First off, I think introducations are appropriate. Andrew is an avid filmmaker and is currently teaching English in Korea. He graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts in Asian Language and Culture from the University of British Columbia (UBC), also receiving a Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) Certificate from UBC and Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. He has also worked on a variety of very interesting projects that you can read about here.

But, without further ado:

Are teaching credentials necessary? Or should I
buy a certificate off of eBay?
By: Andrew Zeller

How do you teach people how to teach? In other words, where do good teachers come from?

A friend of mine from Holland just recently earned his PhD in Computer Science. While we were chatting on the subject of teaching, he casually joked: “Because I’ve been a student for so long, I’m expected to know how to teach.  People see my degrees and think: ‘You’ve seen enough teaching in your life to know how to imitate it.’ And I guess they’re right.” (See note 1 below)

Most students can distinguish good teachers from bad ones. But the choice is subjective. How do you know when someone is a good teacher?

Parents of students in Arizona, USA, recently worried about this. This led to a controversy about whether or not teachers should undergo testing before being allowed to teach. The testing would include measuring English proficiency. Part of this debate arises out of the belief that “foreign” education is somehow lesser (foreign teachers included). If you google worldwide statistics in education and student performance, you will find this to be false. Despite being home to some “prestigious” universities, it is difficult to deny that the US is currently in an education crisis. How do you fix this problem? You need good teachers, which brings us back to my first two questions.

Where do good teachers come from? How do you teach people how to teach? If a student is to become a teacher, then a teacher should become a student for the student to practice teaching, right? It sounds like a paradox. But it actually happens. Let’s look at an example.

For English teachers, one particular credential is often talked about: the TESOL or TEFL certificate (See note 2 below). Last year, I was working towards this certificate at the University of British Columbia. A number of my friends have received it already as well from various other colleges and programs in Vancouver, and training for this certificate is offered around the world. Yet programs and course content vary significantly. Yet the end result looks the same: a certificate with your name on it.

It’s undeniable that a TESOL or TEFL certificate don’t guarantee or signify a good or even qualified teacher (the same can be said for a driver’s license). It does not guarantee that the owner is proficient or even comfortable with the English language. It would appear that this credential is meaningless and unnecessary. Or is it?

Why do most people study for this certificate? I would argue that the main reason is job-related. In my class, the majority of students were young people wishing to be hired as teachers, and current teachers who felt pressured by administration, parents, students, peers, or others to become “TESOL/TEFL certified”. For most of them, this certificate was viewed as practical and important, otherwise they would not have been there. I was humbled by classmates who had years of teaching experience, whom I could learn so much from.

As most people know, earning the TESOL/TEFL certificate takes much less time than earning a university degree (usually between 1 month to 2 years). In addition, most people pursuing the certificate already possess a university or college degree. I think this is the most important thing to consider when evaluating the TESOL/TEFL certification program or its graduates. The second is that most TESOL/TEFL programs are primarily theoretical: introducing major theories in the fields of linguistics and language education. So I think it’s safe to assume that most teachers learn how to teach elsewhere, usually AFTER they have already become teachers. The TESOL/TEFL program is meant to influence teaching, not to dictate it or provide a perfect blueprint of the perfect teacher (if anyone finds such a document, please share it!).

Let’s ask the question again: where do good teachers come from? When you talk to your friends or family about their favourite teachers, what qualities are mentioned? Are they always the same? No. Impossible. Good teachers are not all clones of each other. That we know for certain. Good teachers inspire us. Good teachers love learning, and they share that love of learning with their students. Good teachers are more memorable because bad teachers (unless they are really bad) typically bore us; they fail to engage us in learning. If you want to assess a teacher, assess their students.

I believe it is the teacher’s job to inspire students to want to learn. But not all students want to learn. In fact, many don’t want to do anything. This is why teaching is so challenging. This is why a good teacher can turn into a bad teacher, after years of struggling with students. It’s like watering seeds everyday and pulling weeds to protect those seeds. Finally, just when your students are ready to bloom, they leave, and you’re unable to see which seeds become flowers and which become trees. You just have to trust that it has all been worth it, and return to your gardening.

In the beginning, I was very skeptical of my TESOL/TEFL class. I wish (and still wish) that there were another type of class that dealt less with theory and more with practicality. Good teachers could mentor a student to follow in their footsteps. Good teachers could share their wisdom with other teachers and soon-to-be teachers. But I realized that I received this and more everyday in my TESOL classes. I do not doubt now that my teachers, classmates, and course readings have influenced my teaching and my beliefs about education.

