Interview with a Non-Native English Teacher

This interview is with a high school teacher in the Netherlands.

1) Where are you from?

Piatra Neam?, Romania

2) What first got you interested in becoming an English teacher?

I had a really good English teacher at middle school, which was when I was about 11, and I just liked the language a lot. Further down the line, I thought I could do something with it and pass it on to other people.

3) Which qualifications did you do to become an English teacher?

Well I first went to University in my country and studied modern languages; English as a major and French as a minor, and then within that type of study you could follow the qualification to become an English teacher, which I did. A decade later, I reconsidered going back to teaching in the Netherlands, which I had done in Romania by the way, for about three years. At this point, I had to requalify, and followed a teacher training programme at the University of Leiden, which included an extra qualification in bilingual education known as the World Teachers programme.

4) How were you treated by your fellow countrymen when teaching in your country? Are teachers respected there?

I was very young when I became a teacher; I was 22. You work with a lot of people who have been in the business for longer than you have. Of course, it depends on the school. I felt that I was respected. It’s a matter of how well you do your job; that’s my experience. I was very enthusiastic and worked very hard; that quickly gained me the respect of my fellow colleagues; the management and principle as well.

5) What are the advantages of being a non-native speaker when teaching English?

If you teach non-native speakers, one of the biggest advantages is that you have learned the language in the same way as your students. I understand how they learn as I am acutely aware of the journey they have been on; this is the common denominator between us. For example, when teaching grammar, I appreciate when a certain tense does not exist in the L1 (native language) of the students, and you know where they get stuck as they cannot relate to it, i.e. with the present perfect, because I remember my similar learning experience when exposed to a new and unfamiliar verb tense. This kind of forces you to find other ways to explain matters in such a way that they can understand.

6a) What are the disadvantages?

Sometimes, there are nuances in vocabulary you may not be aware of. It depends on how good your vocab is. Culture also plays a role; if you don’t know a word, it can boil down to a certain cultural element you may not be aware of, because you haven’t lived through it. For example, context in first world war poetry.

6b) In your own experience, have you found that native speakers are given priority?

In the Netherlands, competition for bilingual international schools is ultra-competitive. If you’re a native speaker, it becomes more difficult for you, because there are schools that are rather more accommodating with regards to accepting non-native speakers. In my case, the world teachers programme came in handy. According to the European platform regulations, every single school that has a bilingual stream here needs at least one native speaker in the department.

7) Do you have your own style?

I guess we all have our own teaching style; mine is a combination of giving instructions and introducing material in a classical manner and getting my students involved. I do not lecture my students, I try to get them involved in figuring out the answers themselves, which develops their critical and analytical skills. To enable this, I give them plenty of time to think and analyse. Therefore, there a lot of activities they need to work on together and without the facilitator; the students are the experts on the topic they are given and the teacher should guide them; you give them feedback and they share the answers. So, most of the time, activities are student-centred.

8) Can you describe an activity you have done in class that you think went very well?

Here are the instructions for Café culture, which is used for revising, i.e. concepts, discussion topics and literature.

*Hand out the six sheets of A3 paper.

*Each piece of paper should have a question or statement write on it.

*The pupils with the sheets of paper are the café owners. They stay where they are.

*The rest of the class stand up and find a café to join. Ensure roughly equal numbers go to each café.

* Students discuss the question or statement at their café. The café owner facilitates the discussion and makes notes on the piece of paper.

* After a sufficient amount of time has passed, ask pupils to move to a new café and start a new discussion.

9) Have you taught any memorable characters?

I have taught very hard-working students who take everything on board. One of whom, excelled in her work and won both national and international speech competitions.

10) Have you any advice for non-native speakers who wish to become English teachers?

Yes. Go and immerse yourself in the culture. To go and live in an English-speaking country for a certain amount of time gives you a wonderful opportunity to hear and speak the language in a home situation and is invaluable. I lived in North America for two years with two separate host families (1 in Canada and 1 in the USA). For me, my grammar was superior to those I was staying with, but I needed to practice my spoken English and see how the language works when forced to use it and speak it in a native environment. When you are not exposed to English in this way, your L1 will resurface as you fall back on it. This fantastic experience helped me with idioms and, along with improving my fluency and vocabulary, I gained unique insights into the culture.

11) Have you any general advice for new teachers?

As a high school teacher, be very careful about how much time you put into your work, and separate work from your private life; you could endlessly prepare and do research and never find time for yourself. That’s a mistake I made at the beginning. I do think teachers should have a personal life, and having a sense of balance in your life cannot be understated.

12) Is it necessary to take learning styles into consideration when planning lessons?

I do believe there are different types of learners and it can be beneficial to have a balance of different activities to cater for each of them; this can be difficult in practice as it is time-consuming.

13) Does technology aid or hinder the students’ learning?

Apps in the classroom like a forum we use for feedback can be efficient and helpful. Finding definitions and synonyms, for example, via online dictionaries can also be of use. The danger is that weaker students can get lazy and copy things from the internet. This can be rooted out by asking students on the spot to put things in their own words in class. As illustrated, those who think they are saving time, don’t learn anything by making use of an inefficient short cut.

14) Do you have any strong beliefs or other comments you’d like to share?

Teaching is two-way traffic. As a collaborative effort, it’s important for me to do my job well, but I need the student to do his/ her best too.