Foreign language teachers - SERIOUS QUESTION

Yossie

Hi all

Serious one here - is anyone a foreign language teacher on here that I could have pm conversation with - serious topic as its to do with the Yossini and not Nina or TDV's norks.

If anyone has any experience of teaching a foreign language as well (not restricting myself to "teachers" per se then that is cool as well.

Thank you!

Y

navrig

I can't help you with your specific request but I can recommend Google Translate.

I am currently communicating with my sister-in-law (after my brother died) who only speaks/writes French, using Facebook as the messanger facility and Google Translate to help me understand her and write my own messages. Generally it is accurate enough to make it work.

finchy

I've taught English as a foreign language. Is that any help?

seanoconn

I can translate Scottish to English if interested.

Yossie

Cool - thank you for the replies.

The score, hardcore, is this:

I speak Italian, French and a smattering of English - I want the Yossini to learn French/Italian asap but the local school doesn't start language lessons for another year or so (meaning that n2 child has to wait 3 years before he can go) and the local Italian circle know jack about shyt (I must admit that I haven't checked with the cheese eating surrender monkeys yet).

So, the plan was for me to teach them - I can do the basic fun word learning stuff all ok but have no idea how to structure anything deeper than that as was hoping that someone could help out. I learnt through living over there so no lessons, just plunge into school/society.

John: Is this your neck of the woods?

Navrig: thank you very much for the suggestion, but falls out of this ball park - much appreciated though.

Sean: Nice. I have a Glaswegian RSM. We all just stand there nodding at him when he speaks to us. He could be saying "don't go in there you'll all get blown up" and we'll just nod and then wander in oblivious to it all......

Bwgan

Rather than trying to teach them, could you not just start taking to them in the language you want them to learn. My wife speaks welsh and that's what she does with our kids, eldest is 5 and her welsh is good (I think, can't speak a word)

finchy

Yossie wrote:

Cool - thank you for the replies.

The score, hardcore, is this:

I speak Italian, French and a smattering of English - I want the Yossini to learn French/Italian asap but the local school doesn't start language lessons for another year or so (meaning that n2 child has to wait 3 years before he can go) and the local Italian circle know jack about shyt (I must admit that I haven't checked with the cheese eating surrender monkeys yet).

So, the plan was for me to teach them - I can do the basic fun word learning stuff all ok but have no idea how to structure anything deeper than that as was hoping that someone could help out. I learnt through living over there so no lessons, just plunge into school/society.

John: Is this your neck of the woods?

Bollox! I just wrote a rather long reply to this and then when I clicked on "Submit" I got kicked out of BR and lost it all!

OK, to summarise:

1) Teaching Italian or French would be very much like teaching English in terms of how you structure the lesson.
2) There is a MASSIVE worldwide English industry and so teaching methodologies are light years ahead and there are loads of books on the subject. The Practice of English Language Teaching by Jeremy Harmer is an excellent place to start and you should be able to adapt the ideas in there to Italian or French very easily. Second hand copies are always available fairly cheaply on Amazon.
3) A bit of imagination for grammar and you can make it quite fun. If, for example, you were teaching the past tense, you could play a funny excerpt from a cartoon and then get your child(ren) to describe what happened. Memory games or crosswords (you can use an online crossword generator with your choice of words) are always good. Clapping the rhythm of a sentence (i.e. clapping on the stressed syllables) and focusing on that can help the learner "absorb" the information without concentrating too much on it. Ditto for humming it to follow the intonation.
4) There are so many ways to structure a lesson that I could not even begin to scratch the surface here, but one very popular one is as follows (the following example would be a grammar lesson):

Warmer - get their brain started, get them interested in a topic. So if you are going to teach the present tense, you could show a picture of cycling fans waiting on a mountainside - who are these people? What are they doing? How do they feel, etc.

Vocabulary - pre-teach any unknown vocabulary which is coming up in the lesson.

Presentation - look at examples of the language structure being studied and try to elicit the rules.

Practice - limited freedom in practice, for example gap filling exercises, anagrams, exchanging information by asking questions.

Production - more freedom now - student has activities which allow him/her to be a bit more inventive - for example the cartoon exercise mentioned above.

Lesson recap.

As I say though, there are many, many other ways to structure a lesson and loads of ideas out there as well as your own imagination. The Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers are a good starting point.

