How necessary is it for teachers of foreign languages to have knowledge of the students' language?

Question

I have to write an essay on this and to be honest I don't know where to start. Do you think it is important to be able to understand the foreign language of the student you are teaching or should you just stick rigidly to English?

Answer 1

You may want to research the origin of "berlitz" language schools. This should give you sufficient for an essay.

It would also seem from this story that it is actually a barrier to learning to have knowledge of your student's language.

The many courses available to teach English as a foreign language do not require you understand your student's language.

The course I took only required you to have experience of learning a language. The level of success at this was not pertinent - it was only so you understood what your students were undertaking.

Excerpt from site:

"Needing an assistant to teach French, Berlitz hired a young Frenchman who appeared to be the most promising candidate, possibly because of the impeccable French in his letter of application. The applicant, Nicholas Joly, arrived in Providence to find his new employer ill and feverish from overwork, a condition that only worsened when Berlitz learned that Joly spoke no English! Desperate to keep the school running with Joly at the helm, Berlitz instructed his new assistant to point at objects and act out verbs as best he could. He then took to his bed.

Berlitz emerged anxiously six weeks later prepared to face the wrath of his neglected students. Instead, he found them engaging in lively question-and-answer exchanges with their teacher, in elegantly accented French! The seriousness of the formal classroom was gone, and most importantly, the students had progressed further than any ever had under six weeks of his own tutelage.

Berlitz quickly concluded that his emergency measure held the seed of an innovative teaching technique. By replacing rote learning with a discovery process that kept students active and interested, it solved many of the problems that had plagued language instruction in the past."

Answer 2

Berlitz (as mentioned above) uses the audio-lingual method. This method is proven to NOT work. I doubt you could find a single study written after 1970 that suggests the audio-lingual method is the most effective. The advantage of the audio-lingual method is that it's cheap and teachers don't need any training. The disadvantages are that it's boring and ineffective! TRUST ME ON THIS - I've taught using a variety of methods as mandated by the schools I've worked at.

I want you to imagine that you live in England and it's your job to teach English to new immigrants through a government-funded program. Do you think the government would group the people from Nigeria, Turkey and Cambodia seperately? NO! As a teacher, you would be responsible for teaching all of the students in a heterogenous group. It can be done, and it's regularly done well by trained instructors.

However, it's very difficult to find research on the subject. Try some of the following links.

Answer 3

You can focus on :
Phonetics: People from different cultures have problems pronunciating different sounds; for example: spanish speakers tend to add a short "e" sound to words that begin with a consonant cluster starting with "s", they would say "e"star, "e"skate. Asian speakers tend to substitute the sound of the "r" with the "l", lice for rice. I don't think it is absolutely necessary to know other languages but it would be good to know those aspects specific students will have specific problems.
Grammar: word order in sentences. In Spanish you will usually find this structure, nound+adjective "zapatos rojos"; while in English you use the structure of adjective+noun "red shoes". All sentences in English need to have a subject while in Spanish the subject is not mentioned is implied by the tense of the verb: "Venimos tarde"="We came late"
Methodology: if you use the Audio-lingual method, for example, using the native language of the students is a big no-no. Different methods have different points of view on this aspect. You can try researching The Silent Method, Desuggestopedia, The Translation Method and The Direct Method

Answer 4

I taught English as a Foreign Language in Japan for ten years.

To small children, or beginning students, I used mostly English...except when someone had to go to the bathroom!

For more advanced students, I used Japanese to explain the lesson, and then switched to English.

For the best students, I used ONLY English.

But, remember, there are many methods, and many effective teachers, and many ways to get the job done!

Answer 5

You might want to think about breaking it down in terms of who the students are. Are they beginning or advanced students? Are they children, adults, professionals, college students?? Also consider the context. Is this supplememntary instruction in their native country, or are they studying abroad? In some situations it may be better if the teacher only speaks the language being taught, but in others it may be beneficial to the students to be able to hear certain explanations in their native language.

Answer 6

i teach oral english, and i know no foreign language. the students have been learning the foreign language for years from their own people but their pronunciation is at best, understandable. if you want to teach someone a new language from the start, it would be difficult and time consuming

Answer 7

It is not necessary.My husband taught English as a foreign language for many years.He taught mainly to Arab speaking students and know very little Arabic.