At some point during my third week of the TEFL course, I wrote a reflection regarding one of the three ‘Unknown Language’ courses we were required to take during our teacher training process. I wrote, “I think that if you are going to be an English teacher, it is also your duty to expose yourself to other languages.” I continued, “Native English speakers tend to sink into the comfort of knowing the world will adapt to their needs, therefore they often have little interest in expanding their knowledge of languages.” For context, TEFL Worldwide provides future teachers with a handful of beginner language classes, both to equip the trainee’s teaching arsenal through access to a wide variety of teaching styles and to show- or remind- the future teacher just how frustrating it feels to learn a brand new language. Before moving abroad, and especially before pursuing a career in English teaching, I was never faced with much of a reason to think critically about my relationship with my mother tongue or any other language. But teaching a language, I’ve come to understand, is learning a language.
So I’ll get up on my soapbox for a quick minute to say that, in order to teach a language to others, you yourself should set about on your own personal journey of language learning.
It is important that you take this upon yourself, especially for native English speakers, as we have grown to understand the world will bend itself to accommodate us.
In fact, it is this very accommodation that allows English-speaking expats to live happily in Prague with less than one completed Duolingo unit in Czech. Take me, for example. Me, who devolves into the tired “Prominte, nerozumim česky” (Sorry, I don’t understand Czech) the second the grocery store cashier goes one word off script. I say that line without an ounce of panic in my chest because I assume most people will repeat it in English for me. Either that or wave me a “never mind” gesture that shows me I’m not the first annoying American they’ve encountered that day. Next time I’ll just do the self-checkout, I think to myself.
Learning another language is not easy, but I do believe it exercises important muscles in your brain that otherwise remain limp. When I moved to France, it was with the sole intention of learning the language. And it worked. And I loved it! In truth, fewer experiences have made me feel as proud, as triumphant, as I did upon realizing I could hold conversations in French. So yes, put yourself in the awkward and often maddening- although frequently gratifying- position of the language learner. By noticing the tactics that help us learn, remember, and master another language, we as educators are able to modify personal teaching styles to help our students in their language pursuit.
There is another hard truth I’ve been faced with in becoming an English teacher: it makes you realize what little English you truly know. You (I) may make it your (my) entire literate life having a vague understanding of the word esoteric based on contextual clues before you’re (I’m) standing in front of fifteen 20-year-old exam prep students being asked to explain its significance. Bluffing doesn’t help you (me) by the way. Only Google can.
The point is, as native English speakers we feel comfortable within the safety and warmth of our mother tongue. We feel we cannot be betrayed by it (we can, by the way. British English betrays me every day); that we know all we will ever need to know about it because we’ve made it this far by coasting on the recycled vocabulary and phrases used in everyday life. You may have never even given a second thought to the concept of grammatical structures since the age of 9 (and if you have, good for you then? Nerd?). But rest assured, TEFL Worldwide Prague will reacquaint you with the mysterious world of grammar… (scary, I know, but you’ll survive it).
Teaching English means submitting to the understanding that you don’t own it; and you certainly aren’t the supreme, all-knowing English guru. After all these years of schooling, speaking, and thinking you’ve mastered your language, it may come as a great shock to enter the realm of English teaching. So as native English speakers, let’s all put our grandiose egos back in that 3rd grade desk and accept that being a good teacher means being a good learner, too.
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