5) Get some age-appropriate textbooks as they will present the language in a logical fashion, stopping you from trying to run before you can walk. Make sure you get a teacher's book to go with it, as that should contain tips on how to teach every single step in the book and contain supplementary resources. Go on a teacher's forum and ask if they have any recommendations for books.
6) Good luck!

Yossie

John: Bloody brilliant - thank you very much: structured lessons here we go!

Bwgan: agree 100% - I tend to speak Abruzzese/Toscana dialect as this is where we are from so this will be a good thing for me as well to speak Silvio's Italian as opposed to the weird stuff that I speak.

Thank you very much to all who replied as well: much appreciated.

Y

finchy

Yossie wrote:

John: Bloody brilliant - thank you very much: structured lessons here we go!

Bwgan: agree 100% - I tend to speak Abruzzese/Toscana dialect as this is where we are from so this will be a good thing for me as well to speak Silvio's Italian as opposed to the weird stuff that I speak.

Thank you very much to all who replied as well: much appreciated.

Y

You're welcome! It can be hard at first, but eventually you end up getting really creative and it becomes a load of fun for the teacher as well as for the pupil.

One thing I have forgotten to mention is that reading, writing, listening and speaking should be treated as 4 separate skills and have their own lessons devoted to them. If you buy the book by Harmer, it will have ways of structuring a skills lesson.

Yossie

Cool - thank you again.

I'm also going to hit the listening to radio and watching a bit of telly route (this in very small amounts as we aren't fans of having them glued to it for longer than 30 mins anyway)- my brother and I always remember learning our first word in Italian ("aiuto" - help!) from watching cartoons!

Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao

Y

schweiz

I learnt German for GCSE and somehow got a grade A. Apart from a couple of expeds to Bavaria during Uni I never used German at all and then I suddenly found myself in Switzerland where they speak 'German' in the same way that Jimmy Nail or Rab C. Nesbitt speak English!

I found the best way to learn was just to speak it. I know many people who have spent a fortune on lessons but don't speak confindently as they spend too long constructing a grammatically perfect sentence in their head before opening their mouth by which point the conversation has moved on. I, on the other hand, learnt to speak local dialect in the pub and out and about. The money spent on beer was probably more expensive than lessons but I can work and socialise in German. It's not perfect but I can converse. The problem is that I still find it hard to write German as Swiss German has completely different grammar rules to the High German that you have to write.

I also helped a girl in the local bike club prepare for her English exams that she was taking as part of her apprenticeship. I explained to her that at school there were only three tenses taught i.e. past, present and future and that I have no idea about present perfect and past perfect continuous or whatever it is they seem to get taught. What I did do was just talk about anything and everything for a couple of hours a week, correcting her when necessary but not getting overly pedantic if what she was saying was understandable. She was doing formal lessons at college though so there was a mix of formal and informal learning.

Yossie

schweiz wrote:

I learnt German for GCSE and somehow got a grade A. Apart from a couple of expeds to Bavaria during Uni I never used German at all and then I suddenly found myself in Switzerland where they speak 'German' in the same way that Jimmy Nail or Rab C. Nesbitt speak English!

I found the best way to learn was just to speak it. I know many people who have spent a fortune on lessons but don't speak confindently as they spend too long constructing a grammatically perfect sentence in their head before opening their mouth by which point the conversation has moved on. I, on the other hand, learnt to speak local dialect in the pub and out and about. The money spent on beer was probably more expensive than lessons but I can work and socialise in German. It's not perfect but I can converse. The problem is that I still find it hard to write German as Swiss German has completely different grammar rules to the High German that you have to write.

I also helped a girl in the local bike club prepare for her English exams that she was taking as part of her apprenticeship. I explained to her that at school there were only three tenses taught i.e. past, present and future and that I have no idea about present perfect and past perfect continuous or whatever it is they seem to get taught. What I did do was just talk about anything and everything for a couple of hours a week, correcting her when necessary but not getting overly pedantic if what she was saying was understandable. She was doing formal lessons at college though so there was a mix of formal and informal learning.

Sounds logical - mix the formal with the more casual and hope that they have enough confidence to go and speak to people (and therefore learn more) by themselves rather than standing in a corner trying to make up a perfect sentence then losing the moment.

Thank you - much appreciated.

finchy

schweiz wrote:

I explained to her that at school there were only three tenses taught i.e. past, present and future and that I have no idea about present perfect and past perfect continuous or whatever it is they seem to get taught.

