ESL Guide for About.com, Kenneth Beare talks about his work as an ESL teacher (English as a second language) and educational writer. Dorit...
ESL Guide for About.com, Kenneth Beare talks about his work as an ESL teacher (English as a second language) and educational writer.
Dorit: Kenneth, thank you very much for participating in today’s interview. What is your experience in ESL?
Kenneth: I worked as an ESL teacher for 20 years. I started teaching in Germany in 1984 and continued in New York City for the New York Association teaching Russian immigrants from the former Soviet English vocational Union, as well as in Italy in the 90s.
For the past ten years I have been developing English language teaching materials for administrative courses with special purposes. I have not been teaching for the past five years. I also work as a content creator and consultant for English language development products.
Regarding my work on About.com, I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Since 1997, I have developed thousands of free curriculum pages for use by ESL teachers and students.
Dorit: Your answer actually leads me to my next question. What are some of the main needs and concerns of ESL students and teachers who visit your site?
Kenneth: 60-70% of students want to improve their communication skills when speaking. They also come with a more traditional mindset when it comes to learning English and they love traditional questionnaires on a wide variety of topics.
ESL teachers are using industry-specific dialogues, as specific situational content in the dentist’s office, which has become a great success. Ready-to-use lesson plans are also very popular among teachers. I also have requests for EFL learning and teaching resources and will point people to those resources.
Dorit: How do you see the development of online language teaching and learning?
Kenneth: I have been involved in a number of new companies and I am surprised by the lack of entrepreneurial spirit regarding online language teaching. Teachers should be aware of how their personalities look online. You have to commit, help and create a relationship. That’s where I see the future of online language training on the move.
On the other hand, students expect teaching to be traditionally taught online. Regarding my online content development, I am not sure if what I am doing always makes sense pedagogically. We will be at a turning point ten years later as people grow in technologies.
Dorit: Yes, it is certainly an interesting food to think about. What do you think about the teaching needs common to EFL and ESL teachers?
Kenneth: Often, the meeting point between EFL and ESL is when teachers teach vocational materials that involve shared materials and set similar educational goals. Language fragments and standard phrases, and the particular jargon of various areas are part of this development of global English. The cultural consideration of the state of English must also be taken into account, since English is increasingly used as a free language. It is also important to consider other issues, such as needs analysis, as students recognize their own particular learning objectives. For example, are they learning English to perform successfully in a job?
Needs analysis is very important and that determines your curriculum, your teaching purpose and, finally, determines success.
Dorit: The same needs analysis is also important for teachers, right?
Kenneth: Yes. You need to have instructional objectives to reach goals and in different cultural classrooms, teachers should think about this. By adding materials and leaving completely on their own programs, on the one hand, that you are a motivated teacher, but all too often, teachers do not set cultural standards appropriate to the needs of their students. For example, do students need and want to learn about British culture in an EFL environment?
In high school, many students wanted English learning material globally to open up to contextual communication, such as discussing what is happening in Iraq now.
Dorit: Well, for now we are out of time, but I am sure that your information will be very useful for ESL and EFL teachers and students if it has not already been. Well, thank you very much Kenneth for your time and participation in this interview. I always enjoy talking with passionate teachers and educational writers like you.
Kenneth: Thank you Dorit.
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