Teach English in Wangling Zhen - Zhuzhou Shi

This title spoke to me straight away, since I have a significant experience of foreign languages, having learned 6, and lived in 6 different countries, viz. Ireland, UK, South Africa, Republic of Transkei, The Netherlands, Hungary. In Ireland, where I grew up, I learned Gaelic as my second language, and in senior years at school a lot of Irish culture was also introduced. This is where my interest in language and culture started. Our 'course book' was 'Peig Sayers, An Old Woman's Reflections', written by an elderly lady from the Blasket Islands which lie of the West coast of Ireland. The mixture of culture, storytelling, history and language inspired me to read further in Gaelic on similar topics, such as 'Twenty Years a Growing' by Maurice O'Sullivan, 'An Tillanach' (the Island Man) by Thomas O Crohan. By the time I left Ireland at 15, I was fluent in Gaelic, and had a deep understanding of Irish culture. Leaving Ireland, I moved with my family to one of the apartheid homelands of South Africa - The Republic of Transkei. Here the first language was isiXhosa, one of the Nguni languages of southern Africa. At school, we had students from 27 different nationalities, representing almost 27 different languages, and this was a huge eye-opener to me, as a young Irish boy used only to two or three languages! At this stage I learned a small amount of 'Afrikaans', since this was enforced by the (still apartheid based) schooling system. However there was zero motivation to learn this language, termed 'the language of the oppressor' by the citizens of the Transkei, and my learning never progressed. A clear case of no motivation = no learning! Far more to the point was to learn the most widely used language, isiXhosa. This I studied at University in 1990, to complete my degree. As with Irish, the rich mixture of language, history and culture was a huge motivation for me, and I took to the language 'like a duck to water'. Very fortunately for me, after finishing University I went to work in completely Xhosa speaking areas (doing development work - schools, infrastructure, training, etc.), and was able to practice, and more importantly learn to use Xhosa on a daily basis. This got me fluent in the language, not just academically, but the living language, including the culture. Working further in development, in the more northern regions of Transkei, the language had many similarities with Zulu, also an Nguni language, and I learned to speak Zulu too. Living in a country of 60 million people, with 12 official languages, and being able to speak the most widely used (covering 40 of the 60 million people), enabled me to deeply mix with the people of the country, gain acceptance, and participate in the culture of the people. Leaving S Africa (due to poor security in the region where I worked), I moved to the Netherlands, which is famed for having a population both fluent in Dutch (native language) and English. For many years I assumed this to be the case, assuming that my English had been understood by the Dutch, and not learning to communicate in Dutch myself (there seemed no need....). However, I learned a very valuable lesson at this stage, one which has been pointed out many times in the TEFL and Young Learners courses - that when people say 'I understand' it is often meaningless! Realising that a populations linguistic fame is not necessarily 'useable' or indeed correct, I started very quickly to perfect my own Dutch, and took to speaking Dutch only, in fact refusing to have Dutch people speak English with me. This I did so that I, myself, could be sure that what I had said was understood, in the native language, rather than talking with 'nodding dogs' and getting nowhere. This lesson is now deeply ingrained in my understanding of peoples abilities in foreign languages, and I am always wary when somebody tells me 'I understand'! I worked further in the Netherlands with crew of ships, drawn from many nationalities, mostly Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Latvian. Having completed the TEFL Certificate course I can now see how training people to work in their second or third language requires more structure than expected - in fact we should have trained with a more stringent approach such as the ESA approach, seeing the training also as a medium for the practicing of English. Again, a lesson to take forward! My other languages include French, which I learned up to the end of school, and spoke fluently with friends from Mauritius and northern Zambia, and more recently Hungarian (Magyar), a 'Finno-Ugric' language spoken in Hungary. Again, my interest in Hungarian was sparked by the deep culture and history of the country, and a desire to be able to talk directly with the people. Overall, and through my experiences in different countries, with different language groups, I have also noticed common mistakes and errors, mainly related to the native language, and direct translation to English. For example, Hungarians will not separate 'he' and 'she' since in Hungarian they are the same, not as in English. Xhosa people have similar issues, with 'he' or 'she' both being 'u' in Xhosa. Dutch people will insist on using Dutch pronunciation when speaking English (a Dutch 'd' is an English 't', and a Dutch 't' is an English 'd', as well as many other mispronunciations). Perhaps the most important thing I have learned through my experience of foreign languages is that it is very much the cooperation of the native speaker that ultimately gives success or failure. Students must always be aware of the willingness of others to communicate with them in the students foreign language, and not only consider their own abilities. Language and communication are a two way process, and my experience of foreign languages tells me that success is equally dependant on a cooperative approach from the native speaker.