Problems for Learners in Specific Countries

Challenges for EFL Students and Teachers in Saudi Arabia

I have been teaching English as a Foreign Language in Saudi Arabia for the past three years. During this time I have noticed a number of challenges for both the students and the teachers. In light of the material I have studied as part of an EFL certificate course and from letters and research from fellows in the field, I would like to highlight some of the difficulties in hopes of gaining some insight into problems and how we may best address them.

To begin with, there is the challenge of the environment. Arabic is the main means of communication and has a different writing system as well as an extremely rich literary history. This presents challenges in teaching the alphabet as well as practicing the language. Visuals are an effective way of teaching many objectives for many Asian students. This is also the case with Saudi students. However, here also, are more challenges. There are certain religious /socio-political dynamics which at times cause friction in the classroom. For example, many EFL texts and curricula contain topics which may be benign to many westerners, but are offensive to Saudis, or are censored by the Ministry of Education. For teachers, it is behooving to be in tune with Saudi society and to get to know Saudi culture and to know how to teach these topics, delete or alter them, and to find effective ways to teach using activities which are simultaneously effective and not offensive. Examples of such offensive topics which are common in many EFL materials are dating, drinking alcohol (especially in ‘ordering food’ or ‘restaurant’ communications sections), and music and dance. The public and private education in Saudi Arabia is segregated by gender, so photographs of females and males (in female classroom settings) is likewise a touchy issue that is common in almost all EFL textbooks and lessons. Materials need to be revised heavily with this in mind or it will inevitably be brought up as an issue of conflict or debate. This presents challenges for teachers in the use of all visual materials. Another interesting dynamic in Saudi society is the mixture of cultures and languages. As noted above, Arabic is the basic means of daily communication and is a rich language connecting a vast expanse of poetry and history right up to the present context. However, there are around six million expatriate workers in all sectors of society who have little or no connection with this language. With this new situation, English is emerging as ?lingua franca? for communication between Saudis and this multi- ethnic/multi-lingual expatriate community. This at times is both a blessing and a curse. It provides some opportunity for practicing communication, yet simultaneously reinforces improper or ?pidgin? English. Moreover, the majority of these workers are not native speakers of English, and many hold menial jobs, so there exists a tendency to view them as less educated or to speak to them in not the most polite of manners. (Zimmerman-‘Teaching English in Saudi Arabia’) This poses challenges for teachers in that they often need to ‘undo’ something that has been practiced in public life and also raises the need to teach polite requests, intonation, and stress. (Zimmerman-‘Teaching English in Saudi Arabia’) The government has recognized the importance of English in the field of global communication and has made it a mandatory part of the curriculum. Herein, there is also some benefit and some detriment. It increases exposure to the language; however English language instruction is not begun until the 6th grade. There are also some serious shortcomings with the methodology.

In conclusion, I think the following suggestions could offer hopes to match the challenges of EFL instruction in Saudi Arabia and help in producing a bright future for EFL in Saudi Arabia. Selection and compilation of materials must be carefully done in order to compile curriculum which is suitable for the needs and culture of Saudi students. Schools and programs should conduct a thorough needs analysis so that teachers and courses can match the needs, interests, and levels appropriate for students. Teachers should also ‘dig deep’ in order to understand the interests and challenges facing young Saudi students and make efforts to develop lessons which captivate their minds and interests. They should also tap into the factors that motivate Saudi students, and make efforts to capitalize their potential and help them to reach their goals. Teachers should discipline themselves, make efforts to maintain classrooms which are beacons for the students, and make efforts to maintain discipline in the classroom. The current reality is not without its challenges, and the future is not without a bright hope. 

Problems for Learners in Spain/Catalonia

There are common issues that all learners inevitably face: The complexities of future tenses, modal and phrasal verbs. Aside from this, study habits and memorization of vocabulary are other hurdles that all students must jump. But each country, region, city or village will have its unique set of issues that will make language acquisition more complex. Having lived and worked in the region of Catalonia for the last 3 years a number of complexities of English learning have been brought to my attention Though the problems for learners in Spain/Catalonia may not be altogether unique in all aspects, I will attempt to clarify those that seem of particular issue in my short experience teaching here. 