Can we answer our first two questions? The answer I give might not be satisfactory in your view, but I would like to suggest that good teachers come from anywhere and everywhere. They are certified and uncertified (see note 3 below). They have different backgrounds and various levels of experience. How do you teach someone to be a good teacher? Well, you can start by listening to them.

————–
Notes:
1. This is a very rough paraphrasing of his words, more closely resembling my thoughts on the subject. I hope he will be forgiving of this.

2. Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) & Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL).

3. I do not condone or encourage the sale or purchasing of teaching certificates, since it is much less creative than designing and printing your own.

Below is some of Eddie Izzard’s stand up on the topic of language in general, but also jesting at some of the simplistic and barely useful material we may be taught in a classroom when just embarking on the path to learning a new language (here, French). He also has some good stuff to say on why we should be multilingual.

Enjoy!

I used to really have this problem when studying French. I would also sometimes try to explain something in French, but intermittent words in Mandarin would come out instead. Once I even did a presentation in a French course that I once took, explaining the composition of the Chinese character for bird, 鸟 (niăo). I spoke mostly in French, of course, but during several instances, Chinese words came out instead. All in all, it went fairly well, even if there were at times several confused faces from my classmates.

Recently, a friend wrote this sentence to me on Facebook in response to myself having just lamented on the limitations of my French at present. He wrote:

C’est pas grave; l’erreur est humaine. Même si tu pense que ton vocabulaire n’est pas très bien, au moins, ta grammaire est presque parfait!

English translation: It’s not serious; to err is human. Even if you think that your vocabulary isn’t very good, at least your grammar is almost perfect!

This was a nice confidence booster to be sure. However, when I first read it, I became momentarily held up on the ta grammaire (your grammar) phrase. This was because tā means him (or her or it) in Mandarin (Ch. 他/她/它), and having a better grasp of this language than I do of French, my mind automatically made this association (tā can also sometimes mean his/hers/its). So I got confused when I thought the comment was saying “at least his grammar is almost perfect”. Who was this “he”? It became clear after a second or two; it will just take more practice in French on my part.

I’m sure many more complications like this will ensue, but it gives learning a new language a sense of entertainment and amusement (if not the occasional frustration). Afterall, l’erreur est humaine!

As well as foreign languages, I have recently come to feel a deep appreciation for my own mother tongue, English, and have started to gain an interest in its development throughout the centuries. Two of Professor Arguelles’ videos in his series cover Old English and Middle English. To me, the first sounds like a kind of odd German, though the second can be made out and understood slightly more if concentrated on.

Additionally, for a quick introduction on the entire history of the English langauge (very quick! I’m talking ten-minutes-quick… for 1000+ years of history!), check out the third video below.

“Parler comme une vache espagnole”, ou, en anglais, “To speak like a Spanish cow”.

C’est un peu amusante cette phrase, non? Je ne sais pas s’il est une phrase récemment inventé, mais je l’aime. Elle a du caractère. Le sens, qui veut dire, “parler très mal”, pour exemple, quand on parle une langue ou je suppose que peut-être le façon qu’on parle sa langue maternelle.

Donc, la prochaine fois qu’un(e) ami(e) parle sérieusment mal, vous pouvez dire cette phrase. Peut-être il/elle rira, ou peut-être il/elle vous donnera un regard de confusion. Moi? Une vache? Une vache espagnole? S’il/elle est un locuteur natif français, vous n’aurez pas un probème. Mais pour moi, un homme qui n’est pas couramment encore en français, si vous me diriez cette phrase, je vous donnerai ce regard de confusion!

Quand même, je pense que c’est une phrase utile à apprendre. Savez-vous les autres expressions? Écrivez-vous dans la section commentaire ci-dessous svp!

The original post seems to have since been deleted (it was originally written in 2009 I think), but my translation is below. One thing to be aware of before reading: the writer, even though writing in Chinese, is not Chinese.

The issue I want to discuss is a big thing that is different between the West and China, the difference I first noticed when in China. The first was like this: A friend and I were watching a brilliant soccer match between France and Italy. With only a few seconds to go in the game, a player for the French team kicked the ball, and it went in! Italy lost! My Chinese friend said then said to me, “That guy isn’t French, he’s African.” Why? I thought. Because he was black? I said to my friend, “No, he’s French. There are also black people in America, right?” My friend thought about it a bit, but still was uncertain about it.

