English is the global language and plays a significant role in the world. It is used as the lingua franca for communication, education, business and media contexts like TV, newspaper and Internet. Having a common language with each others make both the people and the institutions to be more interested in English language learning or teaching. As it gained an incrediable role in the society, it became a popular content in education to satisfy people’s needs. Ministry of education accepts the English as a compulsory course to improve people’s knowledge skills and to contribute to their future profession. As it is a foreign language or second language for students, teachers have an important role for teaching it. Although students still don’t cope with their native language and don’t understand it’s rules effectively, they have to face with the new language in which there are grammar rules different from their native language rules. By learning the new language, they start to compare and contrast it with their native language and this leads teachers to have difficulties in classrooms.
There are many challenges high school teachers are faced with while they are teaching. In this blog, there will be some researches about different persons point of view in different levels. When we generally look at different levels, it seems that all levels nearly have same challenges. Ayşe Kızıldağ did a research about the challenges of English language teachers. The participants in this study are 20 English language teachers, including fourteen females and six males working at public primary schools in Turkey.
If you need to read more here is the site:
http://www.iejee.com/1_3_2009/kizildag.pdf
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For more information:
http://gse.berkeley.edu/research/pace/reports/Listening_to_Teachers.pdf
In addition some challenges can be because of teachers ethnic. Chen & Cheng (2009) did a research on the challenges of three South African teachers in Taiwan and found that they have difficulties because of their South African accents, racism, crowded classrooms, teaching phonics, classroom management or having something to teach they were not familiar with. Similarly, Walia classified the challenges in two parts. Instructional challenges; lack of enthusiasm towards the subject, decision on suitable methodology, lack of curriculum based on language needs and overcrowded classrooms and Professional challenges; low salary, lack of financial support and lack of cooperation.
Moreover, when we look at the high schools in Cyprus we can find the same challenges, teachers have to work hard for effective teaching. Teachers complain about the lack of materials, heavy workload. I think as we will become an English language teacher , knowing the challenges we may face will help us in our future profession. I think a teacher can find teaching English difficult when he or she has some students that give no attention to learning the language. The teacher will need to motivate them for learning. Also, we will have crowded classrooms include different types of students. Some of them will be fast learners and others not. We need to have a balance in class for both types. We should choose a method that suitable for both levels. Teaching English to high schools students is completely difficult for us.
What do you think about your future profession?
Do you think that you will have the same challenges?
What are the some challenges you are faced with when you become a teacher?
Kızıldağ, Ayşe. Teaching English in Turkey: Dialogues with teachers about the challenges in public primary schools. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education. Vol.1(3).2009.
Gandara,
Patricia., Maxwell-Jolly, Julie & Driscol, Anne(2005). Listening to Teachers of English Language
Learners. A survey of California
Teachers’ Challenges, Experiences and Professional Development Needs.
Chen,
Cheryl Wer-yu & Cheng Yuh-show(2009).
A case study on foreign English teacher’s challenges in Taiwanese
elementary schools.
Walia,
Divya Nimit. Opportunities and
Challenges in ELT: A Teacher’s Pride vs. Plight.
In what parts of the teaching do you think you will have more challenges?
Ilayda,your blog is very useful for us as potential Enlish teachers,in my view. The problems that you mentioned such as busy curriculums, heavy workloads, unappropriate materials or lack of materials or crowded classrooms are the main ones that almost every teacher should handle with while teaching. Facing with such problems may make the teacher less efficient in the class. But sometimes, teachers have nothing to solve these problems so they might try to minimize in some cases. That would be a solution. Also,knowing the difficulty before entering to the class, makes you more confident that you know what to do.
ReplyDeleteI aggree with you Ülkü, I think some teachers can also have difficulties with school administratives or their colleague. As these are the challenges for teachers, I think they cannot find any solution to these.
DeleteThese challenges are all based on specific group. In my view, in my future life I may confront with these challenges such as busy curriculums, heavy workloads, or having difficulties with families etc.; however, most of teachers face with these challenges. The main issue is how to comprehend and overcome from it and I think the more getting teacher an expert in her/his teaching life, the more s/he is knowledgeable and manage their challenges according to obstacles.
ReplyDeleteYes you are right. I think more experienced teachers can solve these problems easily. Because they are faced with these challenges for a long time and they can decrease these challenges effects by their knowledge.
ReplyDeleteIt is an good informative topic for techers. You are right .If we know the challenges that we will face, we can get prepared and know what we will do when we face with the challenges. I think I will face my challenges about teaching English in future because I am not experienced teacher,so until I get accustomed to the challenges and know how to deal with them, I will confront challenges in teaching. In order to handle challenges in both outside and inside of the classroom, we all need to be knowledgeable and equipped with the necessary skills to deal with the challenges
ReplyDeleteYes you are right. The more we teach the more we will be able to see different characteristics of students and find different strategies to handle with challenges.
DeleteIlayda I like your topic . I think almost all of the teachers have the same challenges in their teaching period. Therefore, I think when I become a teacher I will face with some of them such as institution and crowded challenges.However, we can get prepared for them and we can develop ourselves how to deal with these kinds of challenges.:)
ReplyDeleteYes, we can see the different challenges before we become a teacher and prepare ourselves for these difficulties:)
DeleteHi Ilayda!!
ReplyDeleteYour blog is very interesting. I am a student of the DaVinci University Teaching English as a Second Language graduate program. In México we also have problems with English education. The program for elementary or secondary school don´t requiere a high english knowledge to teach, only the basics of it.
The situation comes worse when parents have no English knowledge, so they can´t help children with homework.
Other important issue is the lack of resources to teach English in public schools. This make difficult the teaching and the learning process.
I have just taught 3 times before, one was to children, then teenegers and finally adults and to be honest, the most difficult group to teach was teenagers.
I love teaching English and your blog is useful to learn how to teach. I guess I have to invest in my materials to teach in roder to keep my students interested.
I belive as an English teacher we have to figure out how to make the learning process easier for them, of course this is just a comment and I guess I have to experience more the teaching process to face the problems mentioned.
Greetings form Mexico.
Suemy Marín