, the learner, especially the young one can be helped to compare the sounds of the target language with those of his/her mother tongue. This eventually helps the learner produce the EFL sound pattern to a considerable extent.

b. Explanation: Explanation of how to produce sounds or use pronunciation patterns appropriately should be kept to a minimum through directions about what to do with the vocal organs can help some young and adult EFL learners in some circumstances.

c. Communication activities: The teacher can design communicative tasks, such as dialogues or mini-conversations for both young and adult EFL learners according to their linguistic level to practise particular sounds, especially those which are not available in their mother tongue, for example, / I ?: f v ? ? ð/in case of Bengali speaking learners. Besides, the learner can be taught some useful communication strategies, such as retrieval strategies, rehearsal strategies, cover strategies which will help him/her give the impression that his/her pronunciation is better than it really is (Oxford, 2000).

d. Written versions of oral presentations: At the more advanced levels, learners can be given strategies for analyzing the written versions of their oral presentations. This helps them detect, identify and correct errors or mistakes committed in their oral presentations.

e. Modelling and individual correction: In this technique, the teacher reports the results of analyses of learner speech sample individually. The young or adult learner gets feedback from the analyses and stop repeating previous errors or mistakes.

f. Incorporation of novel elements: The instructor can add novel pronunciation elements, such as sounds, stress placement, tones to the old ones with the use of directions. This helps both the young and the adult learner get his/her EFL pronunciation further improved.

g. Tutorial sessions and self-study: Tutorial sessions commence with a diagnostic analysis of each learner’s spoken English, and an individualized programme is designed for each learner. This technique can be used for both young and adult learners

h. Self-monitoring and self-correction: Self-monitoring is the conscious action of listening to one’s own speech in order to find out errors and mistakes. This action is followed by self-correction standing for the process of fixing one’s errors and mistakes after they have occurred by repeating the word or phrase correctly. By teaching our adult learners to self-monitor and self-correct, we enable them to make their learning of EFL pronunciation more personal, more meaningful and more effective.

i. Computer-assisted language learning: Computer-assisted language learning or CALL can be an important tool when attempting to help the learner become more autonomous by allowing him/her to hear his/her own errors and mistakes and see both segmental and suprasegmental graphic representations. CALL benefits the learner by letting him/her study at his/her own pace in a semi-private environment as well as allowing him/her to build profiles that enable the teacher to monitor the learner’s improvement in EFL pronunciation. In addition, the teacher can exploit visual displays of speech patterns to teach intonation, stress and phonemes to individuals and small groups of learners. This tool can be used for both young and adult learners, but in an adjusted manner.

j. Reading aloud: The learner can be given a piece of spoken text to read out loudly. Here the teacher’s job is to identify pronunciation the errors and mistakes made by the learner, and then give feedback that will help the learner improve his/her EFL pronunciation.

Finally, these classroom techniques/activities for teaching EFL pronunciation are in no way exhaustive, but substantially useful when they are used on the basis of feasibility and suitability in a particular environment having particular learners. Moreover, according to Morley (1991: 507), the teacher can perform the role of a ‘speech coach’ or ‘pronunciation coach’ who, rather than just correcting the learner’s errors and mistakes, supplies information, gives models, offers cues, suggestions and constructive feedback about the performance, sets high standards, provides a wide variety of practice opportunities, and overall supports and encourages the learner.

Conclusion

It is evident that our teachers, syllabus designers, materials developers and policy makers consciously or indifferently avoid pronunciation teaching/learning because of diverse limitations indicating the lack of qualifications and expertise of the persons concerned.

However, EFL pronunciation should be viewed in the same light as the other facets and skills of the English language, such as vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, and so on, since it is a crucial part of communication, especially through listening and speaking. Therefore, pronunciation components have to be incorporated in the materials, classroom activities and testing tools; and the teachers have to be trained in EFL pronunciation as well as EFL pronunciation teaching.

The teaching of EFL pronunciation has to aim at intelligible pronunciation considered as an essential component of communicative competence (Morley, 1991). And to help the learner acquire intelligible pronunciation, he/she can be exposed to a model, such as BBC English, Standard American English, or a locally produced variety like Indian Accent through some suitable and effective techniques/activities presented above.

References

Anecdote. Antimoon.com. Retrieved May 21, 2007 from http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronuncwhy.htm

Bell, M. (1996). Teaching pronunciation and intonation to EFL learners in Korea. Retrieved on 14 October, 2004, from http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/9583/PRONUN.html

Celce-Muria, M. (1987). Teaching pronunciation as communication. In J. Morley (Ed.), Current Perspectives on Pronunciation (pp.5-12). Washington, D. C.: TESOL.

Cheng, F. (1998). The Teaching of Pronunciation to Chinese Students of English. English Teaching Forum, Jan-Mar, 1998, 37-39.

Crystal, D. (1995). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University press.

Dalton, D. (2002). Some techniques for teaching pronunciation. Retrieved May 1, 2002, from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Dalton_Pronunciation.html

Dalton, C. & Seidlhofer, B. (1994). Pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fraser, H. (1999). ESL pronunciation teaching: could it be more effective? Australian Language Matters, 7 (4). Retrieved on 9 November, 2004, from http://www-personal,une.edu.au/~hfraser/docs/HFLanguageMatters.pdf

Gilbert, J. (1984). Clear Speech: Pronunciation and Listening Comprehension in American English. Teacher’s manual and answer key. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gilbert, J. (1995). Pronunciation practices as an aid to listening comprehension. In D. J. Mendelson and J. Rubin (Eds.), A Guide for the Teaching of Second Language Learning (pp. 97-111). San Diego: Dominic Press.

Jenkins, J. (2002). The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kenworthy, J. (1987). Teaching English pronunciation. England: Longman.

Lin, H., Fan, C. & Chen, C. (1995). Teaching Pronunciation in the Learner-Centered Classroom. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED393292)

Macaulay, R. (1988). RR RIP. Applied Linguistics,9(2).

Morley, J. (1991). The pronunciation component in teaching English to speakers of other languages. TESOL Quarterly, 25 (3), 481-520.

Nooteboom, S. (1983). Is speech production controlled by speech perception? In van den Broecke et al. (Eds.), Sound Structure (pp. 153-194). Dordrecht: Foris.

Oxford, R. L. (2000). Communication strategies. In M. Byram (ed.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning.

Pennington, M. (1989). Teaching pronunciation from the top down. RELC Journal, 20 (1), 21-38.

Purcell, E. & Suter, R. (1980). Predictors of pronunciation accuracy: a reexamination. Language Learning, 30 (2), 271-87.

Richards, J. & Rodgers, T. (1986). Approaches and Methods in language Teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Robertson, P. (2003). Teaching English pronunciation skills to the Asian learner: a cultural complexity or subsumed piece of cake? Asian EFL Journal, June. Retrieved on 18 August, 2007, from http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/june2003subpr.php

Scarcella, R. & Oxford, R. L. (1994). Second language pronunciation: state of the art in instruction. System, 22(2), 221-230.

Stern, H. H. (1992). Issues and Options in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University press.

Tench, P. (1981). Pronunciation Skills. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Thompson, T. & Gaddes, M. (2005). The importance of teaching pronunciation to adult learners. Asian EFL Journal, February. Retrieved on 9 August, 2007, from http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/june2003subpr.php

Thompson, S., Taylor, K. & Gray, G. (2001). Pronunciation with an eye on multiple intelligences. WATESOL Convention Fall 2001. Retrieved on 15 December, 2004, from http://www.soundsofenenglish.org/Presentations/WATESOL2001/multipleintelligencesactivities.htm

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About the author

Dr. M. Maniruzzaman, MA in English Language and PhD in Applied Linguistics & ELT, is currently Associate Professor in the Department of English, Jahangirnagar University, interested in phonetics, phonology, syntax, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, teaching methodologies, syllabus/materials design, and testing, and published 41 books and papers.

