TEFL NOTES

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Overview: Module 1

Unit 1: The TEFL World

Unit 1: The TEFL World: Questions

Unit 2: L1 and L2

Unit 2: L1 and L2: Questions

Unit 3: What makes a competent and effective teacher?

Unit 3: What makes a competent and effective teacher?: Questions

Unit 4: Setting the stage

Seating

Classroom rules

Instruction-giving

Unit 4: Setting the stage: Questions

Unit 5: Icebreakers

Introduce your partner

Introduce your partner explained

Teacher Tic Tac Toe

Mingle / Find someone who...

Mingle / Find someone who... explained

Introducing warmer questions

Unit 5: Icebreakers: Questions

Unit 6: Student Feedback

Unit 6: Student Feedback: Questions

Unit 1: The TEFL World

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In this Unit, we will explore two very important elements. Knowledge and understanding of these
elements will serve you well on your TEFL journey.

The first of these elements relates to some specific characteristics of the English language.

1. Some Specific Characteristics of the English Language

Why would you want to learn about some specific characteristics of the English language? Well, we
imagine it’s quite helpful and interesting but there are other reasons.

You may be sitting in the staffroom one day when, say, a native-Chinese teacher colleague asks you this:
What is special about the English language? How will you feel if you cannot answer this?

Your colleagues-to-be in many countries will view you as an expert and will believe you know everything
about the English language. Again, this question may come up in an advanced class.

This has happened to us and it could easily happen to you. So, absorb this and it will serve two purposes:
it will provide help and interest for you, and it will get you out of a tricky situation.

But there is also another critical reason. You need to be fully aware that there will be key differences in
language structures, grammar, vocabulary usage etc. in the native/first language of the learners you will
be teaching, compared to your native English language.

You’ll have grasped the importance of this already if you have studied a foreign language at school or
university, or if you are a seasoned traveller who likes to pick up a bit of the native language of the
country you are visiting.

Specific Characteristics

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Here are some specific characteristics of the English Language:

Fairly easy to learn

English is one of the simplest and easiest natural languages in the world.

Of course, the concept of easiness is relative, and it depends on which language a learner knows
already. However, the concept of simple is undeniable. English is a fairly easy language to learn,
understand and speak when compared to very complex languages such as Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin,
Korean and Japanese.

Latin alphabet

The English language uses the Latin alphabet, the most universal, simple and short alphabet (only the
Greek alphabet is shorter and simpler). In addition, in English, the Latin alphabet presents its most clean
form as a true alphabet with only 26 basic letters.

Its simple inflection

Inflection is the name for the extra letter or letters added to nouns, verbs and adjectives in their
different grammatical forms, e.g. cat, cats; eat, eats; big, bigger.

English is considered a weakly inflected language when compared to, say, French or Russian. Its nouns
have only traces of inflection (plurals, the pronouns), and its regular verbs have only four forms, e.g.
look, looks, looked, looking.

Even for irregular verbs, there is almost no variation in person (except the 3rd person singular in the
present tense, e.g. I eat, you eat, she eats). The English language can indicate the relationship of words
in a sentence with only the minimum of change in their structure. There are other languages which do
this but this is a strong characteristic of English.

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Its receptiveness

A major characteristic of English language is its receptiveness to accepting and adopting words from
other languages. Here are a few examples from Spanish:

alligator from el lagarto meaning the lizard

barbecue from the Chibcha word barbacoa, meaning a wooden framework for sleeping on, or for storing
meat or fish to be dried

cargo from the verb cargar, meaning to load

This is regarded as an extraordinary feature of the language. It has accepted and adopted words from
Asian, European, African, Indian, Japanese, Chinese and other languages. And English has kept an open-
door policy of accepting words from classical languages like Latin, Greek and Sanskrit.

Its (generally) fixed word order

Another strong characteristic of English language is its (generally) fixed word order. Most English
sentences (clauses) conform to the SVO word order. This means that the Subject comes before the Verb,
which comes before the Object. Examples:

I (S) bought (V) a new computer (O).

She (S) doesn't like (V) dogs (O).

Why did you (S) do (V) that (O)?

There are other word orders in English but this is by far the most used, making it easy for learners to
grasp.

No markings on letters

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There are no diacritics (a mark that is placed over, under, or through a letter in some languages to show
that the letter should be pronounced in a particular way) such as happens, for example, in Spanish:

exámenes

muñón

muñones

canción

The exception is words imported from other languages, e.g. rôle and naïve from French.

Pronunciation

The pronunciation of English words such as this, thin, clothes, thirteenth, months inevitably causes
problems for learners who do not need to use the tip of the tongue to produce words in their own
language.

Continuous tense

Many languages do not have a continuous tense form, so English learners may make mistakes such as: I
had a bath when the phone rang; instead of I was having a bath when the phone rang.

Articles (a, an, the)

The article system is another feature of English grammar that causes some students enormous
difficulties; particularly, of course, those whose native language does not use articles.

