By Pyzhou (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Why did you become a foreign trainer?

My first experience of being in another country when I wasn’t on holiday was studying in Argentina while at graduate school. Even though it was only for a week or two, I really liked that feeling of being a part of a country, as opposed to just visiting it. That was one of the reasons I came to Shanghai. I wanted to learn the language and the culture, so working as a foreign trainer at a Disney English school was a unique way to do that.

My role is to teach English to children aged three to 10 and give them an extra boost to the curriculum taught in their regular Monday to Friday school. It’s therefore not your typical nine to five job. I work with 10 other foreign trainers, each teaching two to three classes a night. However, the work ethic is very similar to the US because I work a 40-hour week, with two days off.

All the classes, which are a maximum of two hours long, are broken down into different themes, from vocabulary to past participles. For some of our kids, the three year olds, for example, it’s their first exposure to the language. But the lessons are made fun by using stories from Disney films. I have also been using Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to teach vocabulary such as good, bad, better, worse, worst or cleanest, messiest, neatest; all the words which are relevant to the story. Not only do they learn the vocabulary, they learn the stories and by doing that they get to learn additional words such as what a villain or a witch is.

We also use a lot of interactive technology in class, such as a whiteboard and a projection wall with games and activities built into them. For example, a typical class might involve introducing a Disney story such as Monsters Inc. In that story they have closet doors which the monsters jump through. So, we have an interactive game where the children have to count the doors appearing on the screen, first learning cardinal followed by ordinal numbers. In another game students are asked to identify a colour, for instance red, by going up to the whiteboard and touching the correct fish. The fish then jumps off the board and across the classroom onto the projection wall.

Brad with a display of his students work at Disney’s school in Shanghai.

The most rewarding part of the job is seeing the students which I had when I first started in May last year go from only being able to count to 10 to now writing stories and having an entire conversation in English.

Disney English schools are totally immersive – we don’t use any Chinese in the classroom – sometimes the language barrier can make teaching really difficult. For example, it’s hard to teach something abstract such as the word jealous without a translation. One way I got around this was by giving one child six stickers and another one sticker. I asked the latter: “How do you feel?” He replied in Chinese and my learning partner, who’s from Shanghai, told me he said the word for jealous. So a lot of times you have to think outside of the box. If you make it an immersive English environment students pick up the language so much quicker. It’s sometimes not the easiest route but it’s the best one.

If you’re considering becoming a foreign trainer, the most important thing is to be open to a new experience and culture because it will most likely be completely different to anything you’ve ever done before. I had worked for Disney for 15 years previously, as a tour guide and teaching primary school students history and science at its theme park in Florida. Even so, it was a completely different experience. You have to be open to trying new things but it definitely changes people in a positive way.

Brad Richard has worked for Disney for 15 years and is currently a foreign trainer with Disney English at the Jingqiao Centre in Shanghai, China. Brad started his career at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. To learn more, and to apply for opportunities with Disney English, visit www.disneyenglish.disneycareers.com

There are so many different ways of adding some fun to the English classes you run that it seems a shame not to take advantage of at least one of them. You might teach them some jokes or some interesting proverbs or maybe listen to some music or watch a film together. Let’s see how this could help.

Help Them Relax

Most students need to relax in order to learn as well as they want to. This can be tough for some people to do, and not doing it well often results in students getting too nervous and stumbling over their words or not listening to you properly. One of your priorities as an English teacher should be help them to relax at the start of each lesson. Sometimes this might just take the form of some fun introductions but at other times you might want to get everyone to settle down and relax with a long game or some other sort of interesting learning method.

They’ll Learn Without Even Realising

Possibly the best thing about running fun lessons is that your students will learn without even fully realising it. It is far easier to get caught up in a game or a movie than in a dull book or a lifeless role playing exercise. The lesson will probably rush past if you all start enjoying it and if you pay attention to your students you should see that they are gaining a lot from it. A good game which can help with this is the accent game. You can play clips (or do the accents yourself) and get them to identify where person is from. If anyone in your class has learned really well in the past and picked up some form of native accent maybe they can all guess where that person studied.  Did she learn English in Manchester? Was she a student in Australia? Little games like this are fantastic for passing a few minutes doing something different.