English as a foreign language has the greatest motion in Bangladesh. Status of English as the “library language” and the increased “international inter-dependence” are the two reasons of this which led to a greater focus on face-to-face language usage crossing the margin of pen and paper exercise. As the decline of Grammar-Translation method in 1960s proved that language learning might not be limited to “reading and writing” or ‘literacy’, the provisional continuation of Direct Method confirmed too that ‘listening and speaking’ that is ‘oracy’ is not all that is language. Language must be taught in an integrative way where all four skills are focused.

But most often, even in the modern methods of SL teaching, quite surprisingly, listening skill is ignored in a way or another! David Nunan (1997) commented that listening is the “Cinderella Skill” which is overlooked by its elder sister “speaking” in SL learning. As ‘to expertise the productive skills like speaking and writing’ has become the standard of the knowledge of second language, listening and reading have been turned to be the secondary ones. Besides, in our schools, colleges and even in the higher levels, instructors direct how to read and write, not how to speak or listen. It is believed that these would be mastered by the learners automatically. Although listening had a boost up in 1960s (direct method) and in 1980s (Krashen’s input hypothesis, 1981; James Asher’s Total physical response, 1988 and Gillian Brown, 1988), it turned a fashion in most cases!

In this article, I have tried to show how listening helps EFL learners to develop language skill. Despite the fact that it is not a research article, a small scale survey has been done at Noakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh in order to demonstrate that listening practice is insisted by the learners and they find it functional in language learning.

What is listening?

Listening is a skill in a sense that it’s a related but distinct process than hearing which involves merely perceiving sound in a passive way while listening occupies an active and immediate analysis of the streams of sounds. This correlation is like that between seeing and reading. Seeing is a very ordinary and passive state while reading is a focused process requiring reader’s instrumental approach. Listening has a “volitional component”. Tomatis’ (2007) view is, while listening; the desire to listen, as well as the capability to listen (comprehension) must be present with the listener for the successful recognition and analysis of the sound.

What ‘listening’ really means is ‘listening and understanding what we hear at the same time’. So, two concurrent actions are demanded to take place in this process. Besides, according to Mecheal Rost (1991), listening comprises some component skills which are:

• discriminating between sounds,
• recognizing words,
• identifying grammatical groupings of words,
• identifying expressions and sets of utterances that act to create meaning,
• connecting linguistic cues to non-linguistic and paralinguistic cues,
• using background knowledge to predict and later to confirm meaning and recalling important words and ides.

As McDonough and Shaw ( 1993) and Rost (1991) explain that a listener as a processor of language has to go through three processes using three types of skills:

a. Processing sound/ Perception skills:

As the complete perception doesn’t emerge from only the source of sound, listeners segment the stream of sound and detect word boundaries, contracted forms, vocabulary, sentence and clause boundaries, stress on longer words and effect on the rest of the words, the significance of intonation and other language-related features, changes in pitch, tone and speed of delivery, word order pattern, grammatical word classes, key words, basic syntactic patterns, cohesive devices etc.

b. Processing meaning/ Analysis skills:

It’s a very important stage in the sense, as researches show, that syntax is lost to memory within a very short time whereas meaning is retained for much longer. Richards (1985:191) says that, ‘memory works with propositions, not with sentences’. While listening, listeners categorize the received speech into meaningful sections, identify redundant material, keep hold of chunks of the sentences, think ahead and use language data to anticipate what a speaker may be going to say, accumulate information in the memory by organizing them and avoid too much immediate detail.

c. Processing knowledge and context/ Synthesis skills:

Here, ‘context’ refers to physical setting, the number of listener and speakers, their roles and their relationship to each other while ‘linguistic knowledge’ refers to their knowledge of the target language brought to the listening experience. Every context has its individual frame of reference, social attitude and topics. So, members of a particular culture have particular rules of spoken behavior and particular topic which instigate particular understanding. Listening is thought as ‘interplay’ between language and brain which requires the “activation of contextual information and previous knowledge” where listeners guess, organize and confirm meaning from the context.

However, none of these micro-skills is either used or effective in isolation or is called listening. Successful listening refers to ‘the integration of these component skills’ and listening is nothing but the ‘coordination of the component skills’.

Nature of listening as a skill:

Besides the division of the skills as ‘receptive’ and ‘productive’, another subdivision focuses on ‘one-way reception’ and ‘interactive reception’ in this age of active learning. Reading and writing are one-way skills where learners don’t get direct feedback. But in speaking and listening, learners may have their understanding and reproduction checked instantly. Thus active and self-learning takes place.

Moreover, there is a traditional labeling for reading and listening as “passive” skills. But linguists believe that a listener is involved in guessing, anticipating, checking, interpreting, interacting and organizing by associating and accommodating their prior knowledge of meaning and form. Rost (1990) thinks, listeners “co-author” the discourse and they construct it by their responses.

Even as a receptive skill, listening differs greatly with reading as reading materials are printed and permanent enough where the learners are required to interact with the next sentence using the knowledge of the previous one while listening involves continuous material presentation where they have to respond to the immediate expression. From the view point of “product” or “process”, listening is more a process than a product which instantly shapes the understanding and utterances of the learners.

Why listening?

No doubt, listening is the most common communicative activity in daily life. according to Morley (1991, p.82), “We can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write.”

So, listening, as a skill, is assuming more and more weight in SL or FL classrooms than ever before. Rost (1994, p. 141-142), points out, “listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin. Listening is thus fundamental to speaking.”

Limited listening input fails to promote face-to-face communication by shaping their social development, confidence and self-image. Adequate listening practice could give the learners essential contact with handy input that might trigger their utterances. Teacher talk or peer- interaction might be the options for this. But according to Rod Ellis (1990), it’s not only the exposure to L2 that is enough, and learners need L2 data suited to the accurate stage of their development. If the learners don’t have “optimal” exposure in the target language, they can’t transmit the “comprehensible input” into “intake” through “production strategies” where learners attempt to use L2 knowledge. Krashen’s (1981) view is that “acquisition” takes place as a result of the learner having understood input that is a little beyond the current level of his competence that is ‘the i+1 level’. We must take into account that the level of listening input must be higher than the level of language production of the target learners. So, language teaching pedagogy must incorporate academic and designed listening practice.
Obviously listening influences other skills. A theory of Tomatis shows that “the quality of an individual’s listening ability will affect the quality of both their spoken and written language development”. He also views that if the sounds of the target language are presented to the learners before presenting them in written form, the ease with which they integrate those sound will be reflected in their understanding and production of the language. However, a pre-exposure or a following-exposure to listening input is a must on the part of a learner.

It is widely known that individual’s ability to process and analyze the sounds influence their ability to translate the sounds of language into their written form. We know, reading is not only a visual process rather involves the rapid analysis of letters and words that represents sounds and it is sound which gives the words meaning. A learner can decode the graphic images or recognize their meaning efficiently if their auditory processing skills are well developed. In a similar way, sounds are translated into graphic form in writing and if the sounds are poorly integrated their graphic representation will be hampered and problems like spelling mistakes may arise. So, we see the foundation on which reading and writing skills are built is spoken language again listening is the fundamental to spoken language as without listening anything we can’t reproduce or reply.

In a learner-centered approach, it is deducted that listening provides the learners with the following features of the target language:

• How the language is organized
• How native speakers use the language
• How to communicate in the language

Strategies for Listening:

Two types of strategies for listening have been in practice. They are defined so according to the ways of processing the text while listening:

a. In Bottom up processing, like reading, learners utilize their linguistic knowledge to identify linguistic elements in an order from the smallest linguistic unit like phonemes (bottom) to the largest one like complete texts (top). They link the smaller units of the language together to form the larger parts and it’s a linear process where meaning is derived automatically at the last stage. It is absolutely “text based” process where learners rely on the sounds, words and grammar in the message in order to create meaning.

b. Top- down interpretation, on the other hand, requires learners to go to the listening with their prior knowledge of topic, context, and type of text as well as knowledge of language to reconstruct the meaning using the sounds as clues. “This back ground knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next.”