The culture of language acquisition has become a larger issue as Catalans have incorporated their native tongue into the schools. This means that not only do students study Catalan; they are also required to study Castellano, the national language and of course, English. On top of this, many students choose to study another European neighbor language, French, Italian or German. This means at the very least students are expected, along with their other coursework, to become fluent in no less than 3 languages at a very young age. The Catalan educational system, though it continues to change, still favors English teaching with non native speakers and heavily dependent on course books and grammar and very little on speaking. It is nearly impossible for a native qualified English teacher to enter the educational system without passing a series of oral defenses in Catalan. And in classes younger than secondary school, no formal training in English teaching is necessary. These challenges have found students at the end of 10 years of studying English disappointed, disillusioned and convinced that they cannot learn the impossible language of English.

In addition to demanding scholastic days which often end after 6 o’clock, students also have study heavy afternoons in tutorials and academies. This is where most qualified English teachers have been locked into a late afternoon schedule of private classes and certificate conscience students abound. Students are mentally exhausted at the point they enter the academy and in most cases are there by demands of their parents in an attempt to improve the students? likelihood of learning to speak the language or at least pass the certificate exams. These issues are all major difficulties that must be addressed by the teachers.

In contrast a Spanish adult who has spent very little time studying English has their own unique problems of language acquisition. Spanish, linguistically, is a very rigid language. Sentence formation and verb use has a very specific purpose and is directly related to meaning, idiom and humor. Adult Spaniards, at some point in their learning career, will need to break from this rigid idea of language and be creative with English language production. This is no easy task. This stumbling block of always wanting to know the precise correct form of expressing something leads many adults to difficulties in fluency and speaking with confidence.

Adult students also have difficulties in addressing cultural connections with English vs. American accents. Both countries have had a long standing history in Spain. Most adults have formed an opinion about the country and the people and have decided which accent they would prefer to learn from and have connected it with which is more difficult to learn. (And, which is more ugly or inhospitable, etc.? I have heard a number of comments) When in contact with a new teacher, it is very important for the students to learn this information (though they can rarely identify it) and they then decide accordingly. This is a very difficult hurdle for both the students and the teachers for the obvious reasons. Both accents are important in learning to understand, because they both exist, but how does a teacher remedy what seems like racism of accent? 

English Language acquisition in Spain and more specifically in Catalonia and the problems therein, is something of great interest to a number of people in the educational profession here in Catalonia. As a native speaker working in this field, I have had a few experiences that have enlightened me to a few of the difficulties I have to face and will need to work through. In conclusion, these are just a few of the many issues I have identified and have spent some time thinking about, but books have been written about challenges of Hispanic/ English acquisition. Pronunciation issues alone can fill volumes. 

Teaching English in China

As the language of business, English is necessary all across the globe, from South America to Africa and Asia. China, the most populous country in the world, is fast becoming the leading world power. In trying to blend more efficiently into the Modern World, characterized by high technology and the privatization of financial institutions and corporate monopolies, China is adapting many of its practices to accommodate these changes. One of those changes is the fervent desire for the educational system to teacher English. However, due to its very long history and relatively recent emergence into the corporate world, this sometimes creates more hassles than their worth, especially for an international TEFL teacher determined to provide students with the opportunity to practice English.

Because China has shied away from the world for so long, the younger generations carry a passionate thirst for a means to achieve in the global community. In many ways, TEFL teachers become walking advertisements of the English language, people with whom anybody on the streets may practice their English. Karen Bond says that this mob mentality comes from the fact that ?they have no contact with native speakers of English and have little reason to speak it,? with their own people. With examples like this, one might be inclined to assume everybody in China is so eager to learn English.

