How teaching English on my year abroad improved my French I began my year abroad in Paris as an intern at a publishing house, earning €2.70 an hour for menial work. I’d hoped to be able to soak up French in a real-life setting, but was constantly writing emails and making calls in English, with little free time for learning my second language. I soon realised the only thing I’d really learned was how to use a document-binding machine. Luckily, I’d taken an intensive English-teaching course in London the previous summer, which helped me find a new job with a language school.
Students planning their years abroad might worry about teaching English. It seems counterintuitive – you go to another country to learn the language and end up speaking your mother tongue. But in my experience, it can be a rewarding job and is perhaps even the best way to immerse yourself in another culture and learn the language. Ellen Rothnie, a student at the University of Glasgow, who has recently returned from two years in Spain, agrees. She says: “The feeling of integrating is so special. I wanted to improve my Spanish and was astounded by how much I did. I noticed a difference within a month.”
So, what struck me most about teaching English, was the potential for improving my French. Teaching your own language gives you a broader insight into language-learning – you see what works and what doesn’t. Among my students, I encountered a full range of abilities – speakers of near-native fluency and those who could barely string together a simple English phrase. I noticed what held my weakest students back – too much focus on writing down notes, crippling shyness and fear of making mistakes, and the other extreme – overconfidence, speaking at length and carelessly repeating the same errors. I saw how my best students learned – by being chatty and enthusiastic, and by watching hours of Anglo-American TV and films in their spare time. Trying to follow their example, I studied French thrillers and reality shows, picking up slang and colloquialisms, which helped me get by in everyday conversations.
Rothnie also found that teaching English helped with her Spanish. “My students often didn’t know what I considered to be basic expressions involving prepositions, such as ‘run out’, or ‘left over’,” she says. “Then I realised that in Spanish there is usually a separate, single equivalent verb which, before my year abroad, I probably didn’t know either.” At university, language teachers often tell students to avoid directly translating English phrases word-for-word, but it’s only when you’re interacting with native speakers in another country that you grasp the common expressions and idioms. This knowledge allows you to become more fluent in a language.
Teaching English can also give you the chance to socialise with native speakers, as Amy Stewart, a student at the University of Strathclyde, found on her year abroad in Tenerife. As a British Council assistant, she became friendly with her fellow teachers and even went to stay at the family home of a Spanish colleague. Despite her concerns about living in a hotspot for Anglophone tourists, Stewart improved her Spanish by taking part in language exchanges with locals. You need to be proactive too, she says: “If you go looking for areas that aren’t quite as touristy, then you’ll find them.”
Ultimately, the success of your year abroad is down to your own efforts – but maybe there’s something about teaching that gives you a certain motivation. After all, when you’ve been telling your students to knuckle down and practise vocabulary in their spare time, you feel like a hypocrite if you don’t do the same. |