Question for non-native English speakers teaching English

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Jan - 27 Oct 2005 11:20 GMT

Hello,

I work in a company that produces teaching materials for English
teachers and students in schools in Turkey. Some of the teachers who
use our materials are native speakers, but the vast majority are Turks.
I have a question for non-native English speakers who are teaching
English. The answers might help me to write better materials for our
teachers here in Turkey.

The question is: do you think that the teacher's guides for the
coursebooks you teach help you enough with your classes? Would you like
a teacher's guide to give you more help with language, and if so, what
kind of help?

I'm asking this question particularly to non-native teachers because
for me, the teacher's guides from the main publishers (Oxford, Longman
et al.) often seem to think the teacher has an unlimited store of
English language at his/her fingertips, and also know the correct
pronunciation of all the words in a text, etc. Is this a problem for
anyone out there?

Thanks for any ideas,
Jan

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Django Cat - 28 Oct 2005 00:21 GMT

> Hello,
>
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
> pronunciation of all the words in a text, etc. Is this a problem for
> anyone out there?

Yes, that's spot on - teacher's books are written with native speakers
in mind and often with the idea that teachers will have the level of
language awareness that only comes after a few years in the classroom,
and which beginner teachers - native or not - don't have. However,
most generic coursebooks aren't written with a specific L1 teacher
audience in mind, which yours will be.

I'll shut up now because I'm a native speaker.

DC

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Jan - 31 Oct 2005 10:17 GMT

Well, I'm not getting much enthusiasm from the non-native teachers out
there, but I'd still like some ideas :). Therefore, trusting that some
of the people in this group are seasoned teachers and teacher trainers
(native or non-native), I'd like to suggest doing this another way:

I have here an extract of the questions and exercises accompanying one
of our readers (a simplified English story) for pre-internediate to
intermediate learners. Alongside it is an extract of the answer key I
wrote, targeted at a non-native teaching audience.

If anyone is at a loose end and enjoys critiquing other people's work

:)), I'd be more than happy to send them both files, to see if there

are any helpful suggestions out there. Just contact me off-list and
I'll send you the files, and we can take the discussion from there.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give,

Jan

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Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / October 2005

Question for non-native English speakers teaching English