The working environment often tells a severely different story. In many ways, China is still very much a third world country. Financial allocation to public schools remains far behind schools of the west regarding resources available and curriculum. In some instances, the available resources consist only of a blackboard, chalk, and a teacher’s imagination. On the flip side, it also provides the teacher to customize his or her own curriculum. Because there are such few opportunities for Chinese locals to speak English, the classroom truly becomes an interactive setting, where writing and reading take a back-seat to spoken expression and viable use.

Whatever the situation is, it behooves the prospective teacher to prepare some form of curriculum before the classes begin. Despite this advice, knowing just what the students? level is can be a tricky procedure, especially when most Chinese administrations are so relaxed when dealing with foreign teachers. My first day at one school, my supervisor took me to the class I was scheduled to teach. When I asked what level they were and with what areas they had problems, he shrugged. ?Teach them English,? was all he said. Sadly, this is the norm, rather than an exception. 

With so much of the Educational context revolving around rote memorization of words and their definitions, a high disparity exists between functional English and read and written English. In other words, many schools see English as something to be taught by the native Chinese teachers, where the methodology directs all attention towards written examinations that would make the GRE blush in confusion. What little spoken English is verbatim from a book with a poor emphasis on pronunciation. In the eyes of the school administration, so long as the students are capable of answering the questions on paper, their inability to speak the language is immaterial. This puts a huge weight on International TEFL teachers to encourage their students not only to think dynamically, but to correct their inability to make an effective ‘th’ or ‘l’ sound.

A major impediment in the success of this task is the propensity for schools to jam fifty to one hundred twenty students into one classroom. According to results uncovered by Zhichang Xu, many students complain that these large classes hinder their ability to actually practice the language; they are unable to ask questions, to discuss various topics, and complain that the whole learning process ?has nothing to do with [the student].? For certain, simple mathematics would support this conclusion; if a fifty minute class period is broken up among a class of 50 students, it leaves one full minute of speaking time for each student. That hardly constitutes effective opportunity for most students wishing to practice the language. 

Often the administration could care less. While the English language is critical for China’s populace to learn to some degree of effectiveness, they do not expect foreign teachers to teach it. Not really. Because foreign faces are so uncommon there, many schools, universities and private tutoring programs use the ‘lao wei’ as a means of recruiting students to the schools. In many ways, International teachers are treated as public figures more than they are teachers. But one should not be sucked completely into this trap. Because when it comes time to teach, it is a teacher and a classroom of students. Whether the teacher is merely a ?dancing monkey? to the school’s administration, once the teacher enters a classroom, the students are hers, and every second becomes as valuable as gold.

Difficulties Faced by Brazilian Students when Learning English

I have not yet started teaching English here in Brazil, but for the past year I have been correcting the English of my Brazilian husband. He is a pilot, flying international routes for twelve years and furthermore, he was working in an English speaking country for the past three. Still, he needs constant correction on a variety of different aspects of the language and keeps on repeating the same mistakes, as some of the mistakes are actually the way the language is thought here. 

A year into correcting him every second of the day, (we worked together twenty-four seven, so I never took a break from correcting him) he will still say USID instead of used. Or COMPUTERIZID instead of computerized. Here in Brazil, students are thought in school to pronounce the ED as ID, and many TESOL courses are thought by Brazilians who will in turn teach the wrong pronunciation. If my husband, after a year of constant drilling, still manages to still say USID sometimes, I believe that students who study English for two hours a week will find it very hard to forget the ID and pronounce the ED as it should be. Another problem is the M at the end of the words. All the M?s at the end of words in Portuguese are pronounced N. So a Portuguese speaker will say hin instead of him and then instead of them. This is very hard for them to correct as they do not notice that they are making a mistake, because for them there is no such thing as M at the end of a word. We used to fly to a destination called Dammam, in Saudi Arabia, and when talking to the controllers, all of the Brazilian pilots working for our company, used to say Damman, so the controllers used to ask them to confirm that they mean Dammam. The pilots will then confirm back to them that yes they mean Damman! It was very funny to hear. So in my opinion these two pronunciation matters are going to be difficult for the students to correct.

