Hi Mangay

I'd say there is now (and increasinly) a direct correlation between speaking a second language and employment ... in Europe I don't think this necessarily has to be English but in other places e.g. Asia it does seem to be the case ... I think in many places English is becoming a 'neutral' language (it is certainly evolving and different cultures are modifying it e.g. Chinglish, Singlish etc) .... ownership of a language can be controversial, but as English starts to be 'owned' by all, it's cultural power will decrease ...

what do you think? W:)

hi wendy,

           welcome you on board. you are right to some extent,but english as an international language will not be disturbed by culture disturbances. The statistics in all popular dailies and magazines speak on the scope of English language in employment fields.As such the link between the English language and employment is inseperable and intercomplementary. The primary and basic requirement for a job seeker is a bit command of the language in both written and spoken forms if they look out for a handsome profession

let us wait for the other responses

Hi Mangay and Wendy,

That's a very interesting question indeed. Foreign languages are becoming nowadays a must because they can guarantee a successful communication among people and among nations worldwide. They're also a must because if you aspire to hold higher positions in your country or elsewhere, you should master at least two or three foreign languages. So, there is I think a close connection between English and employment. English as you know is the language of the world par excellence AND it is also said to be the language of technology. In business, businessmen are learning English in order to trade and in order to commercialize their products. In tourism, English is a necessity because most of the voygeurs and travellers are coming either from AMERICA or Europe's zones. Gone the days when French was officially spoken in colonized countries. Now, I think English is imposing itself in all the sectors of life. With little English, you can work for Saudi companies and in Asian offices. English is now as vital as wate. Without it, ur carrier opportunities will be somehow limited.

Best regards,

Rachid

hi rachid,

                welcome to board.an interesting answer too.can you tell about yourself and your specialised areas

regards

dr.mangay

thanks rachid you do wonders keep it up. go on with the discussion

wishes

dr.mangay

There have been studies in Mexico that show that those who learn English earn around 30% more than those who do not.

My former boss, a Mexican trained as doctor, told me that she earns more as an English teacher than she did at medicine!

And STILL many students rank their English classes low in priority.

dear leigh,

              it is a pleasure to welcome you on board.as a tesol holder why can't you apply for your career in british council.native speakers have more options internationally in BBC.try for it.

regards

dr.mangay

dear all,

                       as rachid and leigh pointed out links between english language and employment are inseperable.

                                                    The materialistic goal of any education is widely acknowledged as securing employment which guarantees a decent livelihood.English particularly in reference with employment.emerges as an everlasting champion in fetching a lucrative job to many.

                                                    The students are lured by exorbitant range of salaries offered in the multi national companies. The first and immediate aid to knock the doors of those companies for them is nothing but a good communication in English. Applicants who would command a comfortable, communicative skill in the language  are placed and short-listed on the spot interviews.

                                                     Job seekers who failed to converse and communicate appreciably in English are turned down. Hence english inspite of any criticism has been hailed as a permanent good Samaritan which makes a big difference in the career of any person.    

                                                    Life has become increasingly exposed to enormous materialistic needs. Naturally education is also loosing the aesthetic and ideal values and replaced by the wordly demands.In such a changing sphere English language cherishes all kinds of dimensions to gratify the needs of an employer who wants to extract the maximum labour from his employees.

                                                    The statistics in all popular dailies and magazines speak on the scope of English language in employment fields.As such the link between the English language and employment is inseperable and intercomplementary. The primary and basic requirement for a job seeker is a bit command of the language in both written and spoken forms if they look out for a handsome profession. 

                                                     On the whole English which was studied and admired for its literal value has liberally spread its wings for international studies,employment,migration,immigration  through its tailor made  courses like IELTS,TOEFL,GRE,GMAT etc.  

regards

dr.mangay

Thanks for your vote of confidence, Dr Mangay, about my abilities with working with the BC. I know there are some really good jobs with the Council. First of all, I am fairly happy doing what Im doing now and I would like to finish the project Im working on (setting up the schools self-access center/resource center) This is my big "passion" so-to-speak. Though for financial reasons I am leisurely looking for other opportunties. I would just hate to leave a project half-done (and if so, it would most likely rot).

Im going to stick my neck out here a little bit and say that I am ambivalent about the BC. It does some very interesting things (self access centers wouldnt exist in most parts of the world without them) and this online version of the IATEFL is a great idea. Im trying to talk MexTESOL into doing something similar.