It is assumed that bottom up process is applied while practicing minimal pairs, taking pronunciation tests, listening for specific details, recognizing cognates and word-order pattern but top-down interpretation is used in the activities like listening for the main idea, predicting, drawing inferences, and summarizing where learners relate what they know and what they hear through listening comprehension.

According to the types of situation where the understanding takes place, listening is divided into:

a. Reciprocal or interactive Listening where the listener is required to take part in the interaction and alternately listens and speaks. Interactive listening situations include face-to-face conversations and telephone calls in which listener has a chance to ask for clarification, repetition, or slower speech from conversation partner.

b. Non-reciprocal or non-interactive Listening where the listener is engaged in listening passively to a monologue or speech or even conversation. Some non-interactive listening situations are listening to the radio, CDs, TV, films, lectures etc. and here listener usually doesn’t have the opportunity to ask for clarification, slower speech or repetition.

We believe, this type of listening is not totally non- interactive too. The interaction takes place here is the ‘cognitive’ one where students respond through understanding and creating the meaning. On the other hand, this might be turn to semi- reciprocal if the instructor makes them responding while checking their understanding through question-answer or discussion and clarification in the class or lab.

Methodology:

Methods applied for the survey included questionnaire and group interviews taken with 40 students who attend listening classes in the language lab regularly and it has been observed by the author that they do better in speaking and reading than others. The subjects are the students of 1st year 1st term from the department of Pharmacy and CSTE, ACCT, and FIMS. Although they are really not beginners and have learnt English at their secondary and higher secondary level, they have no exposure to authentic English speaking and listening. Here they have been practicing listening in a language lab using headphone using audio and video for three months. The purpose of the survey was convincingly explained to them and they took 30 minutes to think on the questions and to answer them.

Findings:

30 students claim that listening practice has raised their confidence by throwing away their fear, hesitations, inertia and shyness that they had before to speak in English.

• All of the 40 students have told that watching video clippings and movie while listening enables to identify the right responses, styles, expressions, behaviors, attitudes and emotions in particular situations through concentrating on gesture, body language, non- linguistic cues, planning utterances, adjacency pairs, turn-taking, repairing utterances by asking for repetition, pre-closing and closing.
• 5 students have said that it has quickened their planning to respond as they listen to faster speaking than their own.
• 35 students opine that exposure to naturally spoken input by native speakers gives them practical experience of using language in target situations.
• 20 students who are highly motivated have found a change in their speaking style.
• 36 students think that listening to dialogues and conversation enriches their vocabulary and teaches how to use them appropriately.
• 10 students have found that intensive listening practice helps to remember the syntactic structures, spelling, accent and intonation.
• 19 students mention about learning of the cultures, feelings, reactions, trend and customs of the English speaking people that helps them feel motivated (integrative) to speak English.
• All of the 40 students opine that watching movie or video clippings draws more attention during the class and add to their learning.
• All of the 40 students believe that interaction with teachers for assessment or other purposes while listening help them greatly to remove confusion and use their newly gained knowledge immediately and make it regular in use.

Teaching listening:

Unfortunately, as I find a very diminutive effort in teaching listening in our country, this discussion may appear too much redundant to read to the language teachers! What we find in a traditional EFL classroom? Most of the classes complete their Language course without practice listening even for a day! Very few ELT trained teachers, now-a-days, in line with the flow of CLT; efforts for listening practice consisted of teacher reading aloud a written text slowly, once or more so that it is understood and than asking some comprehension questions. It seems the objective here is ‘to present the written language in an alternative way’ where characteristics of naturally spoken language is totally absent and listening practice is farther beyond. If the materials used for listening class comply with that in speaking class, it will, certainly, give a fully fledged input to the learners.

Teaching listening requires a bit more on the part of the teacher than that of the learners. One of the main principle of teaching listening, as I believe, should be “ Language material intended to used for training listening comprehension should never be presented visually first.” Good listening lessons go beyond the main listening task itself with related activities before and after the listening. The format may be like the following:

a. Pre-listening Stage: Some activities before listening may serve as preparation or warm-up for listening in several ways. These function as ‘reference’ and ‘framework’ by giving prior knowledge of listening activities. Some recommended per-listening activities include:

a. Introducing the topic and assessing their background knowledge of the topic or content of the material through commenting on a picture or photograph.
b. Activating their existing knowledge through discussion. Reading through comprehension questions in advance, working out own opinion on a topic, predicting content from the title etc. can be done.
c. Clarifying any necessary contextual information and vocabulary to comprehend the text. In this regard showing pictures maps or graphs and may be helpful.
d. Informing them of the type of text, their role, purposes of the listening etc. A short reading passage on a similar topic may help them.
b. While-Listening Stage: activities in this stage must follow the learners’ specific needs, instructional goal, listening purposes and learners’ proficiency level. While listening activities directly relate to the text and listeners are asked to do these during or immediately after listening.

. Some specific cares are required in designing while-listening activities. These are:

a. If the students are asked to give written information after listening, they should have chance to listen the text more than once which makes it easier for them to keep concentration while listening with specific purposes.
b. Writing activities should be to a minimum. As comprehension is the prime target, writing would make the listening more demanding. are samples of this.
c. Global activities like getting the main idea, topic, setting, summary that focus on the content and forms of the text should be given more so that listeners are guided through the text. Listening for the gist is such an activity.
d. More questions should be set up in order to focus student’s attention on the crucial elements that might help to comprehend the text. Following the rout on a map or searching for specific clues to meaning, or identify description of the given pictures might be appropriate here.
e. Attaching predicting activities before listening so that students can monitor their comprehension as they listen. Listening with visuals may serve here.
f. Giving immediate feedback to make the students examine their responses and how it was. Checking off items in a list, distinguishing between formal and informal registers conducted by teacher are examples here.

Listening activities here become varied according to their purposes and objectives. Four major distinctions include Attentive listening, Extensive listening, Intensive listening, Selective listening and Interactive listening.

Attentive listening:

Both of the ideas are true that attentiveness is a prior condition for understanding and listener often lapse attention for various reasons. Losing interest, inability to keep up with, losing track of goals, less confident are some of them. Teacher can help the listeners to hold their attention by personalizing the martial, using the target language while talking to them to keep flow, and lessening their stress and motivating by asking oral responses repeatedly. Activities in this stage would be interesting and easy including face to face interaction, using visual and tangible topics, clear description of the listening procedure, minimum use of written language, and immediate and ongoing responses etc so that learners can easily keep pace with the text and activity.
Listening to short chunks, music image, personal stories, teacher- talk, small question- answer, and interview etc may be applied in this stage.

Extensive listening:

This type of listening has also a greater ease than other types as it is concerned to promote overall comprehension of a text and never requires learners to follow every word and understand them. Learners need to comprehend the text as a whole which is called global understanding. Activities in this section must be chosen in terms with the proficiency level of the listeners.
At the lower level they may have problems to organize the information, so some non-verbal forms in responding might be given such as putting pictures in a right sequence, following directions on a map, checking of items in a photograph, completing a grid, chart or timetable etc.
At the developed stage, some language based tasks requiring constructing meaning, inferring decisions, interpreting text and understanding gist are usually recommended. Completing cloze exercises or giving one or two word answers, multiple choices, predicting the next utterances, forming connected sets of notes, inferring opinions, or interpreting parts of the text are some samples.