Then there are certain verbs in the Portuguese language that have a different meaning to the words that they sound like in English. The verb provar in Portuguese means to try something on, so a Brazilian would tell you, I want to prove my uniform. The same applies to pretender which means to intend, so you would have someone saying, I pretend to say, instead of, I intend to say. There are countless words and verbs that are like this, and it is difficult to make the student forget what the word means in Portuguese and use the correct word in English. 

Letters have different sounds in Portuguese; R is H in the beginning and end of a word. If someone wants to say that their favorite color is red, it will sound something like, my favorite color is head! 

In Brazil, English is not spoken anywhere other than during lessons. It is very rare to meet a person that can speak English, and as a result students will have no opportunity to practice their pronunciation outside the classroom. This may result in taking a long, long time to get used to pronounce English correctly. A question that I have been asking myself is how am I going to be dealing with this during the lessons. Should I correct the students when they make mistakes in pronunciation or should I let it go? If I choose to correct them, I know that every second I have to be stopping to do so, and if I let it go, I am sure that they will never let go of the wrong pronunciation. I have already decided to make the students aware of this as early in the course as possible. I will ask them to take some extra time outside the lesson to download English speech in order to listen to the pronunciation. In my opinion what I discussed above is what will give the most problems to Brazilian students learning English. They can know that the color red is called red in English, but they will be saying head for a long time, or they know that they have to use to try, (when trying clothes) as they have learnt it, but to prove will always come out first! 

I am going to do the best I can to make the students aware of these problems but then it is up to them to work on them at home or at any chance they have to overcome them. I am not going to be expecting miracles after the experience with my husband, I am sure going to encourage them to try and forget Portuguese when they are talking English! 

Problems for Mongolian Learners

In order to understand the problems of the modern Mongolian language learner, one must first examine the context of Mongolia today. In this paper I will examine the history of education, its current accessibility and trends, and social issues that contribute to the learning environment for students in Mongolia. They have had a century of dramatic changes which must first be known.

During most of the twentieth century Mongolia remained a Soviet communist state called the Mongolian People’s Republic. This stage spanned from 1924 through 1990 when the Democratic Revolution shifted Mongolia to independence and democracy. The education system has changed in reaction to political and economic national trends. At the onset of the twentieth century Mongolians were educated in monasteries. Buddhism and monastic culture flourished. Then about ten percent of the adult population at best were literate. However this part of culture was devastated by Russians who nearly completely purged Buddhist monks and institutions form the nation. In its place Russians introduced a universal education system. As a result an estimated 96% of the population had achieved literacy by 1990 (Christenson 169). 

Trends in education since Mongolia’s Democratic beginning include both growth and setbacks. Education funding has been cut and the dropout level has increased. Poor public schools have emerged as a result of lowered government funding, but private schools have been replenishing the deficits (Christenson 169). The mobility and profession of many Mongolians as nomadic herders greatly impedes the accessibility of education to all young Mongolians. Even though education is provided for children ages seven to seventeen, many cannot take advantage of these ten provisioned years. This is caused by family financial pressures. From 1990 to 1995, the completion rate of these ten years of schooling dropped from 87 % to 57%. What is also alarming is the disproportionate dropout increase amongst males. By 1999, approximately 70% of enrolled university students were females (Hanson 115)! Is this mainly a result of family economic pressures where the family reaction is to retain boys at home to work or is it the result of greater value shifts or other societal problems? The true root cause is unknown at this point. 