They Will Look Forward to New Lessons

Ideally you will want everyone to leave to the lessons already looking forward to the next one. As well as seeing them troop out happily you will also know that there is more chance of them doing some studying outside of the class. The more enthusiasm you can get to them to feel for the subject then the better they will carry on learning in their free time.

You’ll Enjoy It More Too

Finally, we can’t forget to take into account the amount of enjoyment that you get out of the classes you give. The more you enjoy them then the better you can expect to teach your students. The enthusiasm and enjoyment which you show to your students are big factors in their learning. If you can make it an experience which you all enjoy then you will almost certainly do a better job of teaching English.

I have been teaching kindergarten for about six months in China so I have had some time to reflect on teaching young learners. I try to use moments in the classroom to create some moments of authentic interaction even though they are quite young.

A quick word

I often like to have what I call micro-conversations with the children, for what might take less than a minute, before the actual class starts. I often view these “micro-conversations” as an important part of the lesson. It is in that tiny amount of space that I really communicate with the children in English. I often use language that is not in the set book, or, adheres to any chants, but the children are listening and often repeating, and even confirming with me in their native tongue the meaning of the words or sentences I have used.

Grab the authentic moments

The children often want to communicate with you outside the boundaries of the book, even if it is in their language. These are the opportunities for you as the foreign teacher to grab. For example, recently in one of my classes, the children were desperately trying to communicate to me that it was somebody’s birthday, and they had brought in a cake, they would not let me start the lesson until I had understood!  I eventually caught on with the help of the teaching assistant, and said, “Oh, its Sophie’s birthday, happy birthday Sophie!” This was a chance for me to teach them the words “Happy Birthday” and we sang the song. It was also a chance to review the question ‘How old are you?”  This was a moment in the class “outside” of the book and a chance for me to have a tiny amount of authentic communication with them, and I think the children enjoyed the moment of being “outside” the set lesson.

Teacher talk

I often find myself having these micro-conversations surreptitiously before the teaching assistant arrives, because I know we will have to plunge right into the book and stick to the plan. I only have twenty five or twenty minutes with each class, so we do not have a great deal of time.  I am not suggesting that routine and repetition are not important for young learners, but, I think that micro- conversations are a useful way to have a little authentic interaction with the children.  A micro-conversation could be as simple as “It’s very cold today isn’t it?” and use body language to show you are cold. I do not expect them to take over the conversation, but as the teacher I may be helping them to realise that just like the language their parents use with them, English is for communicating too.

LAL have 6 residential summer schools across England and are looking for dynamic and passionate staff to help our students have a great summer.

Last year all of our British Council accredited summer schools proved highly successful. The feedback was very positive and this was all down to our passionate and dedicated team. This summer we are fortunate enough to have a high number of returning staff, however, as we continue to grow there is always a need for additional positive and reliable staff to join our team.

Our residential teachers are the fundamental core of our summer schools and LAL ensure no teachers are involved in pastoral (morning and night-time) duties and they will be in rooms away from the students when possible. In return we expect our EFL teachers to prepare and teach dynamic, fun and communicative lessons to multinational classes and actively participate in activities and excursions.We also have positions available for managerial roles in both our academic and leisure departments.

Full details available on our website provided below.

Native or native equivalent speakers with relevant EFL experience preferred. You should be educated to degree level with a CELTA, Cert TESOL, PGCE (in English, Modern Languages or Primary) or equivalent. Experience of working with young people beneficial.

Candidates should hold or be willing to apply for a full DBS (previously called CRB) disclosure or national equivalent if applying from outside the UK.

EU national preferred – LAL cannot enter into any applications for work permits or sponsoring.