Intensive listening:

‘Hearing clearly’ is also a prime aspect of listening as it includes accurate perception without which the second phase of processing meaning becomes very difficult. Listening intensively is quite important to understand the language form of the text as we have to understand both the lexical and grammatical units that lead to form meaning. So, intensive listening requires attention to specific items of language, sound or factual detail such as words, phrase, grammatical units, pragmatic units, sound changes (vowel reduction and consonant assimilation), stress, intonation and pauses etc. Feedback on accuracy and repetition on the teacher’s part promote success here.
Paraphrasing, remembering specific words and sequences, filling gaps with missing words, identifying numbers and letters, picking out particular facts, discriminating the pronunciation of same phoneme in different positions, replacing words, finding stress and boundaries are some good intensive listening practice.

Selective listening:

It involves listening to selected part of a text, as it’s name suggests, to predict information and select ‘cues’ surrounding information. Thus, the listeners may have an assessment of their development in listening to authentic language. Here the focus is on the main parts of the discourse and by noticing these parts listener construct their understanding of the meaning of whole of the text through inferring. As the expectation on understanding is focused and has a purpose, in these activities, listeners have the chance of second listening to check understanding and have feedback repeatedly.
Listening to sound sequences, documentary, story maps, incomplete monologues, conversation cues and topic listening are examples of selective listening.

Interactive listening:

This is a very advanced stag of listening practice as it implies social interaction in small groups which is a ‘true test’ of listening. In interactive listening, learners, either in pairs or in groups, receive new information, identify them continuously. Besides, they have to work out the problems of understanding each other and formulate responses immediately as we are required to do in real life. So, in spite of calling ‘practice’, this goes beyond of it. As this phase involves both comprehension and production, it directly promotes speaking skill. Teachers have a central role in this stage. They have to set up specific goals so that learners can asses their own performance, observe learners’ language in order to provide immediate feedback on their interaction strategies.
Group survey, self introductions, short speeches, chatting and discussing, exchanging news and views, interviewing and being interviewed etc. might be appropriate here.

c. After-listening Stage: post listening activities can be used to check comprehension, valuate listening skill, use of listening strategies and use the knowledge gained to other contexts. So, these are called listening exercises at all and defined as ‘follow-up works.’ The features of these activities are:

a. Related to pre-listening activities, such as predicting.
b. May create a real life situation where students might be asked to use knowledge gained through listening.
c. May extend the topic and help the students remember new vocabulary.

Using notes made while listening in order to write a summary, reading a related text, doing a role play, writing on the same theme, studying new grammatical structures, practicing pronunciation, discussion group, craft project etc. are some post-listening activities.

Variables affecting and effecting successful listening:

Noise: Distractions and noise during the listening segment should be reduced and sound-proof language lab is perfect for this purpose.

Equipment: If the cassette player or CD player being used does not produce acceptable sound quality, it may harm developing skill or motivation.

Repetition: playing the text 2-3 times might be required in respect of the types of texts. In case of no chance of repetition, learners may become anxious about catching it all the first time and that will impede their actual performance.

Content: It is a strong variable to be able to make difference in developing skill. The material should be interesting and appropriate for the class level in topic, speed and vocabulary. Some guidelines for judging the relative ease or difficulty of a listening text for a particular purpose or particular group of students might be:

a. The selected material must be relevant to student’s real life; language of the text should be authentic and would vary in terms of learners’ interest and age group.
b. The storyline, narrative, or instruction should confirm common expectation in organization. It may contain main idea, details, and examples. An informative title might also be helpful.
c. Learners have to be familiar with the topic. They might feel major comprehension difficulties because of misapplication of background knowledge due to cultural differences.
d. At the beginner level of proficiency, the language of listening text should discard redundancy while in the higher proficiency level students may benefit from redundant language.
e. If the text involves more than one individual, the differences between them should be marked conspicuously which can make the comprehension easy.
f. Most texts should have visual supports like clippings, maps, diagrams, pictures or images in video that contextualize the listening input and provide clues to meaning in order to aid their interpretation.

Recording own tape: Any way, recording must be of an English speaker. Copying recording two to three times is preferred in order to avoid rewind which may discrete attention of the listeners.

Using video: Using video clippings with sound off and then asking students what dialogue is taking place is a good practice. Next, the teacher may play sound and check their understanding and interpret them about the discrepancy between their predictions and reality. It may also be done with the video first and giving only sound to guess what the context is can obviously effect comprehending.

Homework: In teaching listening, homework is a must. A listening task between two classes prevent them forgetting. Encouraging public listening and having notes on them is a free pave to walk in teaching listening which leads to success. Providing tape recording with questions, dictation, or a worksheet to complete may bring the expected results.

Using internet: If learners have opportunity to use a computer with internet access and headphones or speakers, teacher may direct them toward some listening practice sites and home works can also be assigned from these accesses

Limitations of this article:

This article doesn’t focus on every aspect of teaching or developing listening skill; rather it focuses mainly on the necessity and functions of listening input in learning a foreign or second language. The survey also reflects on the service of listening to the EFL learners who are instrumentally motivated. The context of the assay is this country though it reflects that of some other countries where the features don’t vary much.

Conclusion:

Definitely we have to admit that language learning depends on listening as we respond only after listening something. Listening provides the aural input that serves as the stimuli for language acquisition and make the learners interact in spoken communication. So, effective and ideal language instructors should help the learners to be introduced with native speaking, to be respondent to that both cognitively and orally. In order to do so, first, they should show the students how they can adjust their listening behavior to deal with variety of situations, types of input, and listening purposes.

Questionnaire

Name:
Role:
Department:

Q1: Does practice listening in the language lab help you to develop English skill?
Q2: How does it promote your learning?
Q3: Do watching movies or using video clippings add to your understanding?
Q4: How does interaction with teacher or interference of teacher while listening help you?

References:

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Coakley CG & Wolvin AD. (1986). Listening in the native language. In B. H. Wing (Ed.), Listening, reading, writing: Analysis and application (pp. 11-42). Middlebury, VT: Northeast Conference.

Gass SM.(1988). Integrating research areas: A framework for second language studies. Applied Linguistics. 9:198-217.

Lund RJ. (1990). A taxonomy for teaching second language listening. Foreign Language Annals, 23: 105-115.

Mendelsohn DJ & Rubin J. (1995). A guide for the teaching of second language listening. San Diego, CA: Dominie Press.

Morley J. (1991). Listening comprehension in second/foreign language instruction. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (pp. 81-106). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Nunan D & Miller L. (Eds.). (1995). New ways in teaching listening. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Omaggio-Hadley A. (1993). Teaching language in context (2nd Ed.). Boston. MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Peterson PW. (1991). A synthesis of methods for interactive listening. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (pp. 106- 122). Boston. MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Richards JC. (1983). Listening comprehension: Approach, design, procedure. TESOL Quarterly. 17: 219-240.

Rixon S.(1981).The design of materials to foster particular linguistic skills. The teaching of listening comprehension. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 258 465).

Rost M. (1990). Listening in language learning. London: Longman.

Rubin J. (1987). Learner strategies: Theoretical assumptions, research history and typology. In A. Wenden & J. Rubin (Eds.), Learner strategies in language learning (pp. 15-30). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Rubin J. (1995). The contribution of video to the development of competence in listening. In D.J. Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.), A guide for the teaching of second language listening (pp. 151-165). San Diego, CA: Dominie Press.
Underwood M. (1989). Teaching listening. London: Longman.

About the authors

Mili Saha & Ali Rezwan Talukdar are lecturers, Dept. of English, Noakhali Science & Technology University, Sonapur, Noakhali, Bangladesh.

Introduction:

In this paper I will discuss the phenomenon of using native English teachers in the Middle East region, precisely in United Arab Emirates in the context of EFL in the public primary schools. In this discussion I will examine the reasons beyond such a phenomenon. I will also examine the attitude of native and non-native speaker teachers who teach English language along with students’ parents’ attitudes. Moreover, I will link “communicative imperialism” (Phillipson, 2006) and the role of the media with the context of EFL in the Middle East region. Due to the natural of my paper, a “self reflective” (Pennycook, 2001: p.1) and previous experiences of other countries are expected to be present.