Educators are working to address the needs of nomadic herding families by providing free board for their children in town schools. This is necessary because under the Democratic government specific funds for subsidies, homes, health care, vacation and retirement money, and incentives for pregnant women and families have been depleted and cut. Survival has become more difficult in the harsh Mongolian climate, as families work to provide more for themselves where the state no longer aids (Hanson 116-117). Other distractions and problems on a societal scale include alcoholism (approximately one half of the adult population drinks excessively), domestic and family violence, and the rise in homeless street children (Hanson 117). These are interlinked problems, the last especially impedes this specific young population from getting an education because their basic needs far outweigh any desire and ability to learn. In addition with decreases in health care provisions infectious diseases rise especially with less access to clean drinking water. General life expectancy and health issues decrease quality of life and the focus on learning (Pang 86). Because education funds have decreased teachers are being paid less. Above we noted the increase in private institutions, however, in public institutions where teachers are paid less now, corruption has arisen. Now students bribe these weakened teachers for good grades (Hanson 116). This is a clear disadvantage for classroom learning, rapport is diminished amongst students and teacher-student relationships, trust decreases, and students do not equally receive fair and consistent teaching. In addition, in higher education, teachers’; salaries have been cut to pay for essentials like heating. As a result the cost of salaries has been deferred to students in the form of tuition fees (Christenson 170- 171). Therefore, students decreasingly continue through college education according to notes from 2005 (Peoples of Eastern Asia 104). Although, statistics from 1997, had recorded enrollment numbers in college at 36,000 (Christenson 170-171).

Finally there are specific differences in the Mongolian language itself which can present themselves as problems for language learners. Again, within the recent history of the past century Mongolian language has changed form frequently. The Russian directed government imposed a new Cyrillic alphabet on the Mongolian language system. However not all Mongolian sounds can be phonetically translated even with added letters. The Cyrillic alphabet is based on the Greek alphabet and hence bears some resemblance to the Roman alphabet. At present, Mongolians are making efforts to reintroduce their traditional Mongolian script back into the classroom. It reads from top down and does not use a Greek or Roman alphabet but rather a script that looks quite different (Pang 86). With focus on the script, attention would be shifted away from other foreign languages such as English for example. However, Mongolians do have a demonstrated history of language learning and a dynamic written language form. The structure of Mongolian language has some other key differences form English. Their sentence order places the verb at the end of a sentence. In addition suffixes are used to indicate different parts of speech i.e. subjects and objects (Christensen 186). These specifics make Mongolian language more similar to Korean, but may complicate the learning of English. In sum, the social, economic, and political upheavals even up through the past few decades have really impacted the lives of Mongolians, specifically Mongolian students. Accessibility to education has waxed and waned more recently, but as situations which have been crises become stable it should again increase in accessibility For example, as Mongolia becomes increasingly global in its relationships and as more funds can be allocated to education and other social needs education will become more available. However, while family problems continue whether resulting from poverty or abuse, inevitable difficulties arise for hopeful students. In addition, the structure of Mongolian language also proposes some difficulty for students attempting to learn English. It will require much emphasis on teaching receptive literacy skills. Although, as recent history records Mongolians have learned to value literacy and communication internationally, so the Mongolian learner should continue to progress.

Problems for Learners in Japan

I have been living in Japan for 6 months now and have had ‘hands on’ experience with the problems which Japanese people have when learning English.

Firstly, I needed to understand that the Japanese language does not use the same alphabet system, but their own native symbols, so they needed a lot more work in the literacy area of learning the English language. Not only are the symbols different but the way they display and use their language as well. For example, a newspaper is read from pages right to left, the text is read from right to left and from top to bottom as well. Even the way they make sentences is the opposite to us. For example, "Let’s go to the mall together." is said "The mall together let’s go." - When it is said in their own language of course! But you can see what I mean. The Japanese students say that their number one problem with the English language, the main thing they have the most trouble with, is pronunciation. Which is especially hard to teach when they speak with such different sounds than us. I teach a lot of phonics to my students, which really is necessary due to their pronunciation issues. They seem to have a lot of trouble differentiating between ‘r’ and ‘l’ sounds and struggle to pronounce ‘th’ , ‘f’ and ‘v’ sounds as well.

Secondly, because I was teaching in a country where everyone is speaking the same native language, I was teaching a monolingual class. The students often reverted to their own language in the classroom and it was difficult to prevent it. I always made my instructions clear and tried to intervene when I heard Japanese being used. 