But I had a very bad experience when I attended an ICELT course given at my former school. I wasnt required to attend as I had my masters but I wanted to show support for the effort to get more of our teachers more qualified other than the fact that they spoke English. To make a long story short, one tutor was less qualified than I to teach the course and taught the theory part of the course badly. Even worse, this tutor berated students when we did not do what she wanted. The other tutor was knowledgeable and had a much better personality, but seemed more interested in talking about trips to the Himalayas than teaching. I also think the BC should be more flexible about how to set up self-access centers. We have them in all the public unis in Mexico and my contacts have given them mixed reviews.

I would venture to say that most foreign language students (not just in English) come out of unis with neither speaking or writing skills at all, Rachid. It is far easier to "teach" receptive skills (listening/reading) and grammar because they can be evaluated with multiple choice tests.

Having students produce the language with teacher guidance and evaluation requires much more work than most teachers are willing to do for the pay they get, and schools do not want the costs involved in such a labor-intensive endeavor.  And yet, these are exactly the skills that really prove mastery of the language in the labor market. There have been a number of studies in various parts of the world showing that those students who do learn productive skills do so on their own. This is even true for those in so-called immersion programs like those to teach French to Anglophones in Canada. Personally, my ability to communicate in Spanish comes from practicing in chat rooms and my time in Mexico, not from my bachelor's in the language.

Its really a matter of logistics. How can a teacher be involved in the conversation practice of a classroom with 30+ students in it? How many teachers are willing and able to teach and grade essays or stories? (Ive been a writing teacher for 14 some-odd years, so this is a subject near-and-dear to my heart) In many cases, we dont even try to have students write anything until they are in the more advanced classes, so you get students writing with very basic grammatical errors, never mind knowing what a topic sentence is.

I dont see this changing in classrooms in our lifetimes. The only possible option we have right now is with technology. OK, computers cannot evaluate speaking and writing and wont for a long time, but the interconnectivity of the Web allows us to interact and produce both written and spoken products that can be seen by and responded to by others.

Now, if we teachers set up assignments, projects and tasks well, we can take advantage of this. If students know that someone else is going to see what they wrote or recorded on the Web and respond to it, that gives incentive to self-evaluate. If the responder has trouble understanding the student, the negotiation of meaning serves as a teaching tool. Ive done projects of this type, the simplest of which is having students chat with whomever they want (with some restrictions, no one who shares your L1, and no one who is in your country) in English over the course of a month. For evaluation purposes, they give me a log of their sessions, and a short essays expounding on their more interesting experiences. Sometimes the essay has a question to answer such as "How is Mexico perceivd in the rest of the world, based on your conversations of the past month?) I find that while the log can be faked, the essay really tells whether or not the student did the work. So while students spend a month conversing (text or voice chat) I only have to read ~300 words per student once a month. For writing, one semester I used integrating oneself into Wikipedia to learn how to contribute to it. While it is easy to make changes to the site, making contributions that other "Wikipedians" would accept is not so easy. It was a very interesting semester, and I managed to get about 40 Wikipedians who helped me as "mentors" to my students. The big problem with using Wikipedia as a forum for student writing is that the teacher really needs to know how the Wikipedia community operates before students touch it.

Unfortunately, to "teach" speaking and writing require either A) a lot of labor (one-on-one with students) or B) innovative ways to get students' output listened to or read by people other than teachers themselves. While I have known teachers who have the marvelous ability to get students to talk to each other in English in class, I am not that talented, so I avoid this. Another thing I try to do with my projects is to show students how they can work on their own (autonomous learning) either while they are still in my class or sometime in the future when the need to improve their English (and not just pass tests) becomes painfully apparent to them.

hi leigh,

             good,you are following chatting in your classrooms.you can attempt my other modules also.no botheration of class strength and a latest tech classroom.when i was teaching the oral skills for undergraduates in theological college my class strength was around 60 with a traditional setup of a blackboard and 60 chairs.on following the same procedure i made my students to communicate in english within one month. parts of speech(basic grammer)is sufficient to speak a global english..

            we had trained a no of students in interview handling who had been successfully placed in  mncs and bpos. group discussion and HR(personal interview)advocated only chatting,role play,parts of speech, debate,talk show,seminar etc.  

 whereas in aptitude tests, active and passive voice,simple compound and complex apart from basic grammer were taught.finally a comment even a child converses in mother tongue without knowing grammer.then why cant the students community communicate oraly in english simply and smoothly with little grammer.

i hope i have answered to your doubts.

all the best

dr.mangay