ELT in United Arab Emirates has witnessed an extraordinary revolution in the last 6 years. My interest of this issue emerged simultaneity with the appearance of a new type of schools which are gradually replacing the ordinary public schools in UAE. This type is called (Al-Ghad schools) which literally means “tomorrow schools” in Arabic. It clearly indicates the main purpose of these schools is to produce more sophisticated, moderated and competitive students. The vision of ministry of Education and Youth in UAE as what they declared is “to have a new generation who is more capable of English language and its vocabulary and grammar skills”, in other words “we need a generation who speaks English as it is his or her first language”, thus to achieve this goal teachers who “have a better command of fluent, idiomatically correct language forms, are more knowledgeable about the cultural connotations of the language” (Braine, 1999: p.xiv) are needed. In order to make this vision alive, a huge number of native English teachers had been brought from areas such as “North America, Britain, New Zealand and Australia which claim ownership over English”( Canagarajah, 1999: p.79). Furthermore, to support this vision, some authorized sources in the government argue that this new methodology of teaching is the best in teaching English which enables the students to acquire the language very easy and smoothly. Schiitz (2007) cites Krashen’s (1987) view that acquisition any language requires meaningful interaction in the target language (natural communication) thus, language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules because learners grow up learning the language as it is something very natural in their life without an effort, especially at the beginning levels of their life. Moreover, Boyle (1997) illustrates that native speaker teachers have a range of advantages over the non-native speaker teachers because (a) English learned from birth and developed through his/her life as primary language which been used in his/her life (b) the intricacies of the grammar of the language are learned instinctively and can be employed with speed and certainty (c) native speaker of English engages with other native speakers of English as something natural in his/her social context, so he/she uses the language all the time as the dominant language, thus it is better to use native speaker teachers of English to teach their first language. Additionally, McNeill (1994) in his study about the characteristics of native and non-native speaker teachers of English argues that native speaker teachers have the advantage when it comes to learners’ vocabulary needs. It is sensible to point here; the government is replacing non-native speaker teachers with native speaker teachers of English gradually in order to provide their students with the opportunity to hold conversations with teachers in English, and only in English.

On the other hand, Al-segair (2007) who works as a teacher in a prestigious university in the Middle East illustrates that in his investigation about native speaker teachers in the Middle East, “I found some of them used to work as dog-trainers back in Chicago” (paragraph, 2). He also pointed out that some teachers were “a bunch of former company employees and some had worked in western embassies” (paragraph, 2) who did not work as teachers before. Al-segair thus explains that not because you are a native speaker of a language qualifies you to teach it! Teaching a language requires “skills, competence, training and knowledge” (paragraph, 3). Going further in this issue, Al-Osaimi (2007) illustrates that some schools do not bother to recruit qualified English teachers, however, parents usually more impressed by where did teachers come from and the fact that their accent sounds more ‘American or British’ considered to be enough to convince them that they are the most suitable teachers to teach their children, regardless what they have of qualifications or experiences. Such criteria forced me to wonder why such thinking is dominant in the region.

America and its Politics play a major part in all of this. The American tenet that “the current educational systems in place in the Muslim world were partly responsible for motivating the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the pentagon. In June 2002” (Karmani, 2005:p.262), thus in order to change their attitude towards the western and the American culture, a new concept should be replaced with what is described as a “combination of intolerance, ignorance, anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Western views” (Karmani, 2005: p.262) by using native speaker teachers as means to apply this project. By importing native speaker teachers of English from what Kachru calls “inner circle countries” (Kachru & Nelson, 1996: p. 78) with westerns’ beliefs and values, a new Americanized generation would be the total outcome. In simple words, educational or mind colonialism and “linguistics imperialism” (Phillipson, 2006: p.346) are the main goals in such invasion of native speaker teachers at the Middle East region.

Searching for its alleged security:

Handley (2004) mentions that in the late 1700s, America was surrounded by great European superpowers, thus America was “economically and militarily disadvantaged” (Hadley, 2004). Therefore, to build a strong and superpower nation, America must expand its borders by negotiation or war. The American citizens had been convinced that the world and America’s national security always in danger, so in order to protect the world and America, any country that threats us should be attacked. Furthermore, “lack of expansion implies the possibility of defeat” thus, “American insecurity was an important factor in the invasions of Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Philippines” (Hadley, 2004) in the past. Other form of such American fears is the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which was a proposal by the American president Roland Reagan in March 23, 1983. The main goal of this proposal as what Wikipedia illustrates is “to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles”. This proposal carried the popular name “Star Wars” in 1977 after movie by George Lucas. According to Handley, the Star Wars program is an expansion of America’s continued need searching for its national safety “by now expanding its borders into outer space” (Handley, 2004 cited Mauk and Oakland, 154), moreover, the recent invasions on Iraq and Afghanistan interpreted by a large number of American citizens is they had been convinced that America’s national security was threatened. Thus, in order to assure that no one threats America’s security in the future, a new ways of domination and controlling should take place in areas such as Eastern Asia, Africa and the Middle East not only military, but also as media and academic occupation.

The role of Media in the Middle East:

No one can deny the strong role played by Media in any place in the world. America tries to impose its policies and its ideologies in the Middle East whether by using force or not. In order to dominate the region, the American beliefs should be promoted in the area. Phillipson (2006) argues that the development of communications networks has a basic relationship to the emergence of the new world order. He illustrates that “communication organizes the movement by multiplying and structuring interconnections through networks” (p. 352). Thus, in order to dominate a particular country and its culture, you must control its media and what is being showed to the people inside their homes. A controversially television network channels like MBC group (Middle East Broadcasting Center) and Alhurra (means the ‘free one’ in Arabic) had emerged in the Middle East and dedicate the lion’s share in Middle Easterners’ minds and homes. Such channels can be seen by some people as mediums to spread the American’s plans and principles in the region using another means beside tanks and rockets. Alhurra is a commercial-free Arabic language satellite television network for the Middle East operated and funded by the United States of America. This channel is financed by the American people using their taxes through the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the U.S. Congress. Many Arab political critics argue that this channel lunched to change the views of Arabs and Muslims around the world towards the west and America by showing football games, explaining the acetic dimensions of baseball and airing documentaries about the ‘fence’ in Palestine, along with doses of fashion. Alhurra in its official web site claims that:

“We are devoted primarily to news and information. In addition to reporting on regional and international events, the channel broadcasts discussion programs, current affairs magazines and features on a variety of subjects including health and personal fitness, entertainment, sports, fashion, and science and technology” (Alhurra official web site).

Give me a break! In order to facilitate TESOLers’ jobs who came from inner circle countries, an anesthetization of Middle Easterners’ hearts and minds must be done so people can accept these teachers with a positive attitude and a wide smile on their faces. People in the Middle East must be convinced that they are not proficient enough to teach English, thus teachers their first language is English must take over and teach English for your child’s own benefit. According to Phillipson (2006) media is not only organize production on a new scale and force a new structure sufficient to global space, but also make its justification inherent power, as it “produces, organizes, as it organizes, it speaks and expresses it self as authority” (p. 352). Why I would pay my good money to fund an Arabic channel such as Alhurra when I cannot earn money from it. Alhurra in its web site mentions that “Alhurra is operated by non-profit corporation, The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN)” (Alhurra official web site). The Arabic satellite dish contains more than 300 free entertainment channels which can be accessed by Arabs from any place in the Middle East with more than 6 news channels such as Al-jazeera, CNN and BBC. Therefore, the purpose of such channels is that the American government can trade its citizen’s money with its future security by dominating and directing Arab youths’ minds and beliefs toward its own interest, by providing ‘a purely American Arabic speaker’ channel. The other case is MBC group channels which “started in London as the first satellite, free-to-air multi-channel media group of its kind in the Arab world” (MBC official web site). Al-Arabiya (means the ‘Arabian channel’ in Arabic) which is one channel from the MBC 6 free channels specialized with news and press. The reason behind the emergence of such channel has been declared by the people work there is to have a democratic channel which fights Aljazeera’s thoughts (an Arabic news channel) and its anti-democratic trends. Since Al-jazeera has been described by many Westerner politicians as anti-American bias, thus we need a channel against any anti-American thoughts in the Middle East region. According to Ryan (2005) Donald Rumsfeld has accused the station of persuading people that the US is an occupying force in Iraq, which he describes as a lie! On the contrary, the expansion into Iraq was to “brought freedom, economic growth, education and democracy to people who have suffered under years of oppression and mismanagement” (Hadley, 2004 quoted Assistance for Iraq). As a result, America is trying to Americanize the Arabic society the same way as she Americanized the Japanese society after the World War ll. Therefore, the road will be paved for native English teachers when they come to teach the ‘Western values’.