When the Olympics were in Beijing in 2008, there was a Chinese-Canadian athlete who won gold. Because they were in Beijing, CCTV [China’s state-owned television network] interviewed her in Mandarin. A guy standing beside me at the time was taken back and wanted to know why her Chinese was so good. Someone else said it was because she was Chinese. I told them that they were both incorrect, but that she was Canadian with Chinese ancestry.

So what about black people in America and France? Their ancestors were obviously from Africa. However, today they no longer have any direct connection with the African continent, only able to really be called American or French, respectively. Some people say it’s because America is an immigrant country, but France isn’t, and neither are England or Switzerland. My ancestors were from American and England, but I’m Swiss. I’m Swiss because I have a deep connection with Switzerland, and have been subjected to Swiss culture since I was very young. I have no real connection to America, so why would I want to say that I’m an American? Looking further back, my forefathers’ forefathers came from Ireland, but I don’t know anything about that place, so I can’t really say I’m Irish.

As concerns China, foreigners cannot become Chinese citizens. Have you ever seen a yellow haired Chinese person? So, if a person’s ancestors were not Chinese then there is no way for that individual to be Chinese today, right? But in this point there is an important question to be asked: What exactly is a Chinese person anyway? China has 56 nationalities within its borders, but this number of 56 is a very modern way of approaching the question. It was only during the Republic of China’s rule that this concept started to take hold. At this time, there were only five ethnic groups that mainly were considered (just look at the Republic’s flag; the five colours on it represented the five ethnic groups). But if the People’s Republic of China was established in the Han Dynasty, then how many ethnic groups were there? At that time, China wasn’t very large, and neither were the different groups of people. But as the area of the country expanded over time, so did the number of different kinds of people within its border. China has a group called E-luo-si [a Russian minority in northeast China] because there were Russians in China as of 1949. They lived within the boundary that was China, and so were called Chinese. But their ancestors were Russians, and had no connection with China. If this group led their flocked of sheep back to the official Russian side of the border in 1949, then there wouldn’t be any E-luo-si ethnic group there today.

So if these people are Chinese, why is it that I can’t be one as well? If I move to China and live there for 60 years, I cannot be Chinese. If I have children in China and raise them there, they also can’t be Chinese (that is, not unless my wife is Chinese). Even if my grandchildren were to be born in China, grow up there, and never spoke one word of English, they too would never be able to be Chinese. So where are they from? Their way of thinking would be that of someone from China, the language they would speak would be Mandarin, and their culture would be Chinese. They wouldn’t have any difference from a Chinese kid, other than the fact that their forefathers were foreigners. China’s 56 ethnic groups are a new creation, the result of contemporary situations. Are Mongolians Chinese? No. But Inner Mongolians are. But the two are really of the same ethnicity, so where are the real differences? They are entirely the result of political tendencies. Whoever was within China’s border in 1949 automatically became a Chinese person.

Please don’t be mistaken. I’m not saying this is either a good thing or a bad thing, I just want to raise the question of cultural differences in the two places and let everybody consider the issue on their own.

This is not only policy, but a phenomenon of the whole culture. If I stay in China for over 60 years, my kids will make it their home. However, they would still hear kids around them call them “foreigners”. Moreover, there might even be people that stand there and say, “Wow, how is it that your Chinese is so good?” Of course I would feel happy if I heard people say this, but at the same time I would still know that even at home we would still be considered outsiders in this sense. Chinese people are extremely friendly to foreigners, and this is a well-known fact and an excellent characteristic. However, even if we could be considered one of them on the surface, we would still know that we really weren’t.

The issues that I just raised come from an area where cultures differ. Please don’t think that I don’t like this side of China, I just hope that everybody will realize why French soccer players have black people on their teams!

I started to think about this issue after viewing the video below. In it there is the sentence “We are Americans, but you could also say we are Chinese.” Later, there is also the sentence “America is our second homeland, the first is China.”

If you can understand Mandarin, or if you just want to see the video that is being referred to, click here.

So what do you think? What are your thoughts on this idea of “foreignness”?

The book itself is one of those that has probably been sitting in the department’s library basement for the last 25 years (it was published originally in 1982), but I love it because it features lengthy academic articles written about the different languages and linguistic groups present in China.