All details about us and the positions available including job descriptions, full salary information and application forms are available at our website:

http://www.lalgroup.com/g/en/careers
(Please filter by – “UK Summer Schools”)

Please mention tefljobsnetwork.co.uk when applying for this position.

Let’s Go Teach

So, you are now living abroad, and you want to make your classes fun and communicative, you really want to help your class develop their English.  But you may be in a culture that is not open to your communicative methods, maybe the learners just want to pass their exams, and English is just one of many of the exams they have to take.  Perhaps your learners do not want to speak in class, either because of embarrassment, or the fact that they are from a culture where the teacher is expected to do most of the talking.  Maybe there is a book you have to follow and set exercises that need to be done, and it is frowned upon if you stray from it, in fact maybe there just is not enough time in one lesson to even put your communicative tasks into practice.

What do you do?

I suppose we often forget that the idea of communicative teaching; more student speaking time, tasks that encourage real use of the language, has probably been developed within a culture/s that encourages as much discussion as possible within learning environments. So, we are ensconced within our “communicative” classrooms assuming it is the “natural” way to teach, and then you go abroad and walk right into a cultural wall that says “we don’t do it like that, hold your horses!”  Do you push on regardless, which will probably end up with you on the losing side or do you step back and just do it how they have always done it?

Look who’s talking

It can be frustrating having to teach in a way that is alien to you, but probably very comfortable for your learners, for example, in China, where I teach, the choral repetition of a text out loud three or four times after the teacher is very common. I do not think I have ever done that in a class in the UK, or if I have it has not been more than two repetitions.  My CELTA instinct says “This is not how you learn a language!”  It can be very frustrating and disheartening to see what you think are your attempts at encouraging authentic communication being strongly resisted. Not only by the staff but also learners, and possibly parents!

Perhaps we do need to hold our horses and trot along with them, and then pick up speed somewhere along the way?  Perhaps there is arrogance in assuming that our method is the way? I do not have the answer, but it is a daily professional conundrum that keeps my brain ticking over; how do you balance culture and new methods of teaching?

The situation

I am now teaching kindergarten in the north of China, which I am enjoying, but what I have had to get used to is teaching to quite a strict syllabus. In London I was teaching adults and I was given free reign as to when I taught my students, particular language points and for how long.  In kindergarten we spend a week teaching one learning point, for example, I may teach the letters J, K and L for one week along with actions and chants, or, we may just repeat a dialogue.

Squeezing out the last drop

Despite the high tolerance young learners have for repetition, there is still a want on my part to try and be more creative within these constraints.  I do not have easy access to printers or a laminating machine, all of which I am sure can be obtained in China, but when you are still finding your feet in a new country, it is not always obvious where you buy these things.

Luckily, I had armed myself with four different coloured permanent markers before I Ieft London for China. When I arrived in the town where I now teach,  I made sure I knew where I could buy a pack of printing paper, so, I can now make extremely simple flashcards.  I consolidate chants by copying the chants onto the paper and cutting them up, the children then put them in order, this adds some essential physical movement to the lesson. They are most likely just beginning to learn to read in their own language, so I do not expect them to necessarily start reading English, but with the constant repetition and pictures as clues, some of them begin to make connections and put them in the correct order.

If they have been learning certain letters of the alphabet I cut out the letters and stick them on card, hide one of them around the room and instruct one or two of the children to search for it. This can go on for a good five to ten minutes and they can become quite raucous while doing it.  Creating alphabet flashcards is another easy way I have found to exploit simple chants; I give out the letters and call out letters of the words that are in the chants we have learnt. This reinforces the words and pronunciation, it also breaks up the monotony of repetition. Teaching kindergarten with limited English language resources can be frustrating, and when you are expected to teach within a framework, which may not be very flexible, I have discovered that I have had to exploit the content to the maximum.