The world of TESOL and the native speaker teacher of English:

To impose the American ideologies in the Middle East, America promoted very well the teaching job for the native speaker teachers of English by promising them with “ good salaries and an exotic overseas adventure” (Hadley, 2004). According to Hadley many scholars such as Troike and Crystal have linked the expansion of TESOL to the expansion of former British and present American empire. Furthermore, native English teachers serve as “part of the educational aid packages exported to countries throughout South America, South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East” (Hadley, 2004) who work as colonial administrators. Handley in his paper cited Edge’s view that EFL teachers have become an academic army that satisfies intellectual conflict and occupies the linguistic dominions of an Anglophonic empire:

“…it is now possible to see us, EFL teachers, as a second wave of imperial troopers. Before the armoured divisions have withdrawn from the city limits, while the solders are still patrolling the streets, English teachers will be facilitating the policies that the tanks were sent to impose. And whether, and to whomsoever, I teach EFL, I am part of that overarching system” (Hadley, 2004 quoted from Edge, 10)

Karmani (2005) argues that an extraordinary pressure has been put on Muslim governments to reform their educational curricula. A very interesting article by Glasser (2003) who works for the Washington Post illustrates that many Arabic Gulf countries reshape their schools and put English over Islam, so in order to make way for more hours of English, classes in Islamic studies and Arabic are being reduced. A new stuff of native English speaker teachers has been brought into the schools of United Arab Emirates to teach the students from early ages. What is interesting is that the native speaker teachers are brought from inner countries as experts who do not need any preparing or training. They are who design the textbooks, monitoring the non-native speaker teachers and deciding who should stay and who should not stay in the school. However, American policies had succeeded in this country. Almost every non-native speaker teacher convinced that the native speaker teachers are better than non-native speaker teachers in English and this system is the best to teach the students this language even if they do not have the required qualifications, because English is their first language. This persuasion created negative outcomes with less positive results. In such schools a world full of racial discrimination in job opportunity, payment and respect has emerged. Non-native speaker teacher is no longer trusted by parents and his or her students. The native speaker teacher’s salary must be double than the non-native speaker teacher as one condition to import these teachers. Moreover, they must be provided with luxury accommodations, free transportations and first class annual flight tickets to their mother land. Of course, these conditions had been set by the American government to ensure that their citizens are treated well. Such conditions are imposed against governments’ wish in the Middle East region. What is ironic is that even if you have an American passport or you are a citizen from inner countries and you were not white or you were originally from Arabic country, you may not have these facilities! In some cases your contract might be cancelled even after you have signed the contract if your original identity has been discovered.

Conclusion:

In order to achieve the maximum domination on the Middle East and to make sure that no anti-American bases are exist in the region. Moreover, to insure that what happened in September 11, 2001 is not going to happen again, an American political equation must be applied, first, using the tank to impose the power. Second, programming youth’s minds and their views on what America ‘believes in’ is right. Third, teach the child what is against America is against you in the classrooms. It is not a coincidence that the emergence of (Al-Ghad) schools was after only one year from the dramatic events of September 11, 2001. It is not a coincidence that the reform of the educational curricula implemented after September 11, 2001. It is not also a coincidence that, channels like Alhurra and Al-Arabiya had been lunched after what happened in September 11 in 2001 which they are now based in Dubai, in United Arab Emirates. However, no one can disagree that Middle East countries need skilled and experienced workers and teachers from developed countries such as America, and Britain, but a direct supervising to those employees must be done by Middle Eastern countries that brought those experts and pay their salaries from their money for a preset goal. According to Fields (2005) who is a native speaker teacher of English works in Abu-Dhabi, UAE, teachers should be hired based on their qualifications to work in an atmosphere of fairness and respect, free from fear of discriminatory treatment or arbitrary dismissal because of their ethnicity, whether they were native or non-native speaker teachers of English.

Reference:

Alhurra, 2005, ‘About us’. Available from: http://www.alhurra.com/sub.aspx?id=266 [Accessed 12 Jun 2008]

Al-Osaimi, N., 2007. English Teachers Not Always Qualified [online]. Arab News. Available from:http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=104142&d=30&m=11&y=2007. [Accessed 17 May 2008]

Al-Segair, K., 2007. Only Native Speakers as English Teachers! [online]. Arab News. Available from: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=13§ion=0&article=101526&d=22&m=9&y=2007. [Accessed 17 May 2008]

Boyle, J., 1997. ‘Native-speaker teachers of English in Hong Kong’. Language and Education vol. 11, No.3

Braine, G., 1999, Introduction, in G. Braine (Ed), Non-Native Educators in English Language Teaching, Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp.xiii-xx

Canagarajah, A. S., 1999, Interrogating the “Native Speaker” Fallacy: Non-Linguistic Roots, Non-Pedagogical Results, in G. Braine (Ed), Non-Native Educators in English Language Teaching, Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp.77-92

Fields, M., 2005. If students can learn who is the better teacher, why can’t employers? [online]. Guardian Weekly. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/If students can learn who is the better teacher, why can’t employers TEFL EducationGuardian_co_uk.mht. [Accessed 16 May 2008]

Glasser, B., 2003. Qatar reshapes its schools, putting English over Islam [online]. Washington Post Foreign Services. Available from: http://www.english.education.gov.qa/files/886_WPOST.pdf. [Accessed 16 May 2008]

Hadley, G., 2004, ‘ELT and the New World Order: Nation Building or New Reconstruction?’, in TESOL Islamia, Niigata University of International and Information Studies. Available from: http:/tesolislamia.org/articles.html [Aaccessed 11 Jun 2008]

Kachru, B., & Nelson, C., 1996, ‘World Englishes’, in S McKay & N Hornberger (eds), Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 71-102

Karmani, S., 2005, English, ‘Terror’, and Islam. Applied linguistics 26(2) 262-267

MBC group, 2008, ‘About MBC group’. Available from: http://www.mbc.net/about-mbc-en/ [Accessed 12 Jun 2008]

McNeill, A., 1994. ‘Some characteristics of Native and non-Native speaker teachers of English’. International language in Education conference.

Pennycook, A., 2001, Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction, Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum

Phillipson, R., 2006, Language Policy and Linguistic Imperialism, in T. Ricento (Ed.), An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, Oxford: Blackwell, pp.246-361

Ryan, P., 2005, ‘Middle East ‘Media War’, Middle East window. Available from: http://middleeastwindow.com/node/975 [Accessed 12 Jun 2008]

Schiitz. R., 2007. ‘Stephen Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition’. Available from: http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html. [Accessed 19 May 2008]

Yes, there are. Rightly or wrongly, the whole world wants to learn English. People everywhere, especially young people, are convinced that speaking good English is their passport to a successful career. What is more, they are being encouraged in this by many governments. Worldwide, there are many more ESL jobs than there are native-speaking EFL teachers to fill them (though it should not be forgotten that English is also taught by perfectly competent non-native teachers). EMT (English mother tongue) teachers are in high demand in virtually all parts of the world. However, EMT teachers may find it more difficult to break into other English-speaking countries. And in general, schools in Western Europe express a preference for teachers with an EU passport as working papers are then automatic.