Thirdly, the Japanese culture. The culture is very different compared to western, English speaking, countries. The students often have very busy lifestyles whether they are a working adult or a 5 year old child. The teenagers study until all hours of the night, usually studying for entrance exams (cram school) and the parents are often working until very late and then have other family commitments as well. Because of this, some of the students are really reluctant to study and are understandably tired and exhausted from their busy lifestyle. It is also difficult, or even impossible to assign them any homework. Then again, in Japan, the majority of the population really genuinely wants to learn English as they know it is their key to the rest of the world! There are mixed levels of motivation and although it is difficult to adjust, I am finding ways of maintaining their interest and creating motivation for those who don’t have much. I am really enjoying teaching in Japan as they are a more disciplined society, therefore not so problematic... so far! Overall, I think Japanese students do encounter many problems when learning English, but they do try their best to overcome them, which makes it all worthwhile for me. 

Problems for learners in Indonesia

The two of us spent 2 years in Indonesia (1996-97) teaching English at a university. Prior to that we spent one year learning Indonesian in classes in Australia. We therefore, have a good insight into the difficulties both with English speakers learning Indonesian and of Indonesian speakers learning English with is the two sides of the same coin. We also found that linguistic problems seemed to be inevitable be bound up in cultural ones on both sides of the fence. Let us look at some of these problems.

Before we went to Indonesia we were introduced to people who had already been there (in fact the town of Salatiga). The English teachers/missionaries that we spoke to seemed blind to any difference in culture however, and this cultural blindness operates on both sides as we were to find. We had ourselves already experienced some problems with the language in our classes, but only some. It was only when we were well and truly engaged that we came face to face with the real problem of communicating in a foreign language with foreigners. Let us now look at the Indonesian side of things. 

Grammar. The Indonesian language has the peculiarity, or perhaps the advantage, like many Asian languages, of not marking number, gender, case, mood, or tense. It is an almost completely uninflected language and rather uses position to denote the value of the word (as agent or object for instance) or else simply leaves the information(gender etc) out entirely. This means that when one is trying to teach an Indonesian student to say ‘there are two men at the door’, we have a problem. The Indonesian does not normally think in terms of ‘men’ but of ‘persons’ and not even of persons but of ‘person’. The student thus will want to say something like ‘person at the door’. Further, s/he will not be used to the article ‘the’ and will be tempted to say ‘Person at door’. Needless to say, the words ‘there are two’ will come out as ‘be two’. The sort of sentence one might expect from a student will thus be ‘be two person at door’. Furthermore, the largely teenage students we had at the university had a diffidence about saying more than they needed. Therefore, the student would be inclined to reduce the English sentence given to ‘person at door,’ and far from feeling they had done a bad job, would feel deep satisfaction.

Vocabulary. There are similar problems with vocabulary. Indonesian is a synthetic language based on Trader Malay, but what the founding fathers seem to have done is to throw in as many synonyms as possible for each word, even quite simple and functional ones like ‘but’, so that at least one of them will correspond to the word used for that concept in any given community. One wishes that they had been more ruthless and less all embracing. What it means for the Indonesian student of English however is that the concept of one word, one meaning, (one nuance of meaning) is often absent from their language. That is, most of their synonyms are true synonyms, without any shade of meaning or colour such as synonyms have in English. For instance, ‘I’ translates as ‘aku’or ‘saya’. ‘If’ is ‘kalau’, ‘jika’, etc. This means that the use of English by an Indonesian student will tend to be a bit limp- wristed until such time as the student is really convinced of the importance of having just the right word. A similar problem faces English speakers when learning Latin, for instance. They tend to skim over those very important little letters at the end of the word and fail to get the meaning at all. 

In summary then, the problems of teaching English to Indonesian speakers are not just the obvious ones of transmitting the right vocab and structures, but reside at a deeper level as well, and involve basic paradigms inherent in each society. Motivation thus becomes not just a matter of wrapping the package in interesting paper, but of getting the students to see the real differences of thought between the two languages. 