Teaching a mono-lingual class is always challenging as you are the odd one out in the classroom (unless you can speak their language well), and most importantly it’s natural for students to revert to their own language as a default position. This is fine in brief spurts to elucidate points, but if it is allowed to go unchecked, it can lead to you losing the thread of your class and make it very hard to deliver your material. Remember that the students are there to learn English, and they should be immersed in the target learning language!

Different nationalities present different problems

Different nationalities obviously present different problems in mono-lingual classes. A room of Japanese students will usually be grammar-centred and the room will be almost silent, so much elicitation and prompting is required. Italian, Spanish and South and Central American students can be very voluble, and if they start talking their own language too much, you can easily lose them. Lay down your rules in the first class: only English to be spoken in class unless you specifically ask a student to explain something to a classmate in their language. Even then it can be difficult. The hardest mono-lingual class I have ever taught was a group of Sicilian teenagers doing the Trinity exam. One wouldn’t take his sunglasses off in class (it was mid-October and the sky was white outside). Another boy slept every day until break. When I nudged him awake on the second day and reminded him he was there to learn English, his response in broken English was difficult to answer: ‘My father is a fisherman, I will be fisherman. Sicilian fish no speak the English.’ I let him sleep after that.

Split the class into groups- as you get to know the students you will know the ones who like to revert to their own language. Make sure they never get paired off together or work in the same group. This will minimise their tendency to speak their own language. Pitch your talking points half in English-speaking culture (American culture is obviously often more known to them than British) but also prepare material that takes in their culture and customs. Although you should have researched the topic, play the fool in class and ask them questions about it- most students love to introduce you to their culture. Use humour to feign surprise, and then explain the British way of doing the same thing. When teaching in Spain, one student remarked that he couldn’t understand why British people had carpets in their bathrooms – I replied that it was because our feet get cold in our poor climate. He laughed, but when I thought about it he had a point!

Debates are great

Debates with an international perspective are great for getting them talking in English, as long as their level is pre-intermediate or above. It sounds provocative, but sometimes choosing a controversial subject in their culture can open them up, but of course you must also be culturally and religiously sensitive. In a class of elementary Taiwanese, I got the students to introduce themselves on the first day. They all did it formally apart from man, who added that he was ‘Made in Taiwan.’ Nobody laughed, including him, and I had to fight to hold my laughter back. By the second class, the rest of the class had overcome their natural shyness and were all talking in English which was impressive for their level.

Lay down your no native language rule, tailor your class to appeal to their culture, prompt or rein in depending on the nationality, and use humour to break the ice.

The Cambridge Suite of exams is mainly geared towards getting a job, and give students of English a mark of proficiency to present to prospective employers. FCE (First Certificate Examination) and CAE (Cambridge Advanced Examination) are widely accepted as important credentials for employers evaluating non-fluent candidates. For the teacher, the jump from FCE to CAE can be daunting, but most of this is fear of the unknown.

CAE is more difficult than FCE

CAE is more difficult than FCE, and a quick browse through recent exam papers confirms this. The vocabulary is more specific, abstract and sometimes colloquial, the reading texts more sly, listening parts faster with more hidden meaning. In fact, if you equate FCE and CAE to icebergs, FCE has 50% showing, while with CAE just 30% can be seen above the surface. The hidden meanings are what are important in these exams, and CAE takes more lateral thinking and ‘thinking outside the box’ than FCE. Deeper intellectual and verbal reasoning, along with a good grasp grammar and a wider and more flexible range of vocabulary are needed in CAE. This also applies to the teacher, and you need to be on top of these intricacies to teach this more advanced level effectively. As with all exam preparation classes, this understanding comes from preparation before classes- once you are in the classroom, you are on the spot and could be asked any question. Be ready and your job is far easier.

Don’t be worried!