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Phrasal verbs

A phrasal verb is an idiomatic phrase consisting of a verb and another element, typically either an
adverb, as in break down, or a preposition, for example see to, or a combination of both, such as look
down on.

These phrasal verbs are a VERY significant feature of the English language and can cause severe
difficulties for learners. Sentences such as I put it down to the weather, or I made it up with my sister,
are usually gobbledegook to beginner non-native speakers.

Unfortunately for the English language learner, phrasal verbs are extremely common in colloquial
English language.

Non-tonal

English is a non-tonal language.

In tone languages, e.g. Chinese and Vietnamese, pitch (the degree of highness or lowness of a tone) is
used to distinguish word meaning. So, a word said with high pitch may have a different meaning from
the same word said with a low pitch.

In English, changes in pitch are used to emphasise or express emotion, not to give a different word
meaning to the sound. It is not surprising that native speakers of tone languages often have strong
accents when speaking English.

Sound and spelling

A final feature of English that is enormously problematic for non-native learners and some native-
speakers is the unpredictable correspondence between word sound and word spelling.

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It is often impossible for learners of English to predict the spelling of an English word they first
encounter in speech, or the pronunciation of an English word they first encounter in writing.

In fact, the majority of English words do conform to spelling patterns. The difficulty for the learner,
however, is that the words which don't conform are some of the most common words in the language,
and thus the ones that learners encounter first. For example:

Words containing ough: thought, although, rough,

Words which have the same sound but different spellings: ate, eight; hear, here; their, there

Words with silent letters, not pronounced: know, could, hour

Words that look exactly the same but must be pronounced differently: read (present tense), read (past
tense); present (a gift), present (to give to); close (near); close (to shut)

Let’s explore the second element which covers how important it is for you to recognise some key
differences in some languages compared to English.

2. Examples of key differences in some languages compared to English

It’s important to be aware that there will be key differences in language structures, grammar,
vocabulary etc. in the native/first language of the learners you will be teaching.

Never assume that your students’ native language will be structured or pronounced in the same way as
English. If you do, this may lead to confusion in your classroom.

Note that this is simply an awareness session, to emphasise this point. So, you don’t need to ‘learn’ the
materials in this section if you aren’t teaching either Spanish or Chinese students.

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The key learning point is that all languages are different and it’s wise to learn a bit about your students’
native language to ensure you choose the right strategy when teaching them specific elements of the
English language.

You don’t need to be able to speak or write your students’ native language; it’s just so helpful when you
know some of the key differences between their native language and the English language.

Let’s have a quick look at this in practice. Imagine you are teaching a group of either Spanish or Chinese
students. What are some of the key differences you need to keep in mind from day 1?

Remember! Note that the points below are generalisations based on our TEFL experiences; individual
students may differ.

Here are some general observations:

Spanish EFL Students

1. Gender and articles: In Spanish, all nouns have gender, whereas we just use a, an, and the no matter
the gender:

a boy: un niño; a girl: una niña

the boy: el niño; the girl: la niña

Also, there is no equivalent in Spanish for it that we use for inanimate objects.

Note that there are situations where we do not insert articles but these will usually be inserted in
Spanish. Their article for the is underlined in these examples:

Cars are a hassle: Los coches son una molestia.

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Mr. Smith is here: El Sr. Smith está aquí.

2. Relationship between sound and spelling:In Spanish, words are spelled as they sound and vice versa.
In English, there is little correlation between sound and spelling.

3. Vowel sounds: Spanish has fewer vowel sounds than English. The length of the vowel sound in
Spanish is not so important when distinguishing between words; there is little distinction between short
and long vowel sounds. In English, however, there are many more vowel sounds and the length of the
vowel sound is very important.

Thus, Spanish learners have a lot of difficulty in first distinguishing differences in vowel sounds and then
producing them. This results in confusion when hearing and pronouncing many groups of words, for
example:

ship/sheep

fool/full

cat/cut

beat/bit

4. Consonant sounds: Spanish-native speakers frequently confuse the consonants v and b in English, and
the first sounds in words beginning with y as in yacht and j as in jeep with ch as in cheap. Some speakers
also have difficulty with sounds at the end of words such as thing/think.

5. The s sound: Spanish words do not start with an s sound. As a result, they often add an e sound to
English words beginning with the s sound, resulting in utterances such as I come from Espainand I went
to eschool in Barcelona.

6. Consonant clusters: These are groups of consonants which have no intervening vowel, e.g. split. These
are much more common in English than in Spanish. Sometimes they may add in a vowel sound or an
extra syllable when tackling these, e.g. ad-vance-ed. In addition, sometimes they ‘swallow’ sounds when
faced with a cluster, e.g. next becomes nes.

Remember: A syllable is a part of a word that is pronounced with one uninterrupted sound.

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7. Syllable-timed and stress-timed languages: Spanish is a syllable-timed language, where an equal
amount of time is given for each syllable when syllables are expressed. On the other hand, English is a
stress-timed language where stresses tend to occur at regular intervals and unstressed syllables are
squashed in between the stresses to maintain the regular beat of the stress.