Problems for learners in Italy

e Italian and the English language are totally different in writing, speaking and listening. The first derives from the Latin language family , the second from the Anglo- Saxon. Although the English language adopts many Latin words, they are not commonly used, and the pronunciation is completely different. Because of this, it’s very common to come through ‘false friends’ like the word ‘actually’ ‘attualmente’ in Italian, which means ‘at the moment’, while in English we know that it has a different meaning. For this reason Italians are inclined to use many Latin words which are not used in everyday English. There are dozens of similar examples like this that can be very confusing for the Italian students.

The Italian language is quite a simple language at least for what it concerns writing and pronunciation, not grammar which is much more complex in my opinion than English grammar. 

The main difficulty that Italian students have to face dealing with the English language is the pronunciation. Words are pronounced in Italian the way they are written so we can imagine how hard it must be for the learner to get used to this ‘strange’ way of speaking. Learning the International Phonetic Alphabet would be probably the right solution for this matter, but unfortunately not all teachers are willing to teach it in schools.

Learning the English language in public schools is what I’d call a ‘Mission Impossible’. The time given for foreign languages is only 3 hours per week which is in my opinion too little to give an adequate knowledge of the language.

Not long ago, teachers who didn’t have a University degree in English could teach the language anyway just by attending a short course and they were ready to give all their so called ‘knowledge’ to the students in the schools. Fortunately now days things have changed and hopefully will get better and better in the future. There are many subjects at schools that students have to study and require attention to be able to do well. Some of these may be interesting or the student has the right skill to do his/her best in it, but some are not, so much depends on how the teacher makes the lesson interesting. I’ve noticed that in my daughter’s school the English language teaching is based on only the course book without using creative or authentic materials to supplement or replace the book. This way the students loose their interest for the language and the lessons can become very predictable. Students need to be encouraged in every way possible to get to know the language they are learning and not be afraid to use it. In the Italian schools teachers tend to give more importance to grammar and therefore develop more the students’ writing skills than their speaking skills. Well, it is not very handy in an English speaking country to go around with a piece of paper and a pen to ask for an information for example. 

There are still lots of aspects that should be changed or built up in the future concerning the English language teaching in Italy, in the mean time probably it would be enough to start with employing native speakers of English also in primary schools where students are ready to experience and explore new things without prejudice.

Problems for Learners in Thailand

Like the people of other nations, Thai people face many problems when trying to learn English; some of these problems are cultural and some are more rooted in the many obvious differences between the two languages. Different age groups or students of different levels may not always face the same problems. A class of intermediate children is likely to have different problems to those of an adult class of beginners. 

One issue that can be quite frustrating as a teacher is rooted in the Thai culture of not wishing to lose face. This often leads to students being shy and unresponsive in class. They are scared of making mistakes in front of their peers as this would cause them to lose face. 

Another issue that is based on culture and can also be frustrating for a teacher is a tendency of Thai people to say ‘yes’ when they mean ‘no’. A lot of respect is placed on the teaching profession in Thailand and many students want to please their teacher. Occasionally this leads to situations such as students saying that they understand the work, when they don’t. A good way around this one is just asking them to explain what they have understood. Teachers of classes of adults in Thailand should be aware of these cultural issues, be sensitive to them and try to come up with ways to ensure that they don’t impede the students’ learning experience.

One problem area for Thai students of English that isn’t rooted in culture is English grammar. The grammar of the Thai language is very different from English grammar. Three very common mistakes that come directly from copying Thai grammar into English are: putting adjectives after nouns, not using tenses and not using the verb ‘to be’ with personal description adjectives. It is quite common to hear Thai students, depending on their level, saying things such as ‘car red’, ‘I go there yesterday’ and ‘She very beautiful’ as these are exactly how they would say them in Thai. There are several other recurring problems encountered by Thai students relating to grammar, but the most common three are listed.

Quite possibly the biggest problem for learners of English in Thailand is the pronunciation of English sounds and tones. There are several reasons for this, mainly stemming from the differences between the two languages. There are certain sounds in English that Thai students can find difficult to pronounce as they do not appear in the Thai alphabet, or the rules to pronounce those sounds are different in Thai.