But don’t be worried – if you have mastered the skills needed to teach FCE well – and you must have done to have been given a CAE class, as nobody teaches CAE first (or at least shouldn’t!) you have the skills and techniques necessary to impart to students of the advanced version. There are many good textbooks for CAE and teaching resources, so use what is at your disposal, and speak to the CAE teacher you take over from, or whoever else is qualified in the staffroom or management. A good school will always help you, and the first time I taught CAE a seasoned teacher showed me more tips in a thirty minute workshop than I could have learnt in five years of teaching the exam.

So prepare, ask advice, use your resources and work out answers to exam questions yourself before you use them in class under test conditions – if you don’t, that answer and feedback session after break could be really difficult. Good luck!

The more advanced and complex grammar gets the more simple the explanation has to be. Delivering complicated structures can be taxing for both the students and the teacher, so the best rule is to keep it straightforward and develop a highly visual style.

Use your whiteboard

Classrooms have a whiteboard for a reason. You may also have an overhead projector or PowerPoint, and these are great tools for refining grammar delivery, but the core structures are never better explained than by the teacher’s hand on the whiteboard, with the students asking questions and copying down your visuals. It’s so much easier for them to take in after class and when referring back when they are easy to understand in a clear visual way. Your board work should be ready when the students arrive. Give them a few minutes to take it in and let them ask questions, helping them work it out logically. If there are no questions, elicit answers for questions you have prepared- this always creates discussion. Then get your students to come up to the board one by one and give their own examples, using their own vocabulary if possible, but feeding it to them if necessary.

Timelines

Timelines are of course perfect for teaching tenses, and as tenses are interlinked and follow a pattern, an overview of all the tenses (or targeted ones for lower levels) is always useful in getting across the big picture. Process charts are great for both comparatives and superlatives and quantifiers, and a table with offshoot examples is effective for adverbs of frequency. Spider diagrams are great for conditionals (particularly mixed conditionals), and enable you to show the different levels of certainty and the thinking process behind each example. Show, elicit and then get the students to make their own versions, preferably in pairs, using questions and answers while you closely monitor.

So the key to delivering complex grammar is to present it in a clear and logical visual style- humans are visual beings. Show, don’t tell.

Out of all of the EFL exam language suites, IELTS is the most academically rigorous and demanding, as it should be because it is a student’s passport to entry to an English speaking university, primarily in Britain, where students will learn alongside native speakers and be taught by natively fluent lecturers. For this reason, the skills covered are practical in an academic sense, although limited to that sphere. Teaching IELTS can be intellectually stimulating, but can also be difficult for teachers just starting out delivering preparation classes.

The Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening parts of the exam are intense and focused, and this should influence your teaching. A narrow skill set in each part is required, and students, whether they require a 5.5 grade or 8.5 or even 9, must master the techniques taught and that is the teacher’s responsibility to deliver. It’s an exam where technique is essential- on an IELTS preparation course, whether it is one month or six months, there just isn’t time to cover every academic possibility. Core skills of reading a text and identifying answers (some of the questions are challenging even for a well-educated native speaker!), academic writing skills in four different mediums, the ability to hold a personal opinion and contrasting viewpoints in English conversation and close listening skills, often when complex information is being discussed, plus being able to read processes in diagrams, charts and graphs are all required.

IELTS resources

The IELTS examining board offer very good teaching tips and materials in their core books, and they help teachers enormously. To understand the problems your students face better, there is no better book than Common Mistakes At IELTS by Julie Moore (Cambridge University Press). This is succinct, and points out the most common weaknesses, and I always recommend my students buy it or I supply them with photocopies. But the best advice is to prepare very well- there is nothing worse than losing your way, even if you have the answers in front of you. Some very bright students take IELTS (I’ve had one or two with PhD’s) and they often want more than the given answer. ‘Why?’ is a question that you should welcome, but you have to be prepared to explain why in a reasoned way, using your thinking process and verbal reasoning, and sometimes lateral thinking. This cannot always be done off the top of your head, and if you lose the confidence of your students to teach this demanding exam, you might be in trouble.

IELTS is technique, technique technique, and that is developed by preparation, preparation, preparation, followed by confident delivery.