The difference between teaching English as a second language (TESL) and teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL), which is what I do, is primarily in where one is teaching and in why the students are learning.
For example, my grandmother taught TESL at Long Beach State University in Los Angeles, California. Her students were mostly people who had moved to the US and wanted to improve their English because they were most likely going to need it and use it everyday. I distinctly remember a phone call with her where I was asking for advice in motivating my English language students. She told me that a lack in student motivation was never a problem in her clases. For her students, English was immediately relevant. Being able to speak English would help them in their social, academic, and career lives. English would be their second language (or third, etc).
I teach English at Woosong University in Daejeon, South Korea. My students are not learning English because they will use it on a daily basis; rather, they are learning it because it is the lingua franca. Learning it may not immediately help them in their career or social lives, but it will help them in their academic lives, and learning English can be an important step in becoming an active member of the global community. English’s place on the top of the language hierarchy is not without it’s controversy, but as things currently stand, learning English can be a crucial step in expanding one’s world. Because students may not have ample opportunities to practice in their daily lives, TEFL classes often focus on re-creating authentic linguistic environments.
Teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) encompasses both. I’m working towards my MSc TESOL at the University of St Andrews. My fellow students are from all over the globe and are working towards or furthering their careers in diverse countries and settings. An instructor teaching English as a foreign language in Japan and an instructor teaching a pre-sessional course in the UK (a course which helps overseas students prepare for academic English use) are both working in TESOL. As long as they’re teaching someone for whom English is not their first language, they are working in the field of TESOL. Both me and my grandmother would be TESOL instructors.
And just as English is not the first language of most English speakers, most TESOL instructors have first learned English before teaching it. This offers them a unique perspective from those for whom English is their first language. They have already achieved what their students want, and have an insider understanding of the process. This should encourage TESOL instructors for whom English is their first language to learn a second language, so that they may better understand the process, in particular, that often terrifying feeling when a speaker of your target language asks you a question, and waits for your response.
30 July 2021 – Paul T Johnson
an interative process 