The table of contents features such titles as 我对苗语语法上几个问题的看法 (My View on Several Problems Regarding Miao Grammar), 朝鲜语句法结构分析 (An Analysis of Korean Syntactical Structures), 论蒙古语外来词拼写规则 (A Discussion on the Rules for Transliterating Loanwords into Mongolian), and 仡佬族动词谓语句的否定形式 (The Negative Form of Gelao Verb Sentence Predicates).

One of my favorite things about it is that I can compare the grammatical structure of a given language with that of Mandarin, as well as idioms and foreign word influences.

For example, the article on negatives in the Gelao language shows that, compared to Mandarin, the verb and the negating word switch places. For example:

Gelao: i³³ xɒ³³ mpəɯ¹³ a³³ (我吃饭不)

Mandarin: 我不吃饭

English: I’m not eating/I’m not going to eat

The equivalent word for the particle 了 in Gelao seems to be kəɯ³³. It also goes after the verb, as in Mandarin, though the negating word still goes at the end, as in:

Gelao: u³³ t’a⁴⁴ kəɯ³³ a³³ (他做了不)

Mandarin: 他不做了

English: He didn’t do it

It seems the grammar is largely Subject + Verb + Object + Negation, or as with the second example, Subject + Verb + Particle + Negation.

Screen shot of these examples in Gelao from the article 仡佬族动词谓语句的否定形式. Click to enlarge.

Another chapter that I found interesting was 论维吾尔语的成语 (A Discussion on Uyghur Idioms). This one has different idioms used in Uyghur with its Chinese equivalents. For example:

Uyghur: kala terisini püdimək

Mandarin: 吹牛皮

English: to brag about something

This chapter also shows how various idioms are common across languages, including English, Chinese, and Russian. Take this line, for example, from one the pages in this section: 这些成语词是很多语言所共有的，这是因为人类对客观世界的认识和思维有共同之处 (These idioms can be found in many different languages as humankind’s understanding of the objective world comes from a similar place).

Uyghur: k̡oy terisigə oralƣan bɵrə

Mandarin: 披着羊皮的狼

Russian: волк в овечьей шкуре

English: a wolf in sheep’s clothing

Screen shot of these examples in Uyghur from the article 论维吾尔语的成语. Click to enlarge.

The section that most caught my attention, however, was the one on Korean since I can already read the alphabet. As with the section on Gelao, it has side-by-side comparisons of Korean grammar as they compare with the Mandarin sentence structure. For example:

Korean: 우리는   위대하 ∙ ㄴ      조국을    사랑한다
.……….我们       伟大      （的）   祖国       热爱

Mandarin: 我们热爱伟大的祖国

English: We love our great country

Here the Korean word order seems to be Subject + Adjective + Object + Verb, whereas Mandarin is similar to English in that it is Subject + Verb + Adjective + Object.

Screen shot of these examples in Korean from the article 朝鲜语句法结构分析. Click to enlarge.

Although this book is a bit difficult to read since it’s quite heavy on the linguistic jargon (in Mandarin), it really is a great one in that it provides such a varied look at the languages spoken within China’s borders. For those interested, here’s the source below and a link to the book online (in Chinese):

民族语文研究文集。青海省西宁市:青海民族出版社,1982年

Case in point: I am currently set on improving my Mandarin and French. One day, I went on Facebook to search for terms like “Chinese”, “Mandarin”, “French”, and “Languages”, and was returned pages upon pages of results. I found a group called OneFrenchWish, created by a man named Robin in Ghana, Africa. Although his mother tongue is English, his French has become quite good and he is now helping others learn. Anyone in the group (which has over 800 members now) can post questions or comments, but Robin moderates a lot and drives discussions, as well as suggests new topics for discussion.

Not only am I learning French when I go through this group, but I am also interacting with people from around the world. It just so happens that many (if not most) of the group members are from Africa, exposing me to a whole other world than I usually see here in Vancouver, Canada. I get insights not only into various cultures and how French is spoken in different African countries, but also how English is spoken in different African countries. However, this doesn’t only apply here; it could apply to any similar group.

After seeing the positive exposure to French that I was getting from OneFrenchWish, I decided to create two additional groups of my own: Learn Chinese Group and Learn Russian Group. Perhaps the names aren’t the most creative, but hey, they get the point across.