So where are all these ESL jobs?

Everywhere. Though you must realize that economic conditions in individual countries do impose restrictions on supply and demand. Virtually all parts of the world–Latin America, Asia, Eastern/Central Europe, Western Europe– welcome native-speaking teachers. Africa has some demand, but less so. There is, of course, also demand in English-speaking countries such as the UK, USA and Australia.

Which countries pay best?

If making money is your chief preoccupation you’d be better off becoming a lawyer and going into politics. There are no really rich pickings in teaching, though there are other compensations. However, in comparative terms the highest paying jobs are in Western Europe; the oil-producing countries of the Arabian Gulf; and in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Some jobs within the English-speaking countries may also be reasonably well paid.

Must I have a university degree to teach English?

A degree is often not required to teach EFL/ESL. The more important qualification is some kind of TEFL certificate. Experience can also count highly. The snag is that in many countries, especially in Asia and the Middle East, a working permit will not be granted without a degree. So a degree is more to satisfy the country’s authorities than the language institute’s real requirements. With a TEFL certificate, it is certainly possible to find work without a degree, but you should check the country’s legal requirements in advance–or be prepared to work illegally, which is not unheard of.

Can my partner go with me?

You can usually take your wife or husband with you if you have been offered a legal job with visa and working permit. However, she or he may not be allowed to work and you may find it difficult to support a dependant on a teacher’s income. If, however, your partner is also an EFL teacher, you could probably both find work in the same school or town.

What about taking children abroad?

With a legal job you can usually obtain a resident’s visa for your children, though again you may have difficulty in supported them on a teacher’s income. There would also be the question of their education, which in some cases would prove exorbitantly expensive.

Should I find a job before going abroad?

Very much up to you and the country in question. If you like adventure, and have a good TEFL certificate–and perhaps a degree for working permit purposes–you might jet off with the reasonable confidence of finding work when you land. If you are a little more staid, or nervous, or cash-strapped, you might do better to fix it all up before leaving. This is six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. Employers in some countries actually prefer to see the whites of your eyes and are not interested in talk of video-conferencing or Internet interviews. Other employers may have agents in your own country and prefer to recruit in that way.

How do I arrange a job from home?

First of all, watch the job advertisements in newspapers and online, and contact possible employers. Check out sites such as TEFL Net ESL Jobs. You can also post your resume online to let employers know that you are available for work.

How do I know that a foreign employer is reputable?

If you are employed by an international organization such as the British Council or International House you have probably already some knowledge of that organization’s status and reputation, or can easily verify it. For less well known institutions, try looking on Internet forums for more information or ask the employer to put you in contact with existing or past employees.

Is there a specific time when most jobs start?

Generally speaking, teaching EFL is a year-round business with no particular calendar or holidays. Even if schools employ teachers at the start of their “academic year”, teachers leave or additional clients arrive unexpectedly so job opportunities arise during the course of the year. It is true, however, that in Europe there is a particular demand for teachers to start in September or October.

How long a commitment will I have to make?

Most good employers will expect you to sign a contract for at least one year, especially for a job arranged in advance with airfare and accommodation. However, if you are in the country itself, you can often work on a monthly basis if it suits you better. For a few government-sponsored programs–eg, the Peace Corps or JET–a minimum two-year contract is obligatory.

Do I have to get a work permit and residence visa?

To work legally in a foreign country you need a work permit, with which you can then get a resident’s visa. You should be aware that working in a foreign country without a work permit is usually a criminal offence in that country and you render yourself liable to imprisonment, fines and/or deportation. Having said that, many EFL teachers do work illegally in many parts of the world.

So how do I get this work permit?

You won’t get any work permit without a job, or at least a firm job offer. Once you have that, your employer will normally sponsor you and take care of the necessary paperwork.

Who will I be teaching?

This depends to some extent on the school, but in general all kinds of people are learning English. You may be asked to teach students of all ages, of all levels, in groups or one-to-one, general English, business English, exam preparation and so on. The more flexible you are in this respect the more hours you will probably get. Schools are usually quite sensitive to their teachers’ capabilities and will try to match you to the most appropriate students.

What are typical working hours?

Schools in most countries will expect you to work five days a week, with 20 to 25 contact hours (plus preparation time). Depending on your contract–full-time or hourly–you may have something like 6 or 8 weeks of paid holidays (if you’re paid by the hour you may get no paid holidays, just a higher hourly rate). In some of the better paid Asian countries such as Korea or Japan you may be required to teach much longer hours and receive less time for holidays. You should be aware that though it may not seem much, 25 contact hours a week is actually more than enough for most human beings, and anything over that–especially on a long-term basis–can be quite strenuous.

How much will I be paid?

Not enough! Don’t enter TEFL for money’s sake. It’s difficult to quantify earnings as they vary so much from country to country and are in any event relative. In most places, with a reputable employer, you will earn enough to get by comfortably in local terms. However, very few countries or jobs will allow you to live well and save money. In general, you need to consider the cost of living of the country you are in. For example, a miserable pittance in Eastern Europe may in fact allow you to live better than a relatively high monthly salary in Japan.

What currency will I be paid in?

Almost always you will be paid in the local currency.

Will I earn enough to send money home?

Unlikely, unless you are particularly frugal. In the Middle East and some Asian countries, you may be able to save worthwhile amounts of money to send home. Elsewhere, you are unlikely to be able to save much, if anything, and may in any case find that exchange controls make it impossible to repatriate your savings.

What happens with taxes?

If you are legally employed you will usually be taxed at source and pay taxes and other relevant charges to the local government.

What about accommodation?

You are more likely to have accommodation arranged and perhaps paid for or subsidized if you secure a job in advance with a contract of one year or more, especially for jobs in Asia or the Middle East. You may find, however, that you are expected to share such accommodation with other teachers.

And travel? Will the school pay for it?

Again, for contracts arranged overseas in advance, travel is often paid for. It is much more difficult to get travel subsidies for jobs that you sign up for on the spot.

Will I have health insurance?

Many countries outside Europe and North America have little or no national health service and you will need to check with the school whether they provide private cover, or be prepared to pay a little extra to sign up for a local healthcare programme.

What about private lessons?

In general, employment contracts exclude the possibility of taking on private students without prior permission from your employer. However, if your regular teaching is going well, many employers will not prevent you from taking on private students (as long as you find them yourself and do not take them from the employer).

What if I really don’t fit with the job or the country?

Most employers know that an unhappy teacher is a bad teacher. If you are genuinely unhappy with your position, they will often allow you to quit as soon as they can find a replacement. If, however, they have incurred costs such as travel or visa arrangements, you may be required to repay some or all of those costs. In general, you should thoroughly research the job and country you are going to in advance to avoid such a situation.

About the Author

Josef Essberger formerly taught English as a foreign language in Asia and Europe. He is founder of http://EnglishClub.com, a site for ESL learners and teachers, and http://TEFL.net, a site dedicated to ESL teachers. Looking for an ESL teaching job? Learn more at http://www.tefl.net/esl-jobs/.

If you don’t want your class to glaze over with dictation, writing exercises and “Jimmy, would you please read paragraph 1,” then take heart! You’ll find you can teach everything you want with games, and the children remember it better to boot.

Here is a disarmingly simple game, which can be used for many purposes. Please note this particular game is for small groups of up to 20 children or so, and you need floor space. If you have more than 20 in your classes and no floor space, please see the ‘About the author’ section for free games for all class sizes.

The players stand round in a circle with one player standing in the middle. Each player has a picture of an item, or a word flash card, except for the player in the middle. Call out two of the picture card items or words. The two players holding these cards have to change places without the person in the middle grabbing one of their spots. If the person in the middle manages to slip into the spot in the circle then the one left standing goes in the middle. The new person in the middle hands their flash card to the child taking their place in the circle.

