So, anybody got any ideas about what to do with an English degree these days? Are you an adventuresome sort who would love the opportunity to travel and explore previously unseen areas of the world?
I know there are those of you out there who aren't all that excited about teaching the freshmen in America's public schools how to construct a readable paragraph of English. And the publishing world is not (as of yet) knocking down your door to have the priviledge of publishing your most recent masterpiece as their next number one best-seller. So, while you patiently wait for the world to discover that you are truly a genius in peasant garb, I have an option for you to seriously consider: teaching abroad. Think about it. Not only would it grant unique cultural experiences that will be certain to provide a plethera of potential plots and characters for your next novel, it would also enable you to explore teaching in a whole new way. Here are just a few things to contemplate.
"Okay," you say. "so you've piqued my interest. Where do I go from here? How do I discover what job options I might be interested in?"
Consider the fact that you can teach English as a second language here in the good ol' U.S. of A.! Maybe you hadn't really ever thought of thatoption. Here is a list of options available that you might be interested in. Click on the hot word for one amazing compilation of job offerings both in the U.S. and abroad. This link provides numerous assets for those looking for up-to-date employment opportunities available, discussion lists for teachers (so you can commiserate with one another) and study programs.
The Human Languages Page is a good succinct review of the languages of the world and what opportunities for learning, studying or teaching are avaiable. It literally covers just about every language across the world and offers information about opportunities for study or teaching available as well as cultural notes.
There are a great many tools available for those who want to launch out on such an expeditious journey. For various teaching exercises, essays and journals offered, see activites.
But we all know that if we can make learning fun, people may actually enjoy the often unnecessarily tedious process of expanding their intellectual horizons. "Fluency Through Fables" offers some exciting aids to gauging the comprehension of second-language learners. I found this resource proves an ingenious alternative for testing comprehension and stimulating learning in a potentially less threatening manner. It provides vocabulary matching exercises, true/false comprehension tests, vocabulary completion and written discussion exercises all geared to helping both teacher and student determine where the student is on the ladder to fluency. They are great learning tools, useful because they help aid in determining the level of competency by demonstrating the degree of knowledge of idioms, nuances of meaning, plays on words, double meanings and other such linguistic anomalies. They help demonstrate the level of comprehension of the learner (i.e. which of the five levels toward fluency this student is at).
A multitudinous variety of books are available dealing with the whole issue of cross-cultural teaching/learning. For those interested in some good options, check out teacher resource books.
One particularly good book I found among these resources is Listening to the World: Cultural Issues in Academic Writing. This book deals extensively with the important issue of recognizing how differing cultural thought processes evidence themselves from one society or language group to another. It analyzes the best way to initiate learning in cultures with different educational systems. This book looks especially at these issues as they relate to the field of written communication and would therefore be a valuable resource for someone in such a field as second-language teaching.