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Message board > have you any trouble speaking English as a teacher?
have you any trouble speaking English as a teacher?
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elt_ozz
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have you any trouble speaking English as a teacher?
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Hello, I have met this website 5days ago,so I �m new. I want to ask you as a teacher of English that have you any problem while you speaking English? Some of my colleague agree with me. It may come strange but unfortunately,as we have no chance practising with native speakers,fluent speaking sometimes can be problem. So Im curios about this,do you have problems something like that in terms of fluency? |
11 Feb 2010
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mena22
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Hi elt! I do have sometimes problems and I think I always will, the thing is that I have learned some startegies to overcome my difficulties. Whenever I don �t know a word, for example, I imeddiately find another way of saying the same thing. To avaoid dead moments and keep the conversation going I use fillers, meanwhile I have time to think of a better way to say what I want. I make myself watch at least an hour a day TV, usually series with daily routines so that I pick common expressions which make you fluent. When I �m speaking, my first aim is fluency, even if sometimes at the expense of accuracy though most of the times I �m aware of my mistakes and try to correct them.
Hope I could help.
mena |
11 Feb 2010
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elt_ozz
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Thanks a lot mena :) yes,while speaking I always correct my mistakes so it makes the conversation boring I think. To overcome this,I watch some serries and films but I see that it is useful just for listening,not speaking. I hope I will overcome |
11 Feb 2010
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5puravida5
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I think fluency is a problem with any second language. The more nervous I am when I try to speak Spanish, the least fluent I become. I do exactly what Mena does and sometimes the accuracy is off but I always add "mas o menos." :) I agree with her that the common expressions help with fluency. The big thing is to keep trying.
Cheryl |
11 Feb 2010
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zailda
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Hi!
Speaking a foreign language is like driving a car: there aren �t bad drivers, there are only inexperienced ones. The more you practice, the better you get.
TV, the Internet, videos and books can help a lot. Reading and watching the news in English are helpful and interesting activities.
I became fluent in English and Spanish studying hard and practicing with natives. I type and write very fast and sometimes I only realize mistakes later on, and I usually think of many things at the same time.
I speak only English and Spanish at school, and it �s easier to remember what I want to say in those languages than in Portuguese. Is it normal? Sometimes I feel worried because people usually have the opposite problem... and it �s funny because when I �m not teaching and I am supposed to speak only my native language I start speaking English or Spanish with someone who speaks only Portuguese.
My students talk to me in English in class, and everywhere either at school or when we meet, and on the Internet.
Practice leads to perfection but I know I �ll never be perfect even in my mother tongue.
Have a nice day!
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12 Feb 2010
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lshorton99
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I �ve been living in Spain for a little over six years now and I often find switching between English and Spanish difficult! It �s quite common for me to be teaching an advanced class and only remember the Spanish word for something so it �s not only non-native speakers that have problems! I �ve even forgotten words in an elementary class!
I agree with Zalida - the more exposure to the language the better. I picked up a lot of Spanish when I tore ligaments in my foot and was forced to spend a lot of time on the sofa watching really bad telenovelas (South American soap operas). I had no subtitles so I had to just adjust and understand.
Good luck and I �m sure you are more fluent than you think!
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12 Feb 2010
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yanogator
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zailda, if you think there are no bad drivers, come to Cincinnati sometime!
Bruce |
12 Feb 2010
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SaraMariam
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I �m with Zailda and Mena. I �m exposed to the language every day since I �m speaking it at home as well (that doesn �t necessarily mean you speak better since you most of the time don �t have big discussions about whatever at the dinnertable), but I do many mistakes simply because I �m writing too fast or using incorrect grammer while talking quickly even though I know it is wrong. It is actually rare that I can �t think of a word, but if so then I do it like Mena and always dance around it somehow. First I thought all this fluency comes from speaking with my husband everyday etc, but actually it �s not true. I already spoke like this during my schooltime and it is like Zailda says, only through practice. I was searching for possibilties to speak, read and learn English every day. I had over 20 penfriends in all over the world to make sure I write letters every day (lol), I bought newspapers and magazines like crazy, went to cinemas where they showed the movies in original languages (I feel so old now; since now we have even more opportunities with the internet)... The pronunciation came from my teacher in school, the fluency I taught myself by exposing myself like crazy to the English language and I think this is something that every English teacher should have to do. I have seen some teacher examples in one of my old schools that made me want to cry. One day a teacher came into my class and asked me what a "pear" is, teaching children. I undstand when there are words we as native speakers don �t know, especially when we are stil young and don �t have as much experience, but I thought at least you should know the basic vocabulary you are teaching to a childrens class. Speaking to natives or other speakers is of course always helpful, but not necessarily something you can �t become fluent without. There are a lot of opportunities we have nowadays thank God :). So don �t become desperate and just try to do as much in English as you can, it all comes with practice and experience :)
Hugs Sara |
12 Feb 2010
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mavifadilmen
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hey:) yep sometimes its possible. but dont use Turkish in your class and you will see that you will get used to speaking English. I am an English Teacher for two years in an Anatolia Highschool and I havent used Turkish in my clasess and outside yet. but I am lucky because I had stayed in USA for 18 months when I started this job. I also had some trouble with English language because speaking English in United States is more different than we do in Turkey:) that �s why it wasnt easy for me to speak according to students level. some times I used " wanna,gonna,gotto, was gonna, fuck:( this is very usual in USA), it wasnt easy to change my speech but insisted on speaking proper English and never used Turkish anddd in the end I accomplished it and now even though I am outside, I dont use Turkish while speaking to students. they dont have chance:):) they will either understand me or they will understand me:):):) |
12 Feb 2010
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s.lefevre
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hi elt,
I don �t think you will speak fluently if you read a lot. I had many students who could read very difficult books and could not speak. Perhaps you could attend a conversation class in a language school or with a native speaker, this might help a lot. |
12 Feb 2010
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verybouncyperson
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I have the same problem as lshorton99 - I �m a native speaker and sometimes forget words or even say whole sentences which have quite Spanish structures!
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12 Feb 2010
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