Talking and Writing

59 Which of the attitudes, practices and experiences are similar and dissimilar to those which Ukrainian teachers come across in their careers?

· Viewing teaching as "dossing on a beach while drinking San Miguel and taking it easy";

· living the life of the eternal rootless student;

· teaching being the "industry which 70% of people should leave after a year: they've got what they can out of it".

· "There's no obvious career ladder."

· "The drop-out rate is pretty high because the money's not good."

· "As a TEFL teacher, there are many moments of humiliation. You learn to develop a very thick skin."

· Determination to make the lessons a success develops creative skills, which can come handy when you take up other creative projects or jobs.

· Having to constantly dream up entertaining lessons is something that any ex-Tefl teacher will remember with either affection or horror.

· "It is the constant stress; standing up in front of the class and worrying about it all falling apart."

· You can make a career out of ELT, and a successful one at that.

· Teaching is something you can always go back to.

60 Some countries have launched programmes where native speakers are invited to be language teachers' assistants (LAs) in the classroom. The teacher and the LA team-teach and each contributes to effective studies. Can such a facility give a boost to language learning in Ukraine? Let's discuss the pros and cons before any proposal is made. Consider the possible benefits:

· exposure to the right accent;

· motivated learning - taking the language seriously - as a practical tool of coming to terms with a person from another culture;

· picking up live and contemporary language;

· learning the social language, which can be overlooked in the thematic teaching plan;

· learning the cultural component naturally;

· pooling the host teacher's methodology and native speaker's resources;

· giving the local teacher convenient on-sight language brush-up;

· creating a better vision of ELT;

Consider the possibility of the bottlenecks:

· incompatibility of the teacher’s and assistant's approaches;

· inappropriateness of the assistant's methods with regard to large classes;

· the LA might supersede the teacher;

· there might not be an idea which way the two should co-operate,

· no goals and targets may be put before the LA and the whole activity may go chaotic, unstructured, unsystematic and, thus, unproductive;

· the schools may be understaffed and depart from the principle of team-teaching and appoint the LA to independent teaching, which will ruin the idea;

· the LAs may lack motivation and have no commitments in this temporary employment;

· the schools may not bear the costs.

61 Now that English is becoming a rootless language and the object is to let the students master "practical English", should native speakers in EFL teaching be sought? Provide arguments as to why "practical" English should rather be thought of as lowbrow, clipped and unambitious. Consider different points from varied perspectives. The tips below do not reduce the discussion, but give you hints on the circumstances:

· The global language must be provided with global standards;

· Native speakers have worked out the most elegant ways of rendering ideas;

· Language must be given a holistic approach: it should be studied together with its cultural component, ingrained in the language, naturally blended in native speech;

· Language is an open, balanced and developing system; its current state is best presented by native speakers;

· Language is most heavily in use and flux in the native country(ies), where standards are established;

62 Read the supplementary article below and work out a report, based on the previous discussions and this text, on whether the practice of using LAs can/should be picked up for schools in this country.

Hong Kong's education ministry this month announced a new drive to improve English language teaching in schools. An important part of this "native English teacher" initiative will be to recruit extra language assistants (LA) - native speakers of English without teaching qualifications, who provide conversation and classroom support in schools.

Hong Kong is not alone. Around the world education ministries are seeking to recruit more LAs. And the reasons seem clear. LAs offer many learners their first encounter with a native-speaker of English; they serve as in-class "cultural ambassadors" for their country of origin; and they can support full-time staff.

But as demand for LAs increases, so too has concern that their role can be abused. The drive to introduce English to younger learners has exposed severe teacher shortages in many countries, and there is growing evidence that host schools are requiring LAs to work as class teachers without proper training or preparation.

Every year Britain sends 2,000 undergraduates and recent graduates on one-year LA placements to 21 countries. The LAs, mostly modern language students, gain from living in a country where their target language is spoken.

While the overall role of the assistant in most countries is to team-teach with an experienced teacher, this role is undergoing subtle change. "This is an opportunity to pool skills and resources, but both parties need to be absolutely clear what their roles in class are," she said.

The demand for extra LAs has been strongest from France, where the government is committed to providing foreign language classes to all nine-year-olds from the start of this academic year. Research has revealed that LAs are commonly asked to teach whole primary school classes without the support of full-time teachers.

Education officials responsible for the scheme in France admit that LAs and schools do not receive adequate ongoing support and training from education authorities during their placements. So far less than half the posts have so far been filled. The government has suggested using fluent, non-native speakers who have lived in an English-speaking country as an alternative, but experts in education reject this.

"Children are more encouraged to learn from contact with native speakers," they say. "Our children need someone with a good accent."

Ms Thiery, a full-time teacher, admits she is dependent on LAs having a natural gift for imparting their language and culture to learners, because the training and preparation they receive is generally inadequate.

The central bureau recommends LAs enroll on short preparation courses run by their universities in Britain. But school educationalists point out the EFL-style teaching skills these courses offer are inappropriate for the large, monolingual classes of young learners that LAs face.

A couple of days of methodology and teaching tips on such topics as games, speaking tasks or songs in the classroom do not go far enough to cover the diversity of LAs' needs. The LA's role is not to innovate, and they can be seen as a threat by full-time teachers or disruptive if they try to impose their own methods.

While it is no longer unusual for local teachers to conduct a five-minute warm-up at the beginning of a lesson or for classes to do game activities - techniques adopted from ALTs - local teachers still have problems with the team-teaching techniques developed to integrate ALTs into classrooms.

"We cannot say that team-teaching is working well. Both full-time teachers and ALTs say they don't have sufficient time to prepare for lessons or review them afterwards. The uneasiness that some teachers feel about sharing lessons also remains to some extent."

In spite of these problems a recent survey showed ALTs remain very popular with students. Mr Hirata, a Japanese EFL teacher, thinks native-speakers can be too highly valued. "I believe English is becoming 'rootless', and if the programme's aim is to let students master practical English, native speakers do not necessarily have to be the model," he said.

However, the demand for native-speakers shows no sign of diminishing, and agencies that place LAs and host countries must do more to support them. "If you drop a 19-year-old American into a school in Cairo, Egypt, and just expect him to sink or swim, he'll sink," says Ms Richardson. "That's why continuing support is vital."