what is the difference between teaching english as a foreign language and teaching it as a second language?

Answer 1

Here are a couple of scenarios:

You are Mexican, living in Mexico City. Spanish is your mother tongue. You speak nothing but Spanish at home and in doing business. Some of your customers are English speaking and you'd like to serve them better by learning their language. You would take English as a Foreign Language lessons. You would also take EFL if you are travelling to, say, England, South Africa, USA,or any other place where Engllish is the official language.

Alternatively, you are Mexican and you emigrate (or plan on emigrating) to Canada. You must learn the language to do business and undertand how to function in this new country of yours. Although Spanish is your mother tongue, you must learn English thoroughly to get by in your new world. You would take English as a Second Language lessons. These are much more intensive and "persnickety" because you also learn to read and write in English in a more academic way.

Most people, however, use these terms interchangeably. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

As a TESL and TEFL instructor I will tell you that there is a big difference between the two. 1. TESL - is taught in a country where the population outside the classroom speaks English. In other words, once the student leaves the classroom he/she can hear and practice English within the community. Examples of TESL would be America, Canada, Britain, Australia.... 2. TEFL is Teaching English as a foreign language. Here the students live in their own countries and they are learning English as a foreign language. Once out of the classroom, they will be surrounded by their own language. SO, why is this important?? Because in a TESL environment, the teacher knows that the students will be able to practice it outside the classroom, whether going to a restaurant, movies, shopping, etc. In TEFL, the students usually have a limited amount of time to learn and practice the language in the classroom, so the teacher has to maximize the time and the material to give the students as much exposure to the language. Imagine, a class of 40 students (not uncommon in Asia). If the students go to class 1 hour every day/5x a week you would think that they would get 300 minutes of English per week. Right?? Wrong, think about 1 -60 minute class. The teacher has to present the material. Let's say that the students have about 30-40 minutes left. If each student speaks, each one will have about 1 minute of speaking time per class = 5 minutes total in a week. Once they leave the classroom they go back to speaking their own language. My question is: Can you learn a language by speaking 5 minutes a week? This is why many students in TEFL situations will tell you that they've studied English for 5-10 years and yet they cannot speak not even close to fluently. And now you know. I hope this helps.

Answer 3

I understand the question in this way, "teaching English as a foreign language presupposes that the students either want to master it or they want to learn English because they are coming from different nationalities; they want to learn and a professor or a teacher is needed. On the other hand, "teaching English as a second language means that English is a part of the school curriculum and the students must learn because English is being used in the school instructions and in all the subjects like in the Philippines.

Answer 4

They're essentially the same thing. The same field is also called "Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages" and "Teaching English to English Language Learners". "Teaching English as a Foreign Language" is the oldest name for this field. It was largely abandoned because "foreign" was felt to be a bad term. The other names are attempts to remove any stigmas.

Answer 5

The terms are interchangeable:
"Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL), also known as teaching English as a second language (TESL) or teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) has seen significant changes in recent years."
From, appropriately enough, www.tefl-tesl.com

Answer 6

English can be teacher's mother language or her second language, also as a student English can be her mother language or her second language, that's how u can find out.

Answer 7

As far as I know, English is considered as a second lang. because the first lang. is YOUR mother Tongue. and You LEARN english therefore its status is second.
And english as a Foreign language also shows that we LEARN the language English so its considered as a second lang.
Hope it helped u :)