If someone is stuck in the middle for two turns say, “All Change!” When the players hear this they must all change places, which gives the person in the middle a very good chance of joining the circle. Once everyone has had one go ask your class to pass their picture to the right, and take the one handed to them from the left. You can give them another go with the new picture.

Notice that only 2 children move at any one time (aside from when you say “All Change), which makes it easy to keep control.

How could you use this game in your language teaching? Firstly, you can use it to reinforce new vocabulary, secondly, for revision, thirdly to help spelling by playing the game with word flashcards instead of pictures, and fourthly, to practise a grammatical structure.

Let us say you want to teach the conditional tense and you start with “I would like”. Hand out pictures of food that your pupils already know. Call out “I would like bananas and pie”. The pupil with the bananas tries to change places with the pupil holding the pie without the person in the middle taking one of the spots in the circle. Continue until everyone has had a go, repeating the target structure each time. With a class that learns quickly you can also introduce the rest of the declension (he and she would like, etc.). You are now ready to proceed to a speaking game where your pupils use the target structure, as they will have heard it repeatedly by now. You can follow the speaking game up with a writing game, and hey presto your children can understand, say, read and write the new target structure.

Now what better way is there to teach grammar than that? You are teaching grammar by absorption and repetition, which is the way we learn our native tongue, and for children it is by far the best way to go.

About the Author

Shelley Vernon, conscious of the vital role teachers can play in the lives of their pupils, promotes learning through encouragement and games. Sign up for free games and ideas on http://www.teachingenglishgames.com. Make your job easy and fun teaching children English through games.

1 The application

When you find a job which you like the look of, you’ll need to send your CV. You should emphasise points which are relevant to the position you are applying for – your TEFL qualification, and any relevant skills and experience, should feature strongly. Too many CVs cram all this into a couple of lines, and then list two pages of technical expertise developed during five years as a Software Engineer. Instead, briefly highlight a couple of skills that you developed in that job that could be relevant to language teaching – maybe you led training workshops which required self-confidence and enthusiasm, or worked on a project abroad for a year which meant adapting to a new culture.

If the school is interested, they will contact you to arrange an interview (possibly by telephone), usually with the School’s Director of Studies, or in larger schools, a Recruitment Coordinator.

2 The interview

The interview can last anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or more (possibly influenced by the school’s budget for long-distance calls!) You will normally be asked the types of questions you would expect in any job interview, about your qualifications, experience, strengths and weaknesses, and so on. If the job is in a culture significantly different to your own, you may be asked why you are interested in that particular country, and how you would cope with the types of cultural differences you could expect to face.

Some interviewers ask teaching or grammar questions. “How would you introduce the past simple tense to a group of 12 adults?” for example, or “How would you explain the word ‘proud’?” These are difficult to prepare for specifically, but this is where your training course will come in!

The interviewer should give you an opportunity to ask any questions you have about the school, the city, the salary and so on. This is a good point to ask if you can talk to/email a current teacher. Teachers working at the school are a good source of what it’s really like. What are the working conditions like? The teaching resources? The nightlife? The boss? The accommodation? Do you get paid on time? Is there internet at the school? And so on. Make sure you are clear about things which are important to you. If the school works on Saturdays and you want your weekends free, for example, it’s best to find out at this stage!

3 The contract

All going well, the school will offer you a contract. A typical contract is for one year, renewable thereafter. Read this very carefully and don’t be afraid to ask if anything is not clear. A reputable employer will appreciate the fact that moving to another country to live and work is a big step (if you are dealing with the Director of Studies, he/she was in the same boat once) and should be forthcoming with help.

There is no set format for a contract, but it should at least be clear about several important points:

- Working days and hours, including the number of contact teaching hours - between 20 and 25 a week is normal.

- Holidays – how many days? Are they fixed?

- Probationary period – if so, how long?

- Start and end dates of the contract

- Salary, overtime and any bonus – when is it paid, and how?

For jobs outside the EU and North America, many schools offer return airfare as part of the deal, often paid on successful completion of the contract. Some offer free accommodation, others provide it but not for free. All should at the very least provide help with finding it. Schools should also sort out paperwork and legalities for you, or tell you exactly what you need to do.

In the EU and North America, things are often very different. You will more likely be expected to sort yourself out in terms of getting there, finding accommodation and sorting out paperwork. A job is often very much just that – a job, without such a network of support.

Other means of recruitment

Many schools, especially in some EU countries, use other means of recruitment, including TEFL recruitment agencies, newspapers and local expat magazines, and just relying on people to contact them directly or walk in off the street in search of work.

Some teachers choose to travel to the country where they want to work first, and look for work when they arrive. There are some pros and cons to this approach. On the plus side, some schools are more likely to hire you if they have met you face to face, and you are already established in a place. But the risk is spending a lot of time and money with no guarantee of finding a job, particularly if you are newly qualified and the majority of schools in that country require several years of experience.

If you choose this route then, get to know the typical requirements of schools first by looking at job adverts, or contact some schools directly before you go.

Things to look out for

The great majority of schools are reputable businesses and, except for the inevitable mishaps and inconveniences (broken photocopiers, cultural misunderstandings!) most contracts go without a hitch. But of course, as in any profession, there are some disreputable schools who seek to take advantage of unsuspecting teachers. So, make sure you research a school as thoroughly as you can. Get as much information from the school, other teachers, TEFL websites and forums that you need to feel comfortable in making a decision.

Here are a few things to look out for with every job that you apply for:

- Are they offering you a job without speaking to you first?

- Are they unprepared to put you in contact with current teachers?

- Are they expecting you to accept a job without seeing a contract?

- Are they asking you to send them money?

All going well, you’ve survived the interview and accepted your first job in a country where you’ve dreamed of living since embarking on your TEFL career. So now it’s time to get on the plane, meet your new colleagues, and start your new life!

About the Author

Keith Taylor runs http://www.eslbase.com/, providing free resources, advice and information for TEFL teachers. He also runs the language exchange, http://www.eslbase.com/language-exchange/.

PRESENTATION

Presentation represents the introduction to a lesson, and necessarily requires the creation of a realistic (or realisticish) ’situation’ requiring the target language to be learned. This can be achieved through using realia such as pictures, dialogs, imagination or actual ‘classroom situations’. The teacher checks to see that the students understand the nature of the situation, then builds the “concept” underlying the language to be learned using small chunks of language that the students already know. Having understood the concept, students are then given the language ‘model’ and engage in choral drills to learn statement, answer and question forms for the target language. This is the most teacher-orientated stage of the process, where error correction is important.

PRACTICE

Practice usually begins with what is termed ‘mechanical practice’ - open and closed pairwork. Students gradually move into more ‘communicative practice’ involving procedures such as information gap activities, dialogue creation and controlled roleplays. Practice is seen as the frequency device to create familiarity and confidence with the new language, and a measuring stick for accuracy. The teacher still directs and corrects at this stage, but the classroom is beginning to become more learner-centered.

PRODUCTION

Production is seen as the culmination of the language learning process, whereby the learners have started to become independent users of the language rather than students of the language. The teacher’s role here is to somehow facilitate a realistic situation or activity where the students instinctively feel the need to actively apply the language they have been practicing. The teacher does not correct or become involved unless students directly appeal to him/her to do so.

ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES

The PPP approach is relatively straight forward, and structured enough to be easily understood by both students and new or emerging teachers. It is a good place to start in terms of applying good communicative language teaching in the classroom. It has also been criticized considerably for the very characteristic that makes it the easiest method for ‘beginner’ teachers, that is, that it is far too teacher-orientated and over controlled. A nice alternative to ‘PPP’ is Harmer’s ‘ESA’ (Engage/Study/Activate).