So, what does this mean? It means that many Spanish learners have difficulty in mirroring the
combination of stress, pitch and rhythm required to project the exact meaning of their utterance in
English. That is, their flattened, slightly robotic-like and evened-out syllable-timed speech in English
makes it difficult for native English speakers/listeners to grasp the important words in the sentence.

A popular example used to demonstrate this difference in TEFL classes is:

The Beatles were bigger than Elvis: English, stress –timed, stress bolded

The / Beat / les / were / big / ger / than / El / vis: Spanish, syllable-timed, each syllable in each slash
pronounced in an equal timing

Overcoming this flat-sounding intonation is very important, particularly in formal and important
situations in English, where clarity and stressing a point are paramount.

8. Pronouns often omitted: When speaking Spanish, native speakers of Spanish will often drop the
pronoun subject unless they're stressing it to avoid ambiguity, because whom they're referring to, e.g.
you/they/he is normally clear from the Spanish verb conjugation.

So, this can transfer across to English. You may find Spanish speakers making expressions such as:

Came with me to the train station, when they mean He/She came with me to the train station.

Is Carlos here? Yes. Is here.

9. Word order: In English, the word order in everyday statements is generally: subject, verb, object. In
Spanish, though, more variations are allowed:

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Here are three variations of the same meaning: Carlos wrote the letter.

Carlos escribió la carta. (subject, verb, object; very common in Spanish and the same order as in English)

Escribió Carlos la carta. (verb, subject, object; very common in Spanish but not used in everyday English)

La carta la escribió Carlos (object, object pronoun, verb, subject; not as common as the two above but it
is used.)

The opportunities for making errors in the word order of everyday statements in English, due to the
influence of their native language, are self-evident.

10. Prepositions: English has many prepositions, much more than many other languages. Most English
prepositions have multiple meanings. In addition, many are monosyllabic and are thus difficult to pick up
in rapid speech.

Also, non-native speakers cannot depend on prepositional knowledge from their first language. For
example, the Spanish por could be expressed in English by the prepositions by, for, during and through.
You can see the potential for error when they are attempting to use English prepositions.

11. Adjectives: In English, an adjective generally comes before a noun but in Spanish it generally comes
after the noun. But there are Spanish adjectives which come before the noun. And note that Spanish
adjectives have gender and also have plural forms with plural nouns.

12. Possessive apostrophe: In English, we express possession in one of two ways. We use the possessive
apostrophe: the boy’s book, or the of construction: The wellbeing of the refugees is paramount. Spanish
uses only the of construction.

The possessive apostrophe is probably the greatest challenge for all native-English writers, so you can
imagine how difficult this will be for Spanish learners.

Chinese EFL Students

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1. Different writing systems: A major difference is that the Chinese languages use a logographic system,
whereas English uses an alphabetic system. Some Chinese learners may be fully au fait with pinyin, a
system of writing Mandarin Chinese which uses the Latin alphabet. However, pinyin is a phonetic system
and so the sound to letter correspondence differs in various areas.

2. Lack of cognates: Lack of cognates is a second major difference. Cognates are words which share an
historical origin, which makes the learning of some words in a new language easier to grasp.

Although we majored above on the differences for a Spanish native learning English, one of the great
advantages is that there are many cognates Spanish natives can lean on to help them guess the meaning
of English words. But Chinese learners do not have this advantage.

In addition, there are very few borrowed words from English in the Chinese lexicon (vocabulary).

3. Syllable-timed and stress-timed languages: The third major difference is that, similar to Spanish,
Mandarin is a syllable-timed language whereas English is a stress-timed language. Thus, Chinese learners
also have difficulty in mirroring the combination of stress, pitch and rhythm required to project the
exact meaning of their utterance in English.

4. Uninflected language: Although we have said earlier that English is, generally, a weakly inflected
language compared to some other languages, it does convey much meaning by using auxiliary words
(often called ‘helping verbs’) and verb inflections (changes to the verb structure): is/are/were,
eat/eats/ate/eaten, etc.

In contrast to this, Chinese is an uninflected language which conveys meaning via its word order, context
and adverbials.

5. Consonant sounds: In Mandarin, there are only three consonant sounds which can be used at the end
of a syllable. Chinese speakers thus have great difficulty with the pronunciation of any English words
that end with any sound outside of the three they are familiar with and, as a result, the final consonant
is often omitted.

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6. Some other common difficulties:

Distinguishing the difference between l and r, and so they may mispronounce rake and rice as lake and
lice.

Getting to grips with unfamiliar sounds, e.g. v, so that very may become wery

Pronouncing each syllable in an English word too clearly (because Chinese is a monosyllabic language
where each character has only one syllable)

Placing adverbial phrases of time and place at the end of a sentence as these are never placed at the
end of a sentence in Chinese

Confusing personal pronouns, e.g. he and she, because these words have the same pronunciation in
Chinese

Omitting the verb to be before an adjective, e.g. He sad, and omitting articles as these don’t exist in
Chinese

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