CHAPTER 1
FIELD OF TEFL
A. Description
Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) usually describes English being taught
to non-native English students in their home countries. TEFL is an international educational
industry whereby English teachers from the seven recognized native English speaking
countries (USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia & South Africa) and fluent
non-native English speakers teach English in private and public schools throughout the world.
While having a TEFL qualification is not always an essential requirement, increasingly
countries and schools are now requiring teachers to have undertaken at least a basic TEFL
certificate.
B. Relevance
The relevance of studying the TEFL program is to develop students' ability to
understand common English well. These objectives are achieved by:
1. Improving students' ability to read and understand English in general.
2. Improving students' ability to listen and understand English in general.
By studying TEFL programs on a regular basis, students will gain the ability to read / hear
and understand English in general. Students who have the opportunity to use English every
day through the TEFL program, their speaking and writing skills in English will continue to
improve.
C. Learning Objectives
Students are able to
- Use acronyms related to the field of ESL EFL appropriately.
- Describe the qualities of effective instruction.
- Develop an idea of their potential teaching role and style by comparing, contrasting, and
evaluating positive and negative qualities of their previous teachers.
D. Teaching Material
In our professional musing about teaching and learning, we interchange the terms second
and foreign in referring to English language teaching. But some caution is warranted in relation
to a curriculum or a lesson, because (a) the difference between the two is significant, and (b) this
dichotomy has been generalized in recent years.
To distinguish operationally between a foreign language context, think of what is going on
outside your classroom door. Once your students leave your class, which language will they hear
in the hallways or, in case you are in the foreign language context are those in which the
classroom target language is readily available out there. Teaching English in the United States or
Australia clearly falls into this (ESL) category. Foreign language context are those in which
students do not have ready-made context for communication beyond their classroom. They may
be obtainable through language clubs, special media opportunities, books, or an occasional
tourist, but efforts must be made to create such opportunities. Teaching English in Japan or
Morocco or Thailand is almost always a context of English as a foreign language (EFL)
The dichotomy between ESL and EFL, however, has been considerable muddied in recent
years with the increasing use of English worldwide for a variety of purposes (Nayar, 1997). First,
ESL context vary from an American or British context, where monolingual native speakers
abound, to countries such as India or Singapore, where English is a widely used second language
for education, government, and commerce, to Scandinavian countries, where English has no
official status but is commonly spoken by virtually every educated person. Likewise, in countries
where a language might be quickly judged as foreign (for instance, Spanish or Chinese in the US,
English in Japan).
With that fair warning, it is still useful to consider the pedagogical implications for a
continuum of context ranging from high-visibility, ready access to the target language outside the
language classroom to no access beyond the classroom door. In a typical second language
context, your students have a tremendous advantage. They have an instant laboratory available
twenty-four hours a day. The students’ classroom hours are only a fraction of their language
learning hours. After subtracting hours spent sleeping, they have more than eighty additional
hours a week of opportunities to learn and practice English.
When you plan a lesson or curriculum in a context that falls in to the second language
category, students can capitalize on numerous of opportunities. Here are some ways to seize this
“ESL advantage”.
Give homework that involves a specific speaking task with the person outside the classroom,
listening to a radio or TV program, reading a newspaper article, writing a letter to a store of
charity.
Encourage students to seek out opportunities for practice
Encourage students to seek out corrective feedback from others
Have students keep a log diary of their extra-class learning
Plan and carry out field trips (to a museum, for instance)
Arrange a social “mixer” with native English speakers
Invite speakers into your classroom
Communicative language teaching in what we might broadly categorize as an EFL context is
clearly a greater challenge for students and teachers.
Often, intrinsic motivation is a big issue, since students may have difficulties in seeing the
relevance of learning English. Their immediate use of the language may seem far removed from
their own circumstances, and classroom hours may be the only part of the day when they are
exposed to English. Therefore, the language that you present, model, elicit, and treat takes on
great importance. If your class meets for, say, only ninety minutes a week, which represents a
little more that 1 percent of their waking hours, think of what students need to accomplish.
Can students learn English in an EFL setting? The answer is obviously “yes” because many
people have done so. Here are some guidelines to help you compensate for the lack of reading
communicative situations outside the classroom.
Use class time for optional authentic language input and interaction.
Don’t waste class time on work that can be done as homework.
Provide regular motivation-stimulating activities.
Help students see genuine uses for English in their own lives.
Play down the role of test and emphasize more on intrinsic factors.
Provide plenty of extra class learning opportunities, such as assigning an English-
speaking movie, having them listen to an English-speaking TV or radio program, getting
an English-speaking conversation partner, doing outside reading (news, magazines,
books), writing a journal or diary in English on their learning process.
Encourage the use of learning strategies outside class.
Form a language club and schedule regular activities.
English as a foreign language
So far we have been considering English as a second language. But in the rest of the world,
English is a foreign language. That is, it is taught in schools, often widely, but it does not play an
essential role in national or social life. In Spain, Brazil and Japan, for example, Spanish,
Portuguese and Japanese are the normal medium of communication and instruction: the average
citizen does not need English or any other foreign language to live his daily life or even for
social or professional advancement. English, as a world language, is taught among others in
schools, but there is no regional variety