Neither the voiced and unvoiced ‘th’ sounds (as in ‘three’ and ‘there’) appear in Thai, so as a result many Thai people have great difficulty pronouncing them. Often the softer, unvoiced ‘th’ is pronounced like a strong ‘s’ sound and the harder voiced ‘th’ is pronounced like ‘d’. Also the ‘z’ sound does not occur in Thai and sometimes students have problems identifying it as a separate sound from ‘s’. A similar problem that Thai people have in English is confusing ‘r’ and ‘l’. In informal Thai, ‘r’ sounds are pronounced as ‘l’. Many students often try to do this in English also.

One major difference between English and Thai is the pronunciation of final consonant sounds of each syllable. In spoken Thai, final consonant sounds are usually very soft and unvoiced. In English however, the final consonant sound is very important ‘ it can tell us about the situation. 

Thai students have problems with present simple verbs in the third person singular and also past simple verbs. There is a tendency to pronounce them the same as the base form. For example ‘arrive, arrives and arrived’ can all often sound like ‘arri’ where the final ‘v’ sound is almost omitted.

TEFL/TESOL for non-native English speaking teachers

ITTT offers a variety of 78 article options and quite many of these are of interest to me. Yet, somehow I feel drawn to the topic of non-natives teaching English which is probably, well, because I am a non-native English speaker. And here is the rub - I did British Studies at university and was afterwards admitted to do the TEFL course, but I expect I will experience some problems when entering the job world as I am no native English speaking person.

Funnily enough, it was one of my native English speaking teachers at university who suggested enrolling for a TEFL or TESOL course if I want to pursue a career in teaching English. And that is what I did. I have been working on the course for a couple of weeks now and feel really comfortable with it. I have not had any difficulties concerning understanding the materials or completing the worksheets. And now that I am almost done with the course, I feel eager to start working as an English teacher. It can be problematic, though, to get a job because a future employer might rather take a native than me. But why? Even the course units comment on negative aspects in relation to native speakers. ?[Even] as native speakers of the English language (?) we often are unaware of what we are actually using or why we are using it.? Added to this, Unit 13 uses the following words: ?(?) many native English speakers find it difficult to hear certain features, such as the fall or rise of speech, (?).? I think I as a non-native speaker will be at an advantage here. Both at school and university, I have constantly been instructed in parts of speech and to pay attention to language features in pronunciation. This is, I suppose, something that not every native English teacher has methodically been trained in. 

Certainly, what I must admit is that my pronunciation skills are not of the superb quality as those of British and American people, just as I can read it in Unit 13 of the course materials: ?(?) (students) will never speak English with the same pronunciation as a native speaker, (?).? True, yet here I am doing my best, trying even harder to be good at it. The same energy, motivation and enthusiasm which I invest in improving myself to come close to native speakers am I going to employ when teaching a class of English language learners. Is not that in my favour? Added to my own convincement of being capable of taking a TEFL course as well as teaching English to students worldwide though not being a native English speaker myself, there are quite a number of other people who believe non-natives can make it work. Unfortunately, I have not read her book myself, but Lia D. Kamhi-Stein wrote a book called Learning and Teaching from Experience: Perspectives on Nonnative English Speaking Professionals. She clearly takes sides with non-native English teachers who are successful in their teaching and can be as professional as any teacher whose mother tongue is English. Similarly positive is the Englishclub.com website, which states that non-native teachers are perfectly competent to teach English. I picked out only some of them merely to let them speak as examples. Many more can be found online. 

So, as a result, what I would like to say is that there are aspects in favour of and against both native and non-native speakers of English which should be taken into consideration. I and all the others who are trying to become English teachers although English is not our first language are not necessarily worse or incompetent when compared to a native speaker. After all, we were taken on the TEFL course because we have the potential to teach English so when the ITTT organisation gives us a chance, I hope future employers will do the same. 1. International TEFL Teacher Training, Unit 2, Introduction to Grammar - Parts of Speech, p. 1.