"Water" and English Language Learners

Many of my adult ESL students have a problem being understood when they say the word "water." They have found it frustrating when they try to order a glass of water at a restaurant. And "water" is just one of those words that is very hard to avoid using!

"Water" is such a simple and common word for most native English speakers, but it really has a lot of complex sounds for English language learners. The "t" is the universally difficult sound to pronounce in this word as it is pronounced as a quick "d" by native speakers (I'm talking about American English, here). The "w" is also difficult, as is the "er" sound.

I had a recent experience with this word that I found more interesting than usual due to my experiences with my ESL students.

I spent a few days with a native English-speaking two-year-old child who supposedly has a speech development delay. He's seeing a speech therapist. The adults around the child were trying to help him out by breaking up certain words into syllables and encouraging him to repeat the words. One of the words was "water."

The interesting thing to me was that when the adults broke up the word into two syllables, they said "wa-ter." The "t" was stressed as a very strong "t" sound. I'm sure the child will eventually pick up the common way to say this important word the American English way, but I'm not sure if the strong emphasis on the "t" sound is helping him at this time. Because of my experience with adult English language learners, I would have said "wa-der," with a "d" sound.

I just find language acquisition at any age and level to be fascinating. In my next life, I'll spend more time studying this subject (as well as becoming a forest ranger).

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Effectiveness of ESL Tutoring

I met with two ESL students today for private lessons. Today was one of those days where I doubted my effectiveness as a tutor. I have been working with one of today's English language learners for several months. He is mostly working on his business English skills. He is making a lot of progress, especially in the area of writing effective emails. During our sessions, he takes notes of the mistakes he has made and the improvements we make to his writings. He then studies these notes between our sessions and applies what he has learned.

I have been working for only a few weeks with the other student. Unfortunately, I don't feel like he is making any improvement. Of course, we have only met a total of six times, so I should probably allow more time for an assessment. However, I still doubted my effectiveness and the choices I was making for lesson plans.

I have to remind myself that I am only in control of the lesson plans that I make and the job I do of teaching. Learning a new language is something that cannot be done in only one or two lessons per week. Ultimately, it's the student's responsibility to learn what is being taught.

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"Can I Teach English?

Do ESL teachers need to know the native language of the person to whom they are teaching English? I'm often asked by other native English speakers if I know Korean, Chinese, Russian, Chinese, etc. They are curious about how a person can teach another person if they don't speak the same language. As it turns out, I do speak some Spanish, but I try to use it very, very little with my native Spanish speaking students.

The short answer to whether someone needs to speak the native language of the non-English-speaking person when teaching them English is "no." In fact, it is often better if the the ESL teacher or EFL teacher does not speak the non-English language because it is very tempting to use the non-English language.

Current language acquisition theory and practice for adults (at least in the U.S.) is to speak to the English student solely in English. Theoretically (and in practice) this helps the student to learn the language faster.

This should be noted that this particular approach to teaching English as a Second Language applies only to teaching ESL or EFL. That is, this approach applies when the target goal of the student is to learn English. It does not necessarily apply when students have to learn another subject matter as well as English. This case happens, for example, when a child who is a new immigrant comes to the U.S. and is put in school to learn the subjects appropriate for his or her grade level, as well as English. In this case, the more reasonable approach is bilingual education.

So if you want to be an English as a Second/Foreign Language teacher, you don't need to know your students' languages, although it may be helpful in some instances.