In the Chinese/Mandarin group, members have been discussing everything from Chinese poetry, to classic fiction, to slang, to movies, to Classical Chinese, to the pros and cons of Traditional vs. Simplified characters (a never-ending debate that you will soon become very, very familiar with if you ever start to study Mandarin).

Although I have a lot of years of Mandarin study under my belt already, it is of course an evolving language, and the members in this group are constantly explaining new things to me (including those that I have forgotten or am rusty on), and also introducing parts of the language that I have yet to study in much depth, such as Classical Chinese.

My second group, Learn Russian Group, was initially created because I have a deep interest in Central Asia (and especially its ties with ancient China). I want to travel someday to countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, not to mention take the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing through Central Asia to Moscow, and Russian is a good lingua franca in this area. It has also become a second language in places like Mongolia and Israel as well, so from what I can see, it has the potential to open an individual up to many new opportunities, especially since Russia itself is one of the “BRICS” nations.

A side note: I know in my About page that I said I need to be more focused on the languages I choose to study and not take on too many at one time. However, even though I’m concentrating primarily on Mandarin and French at the moment, I don’t see any reason why I can’t glance at other languages too (as long as I keep my main focus on the first two). Russian might become my new language of study in 2012. If not, then at least I’ll have learned a bit more about another part of the world.

Back to the Facebook groups though. I am a complete beginner in Russian. Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent my time just learning the alphabet, but learning a few simple sentences as well has been inevitable. I recently posted what I have learned on the group’s wall:

Всем привет – Hello everyone
Я канадец – I’m Canadian
Я люблю языки – I love languages
Ирина ветеринар, и Иван техник, а они техники – Irina is a veterinarian, and Ivan is a technician, but they are technicians

Sort of random, but that’s how learning a new language can be — especially at the beginning.

Now, take a look at the third sentence, Я люблю языки – I love languages. After posting this, someone in the group told me that I had actually written I love tongues! Apparently they were just joking with me, as the last word, языки, means both languages and tongues (we have this similarity in English too of course). I learned from this process that it would be better to say Я люблю иностранные языки, or I like foreign languages, in order to avoid confusion with native speakers.

Furthermore, I also learned another sentence from this exchange: Я хочу говяжий язык в соусе. It means I want beef tongue in sauce. Notice the same word again in this sentence: язык — and I learned all this before even having a good grasp of the alphabet itself!

So that’s my push for groups like these. They’re really just people getting together over the internet to talk with each other about a subject they love. But it could be anything, and I’m sure there are other groups on Facebook devoted to any number of topics.

I’ll leave you with a cute little Russian children’s character that I have come to learn about from my Russian group. He’s a crocodile that plays an accordion! (I’m pretty sure you don’t learn about this in Russian textbooks!) It’s called Blue Wagon, or Голубой Вагон.

I’ve tried to learn more than one language at a time before, without much success. It usually went like this: I’d get excited with a new language, let’s say Korean, and add it to the languages I was already trying to study, let’s say Mandarin and Arabic. I’d be passing quickly over various lessons from language books or information on the internet, spending a lot of time, but not really absorbing anything of major use. It was frustrating, and I’ve spent several years like this (YEARS!). Half of the problem was pure fascination with multiple subjects, half was a short attention span, and half of it was being unorganized (does that equal a whole unit?).

Therefore, I’ve decided to learn from my mistakes and go more slowly now. Spend most of my time on just one or two languages at once (right now it’s Mandarin and French), and perhaps concentrate more on others more seriously once my skills in these have reached an advanced level (my Mandarin is almost there, but my French has a ways to go). I think I’ll be more productive this way.

This blog is therefore intended to be a conduit for all of this. You can also refer to the “About” page for a bit of further information about me and my background. Besides writing about language in general, and bringing in outside sources on the subject, I’m planning on using this blog as a way for me to gauge my own progression and advancement. Hopefully it will help. I figure it will also be a good way for others on the web to also critique my skill, thus allowing me to progress more quickly.

And also culture. I like them — foreign cultures that is. Topics relating to them are sure to surface here as well.

So, there you have it in a nutshell. Languages are fascinating things, and learning them is especially satisfying when you realize that you are (finally) good enough to communicate with people from other places. The wall of confusion that comes down when two people speak the same language is a wonderfully amazing thing.

I’ll leave you with a quotation from Nelson Mandela: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”