Present perfect = I have done, you haven't washed, have we played?
Past perfect continuous = I had been doing, you hadn't been washing, had you been playing?

ballysmate

johnfinch wrote:

schweiz wrote:

I explained to her that at school there were only three tenses taught i.e. past, present and future and that I have no idea about present perfect and past perfect continuous or whatever it is they seem to get taught.

Present perfect = I have done, you haven't washed, have we played?
Past perfect continuous = I had been doing, you hadn't been washing, had you been playing?

No doubt you will scoff, but whilst at school, I studies Latin - and no, my teacher was not Mr Chips. I have to say, it wasn't the dry subject that I expected. It gave me a grounding in the nuts and bolts of language. That makes it all the more remarkable that I produce so much drivel.

schweiz

johnfinch wrote:

schweiz wrote:

I explained to her that at school there were only three tenses taught i.e. past, present and future and that I have no idea about present perfect and past perfect continuous or whatever it is they seem to get taught.

Present perfect = I have done, you haven't washed, have we played?
Past perfect continuous = I had been doing, you hadn't been washing, had you been playing?

My issue with the tenses is that it confuses the issue with the way they are taught to foreigners compared to the way I learnt them at school. It's almost as if some rules have been made up to try and justify the different ways in which we can answer a question. e.g. take the following question and answers

Have you picked up the tickets?

1) No, I will pick them up tomorrow
2) No, I am picking them up tomorrow
3) No, I am going to pick them up tomorrow
4) No, I should pick them up tomorrow
5) No, I should be picking them up tomorrow
6) No, I should be going to pick them up tomorrow

I (and most native English speakers that I've asked when discussing the topic of learnng languages which is a very (boring!) ex-pat thing to do) would not see/hear any difference between 1, 2 and 3 or 4, 5 and 6 in real terms. 1, 2 and 3 are certainties that the tickets will be picked up tomorrow, 4, 5 and 6 have an element of doubt in there. Someone who has been taught English as a second language will try and tell me that there are different degrees of certainty between 1, 2 and 3 and 4, 5 and 6. By the time they've worked out which one is 'correct' the conversation has stalled. In the real world, it doesn't actually matter.

Crapaud

johnfinch wrote:

Yossie wrote:

John: Bloody brilliant - thank you very much: structured lessons here we go!

Bwgan: agree 100% - I tend to speak Abruzzese/Toscana dialect as this is where we are from so this will be a good thing for me as well to speak Silvio's Italian as opposed to the weird stuff that I speak.

Thank you very much to all who replied as well: much appreciated.

Y

You're welcome! It can be hard at first, but eventually you end up getting really creative and it becomes a load of fun for the teacher as well as for the pupil.

One thing I have forgotten to mention is that reading, writing, listening and speaking should be treated as 4 separate skills and have their own lessons devoted to them. If you buy the book by Harmer, it will have ways of structuring a skills lesson.

If you want these books you can have them by putting the price of postage in a charity tin - I've got 2 sets. You'll have to be quick though as they're destined for the bin.

pinno

Get yourself an au pair speaking in the preffered language Y.

Don't worry, some of them won't cause too much friction between you and TDV

team47b

I had an au pair once.

Yossie

pinarello001 wrote:

Get yourself an au pair speaking in the preffered language Y.

Don't worry, some of them won't cause too much friction between you and TDV

Flippin' hell, I would be more worried about eating the Yossini.................

ballysmate

Yossie wrote:

pinarello001 wrote:

Get yourself an au pair speaking in the preffered language Y.

Don't worry, some of them won't cause too much friction between you and TDV

Flippin' hell, I would be more worried about eating the Yossini.................

Flippin' Hell?
Is this what BB has come to?
Golly gosh, crumbs, my oh my!

pinno

Toodle pip chaps, i'm awf on my velocepede and I won't spare the horses.

I will stop at my favourite mansion and have a bit of tiffin whilst I am away.

God speed.

rjsterry

Yossie wrote:

Cool - thank you again.

I'm also going to hit the listening to radio and watching a bit of telly route (this in very small amounts as we aren't fans of having them glued to it for longer than 30 mins anyway)- my brother and I always remember learning our first word in Italian ("aiuto" - help!) from watching cartoons!

Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao

Y

One more thought: get hold of some foreign language children's books or comics. The Asterix or Tintin books are great for French; not sure of an equivalent for Italian. A quick google comes up with this

http://www.charmingitaly.com/article/top-10-italian-comics

veronese68

My Dad's first job in Italy was as an interpretter for the American military police in Verona, unfortunately he spoke hardly any Italian at that point. He reckons reading the Topolino (Mickey Mouse) comics helped no end. So not a bad idea.
For very young children I was told a parent speaking two different languages would confuse the issue and slow the learning of both. It's better if each parent speaks only one language. The kid then learns mum's language and dad's language simultaneously.
Presumably the OP's kids are older than this though. I would concentrate on the conversational aspect. Just talk to them in the chosen language at times, and try to resist the temptation to revert to English if they don't understand something. TV and radio as suggested earlier may be good. But I find it hard to follow unless I'm really concentrating as it's so fast and I'm pretty good at Italian. Cartoons may be easier, I'm not sure.
Hope that's a little help and good luck with the teaching.

you may choose to ignore the above as I have failed in this and neither of mine speak Italian yet. They do want to learn now at least.

Yossie

pinarello001 wrote:

Toodle pip chaps, i'm awf on my velocepede and I won't spare the horses.

I will stop at my favourite mansion and have a bit of tiffin whilst I am away.

God speed.

I'm off to shoot a servant - the ballroom was filthy last night when everyone came round for supper.

Yossie

V & R: thank you as well - sounds like great ideas. I have a stash of Topolino in the garage from c.1978 so it looks like they will be coming out again.

Re speaking to them in Italian only: As English is my (and TDV's) first language it means that I have to make a conscious effort to talk to the Yossini in Italian/French: at least this means that I'll be improving as well.

We're off to the Motherland for a week next week (35 degrees, here we come!) so it'll be an excellent time to start this off.

pinno

Yossie wrote:

pinarello001 wrote:

Toodle pip chaps, i'm awf on my velocepede and I won't spare the horses.

I will stop at my favourite mansion and have a bit of tiffin whilst I am away.

God speed.

I'm off to shoot a servant - the ballroom was filthy last night when everyone came round for supper.

How terrible for you. Imagine having to waste a bullet on a low down commoner. I'd use a shovel old boy, after he has dug his own grave, bloody site cheaper.
Must go, Polo on the lawn in two ticks. If the smoked Salmon is not up to scratch, I am going to invade Scotland and whip the buggers mercilessly, the cads. That'll teach them whats what eh what?

veronese68

Yossie wrote:

Re speaking to them in Italian only: As English is my (and TDV's) first language it means that I have to make a conscious effort to talk to the Yossini in Italian/French: at least this means that I'll be improving as well.

The reason ours didn't learn that way is I wasn't confident enough to speak only in Italian, so asked my Mother to do so as she is local and looks after the kids a lot. Unfortunately she didn't and we didn't push it. I regret not having the attitude you have and just getting on with it.

Yossie wrote:

We're off to the Motherland for a week next week (35 degrees, here we come!) so it'll be an excellent time to start this off.

Just got back from a fortnight in Tuscany. It's glorious out there, I've got major post-holiday blues. Enjoy.

Yossie

pinarello001 wrote:

Yossie wrote:

pinarello001 wrote:

Toodle pip chaps, i'm awf on my velocepede and I won't spare the horses.

I will stop at my favourite mansion and have a bit of tiffin whilst I am away.

God speed.

I'm off to shoot a servant - the ballroom was filthy last night when everyone came round for supper.

How terrible for you. Imagine having to waste a bullet on a low down commoner. I'd use a shovel old boy, after he has dug his own grave, bloody site cheaper.
Must go, Polo on the lawn in two ticks. If the smoked Salmon is not up to scratch, I am going to invade Scotland and whip the buggers mercilessly, the cads. That'll teach them whats what eh what?

I try not to waste them - I get their friends to clean it afterwards and pay for the stuff that goes bang so its all ready the next time round.

Scotland isn't that bad - its somewhere close for me to send the servants to dump our rubbish. Their voices are funny as well - kind of quaint but inbred at the same time.

They go on about their views and lochs and mountains and all jazz but its really just a poor man's Bethnal Green really.

Yossie

quote]
Just got back from a fortnight in Tuscany. It's glorious out there, I've got major post-holiday blues. Enjoy.[/quote]

Grazie, grazie. We're off to the Abruzzo where we have a crib - salami, red wine, gelati, pizza a tad of riding or running in the mountains here we come. It's the area they use for the Giro every second year, so all is cool.