Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Teaching English as a Foreign/Second Language

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Teaching English as a Foreign Language by David Riddell is intended for THREE types of reader : 1) teachers teaching without having had any training 2) teachers who have recently trained and who lack experience 3) trainee teachers doing a training course.
The word "Teachers" refers to those in any country , teaching to monolingual and multilingual classes, to students whose first language is not English, and to students who are classified as Adult Learners(generally defined as 16+).
You cannot teach yourself to be a teacher, but you can LEARN and IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS as you go along.
The book is NOT intended for experienced teachers or for those teaching young learners.
The author, David Riddell, claims to have qualified as an EFL teacher in 1984 and to becoming an approved trainer in 1987. At the time of writing this book(2001), the author both teaches students and trains new teachers in London.Since 1994, he has also been a Senior Assessor.
The book contains an Introduction and thirty chapters, including chapters on Professional awareness and development,Career prospects and job hunting, A guide to levels( elementary,intermediate and advanced), Language glossary(tense forms,etc.),A glossary of terms(used in the profession such as "monolingual classes"),Some useful addresses(ELT Gazette/EL prospects,etc.).Most chapters are around 8-10 pages each .There is also an Index.
For the market it aims at, it is good value for the money !

if you are looking for a book of this type, i recommend jeremy harmer's how to teach english (isbn# 0-582-29796-6). this is also the one used by cambridge celta courses. i can also recommend jeff mohamed's teaching english overseas: a guide for americans and canadians, which is chock full of useful information about the dynamics of getting yourself abroad and employed. viel Glück!!

I've been involved in TEFL/TESL for over 30 years and I can honestly say that I've never seen a more useful book for new or prospective teachers. Written in a very clear and down-to-earth style, it is a real treasure house of practical advice on how to plan and teach successful lessons and how to manage different types of classes.
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who intends to teach EFL/ESL without formal training or to anyone who intends to participate in a TEFL/TESL training program.

the book is useful, and offers some practical information on its subject. much of the information is helpful for the novice teacher or one with no formal tefl qualification. however, i would not call it either well written or well organized. i have to say that it reads like a first draft and appears never to have been edited as it is rife with typos. this really irks me, since it's a book on teaching english.

one more thing: the book is very poorly bound. before i had even read 25 pages it started falling apart, and this with fairly ginger handling.

if you need one, this is a book on teaching yourself to teach english as a second language. but you may find it very irritating if the errors (3! in two sentences!) from the following excerpt are noticeable to you (which, if you are going to be teaching english, hopefully they are!): "Ask the class if anyone...has been to...San Francisco...If no-one has then they can tell you what they imagine San Francisco. to be like. Alternatively, show pictures of San Francicso (steep hills, cable cars, Fisherman's Wharf etc) to get the class talking about it." (p. 41) all the while, you will be struggling to somehow find a comfortable, manageable way to hold the book together so as to be able to read it.