On-line English Teaching

First to set the scene for this endeavour.

The majority of language learners become more competent at grammar and spelling, than the majority of native speakers. Being already literate in their own language, is a transferrable skill. It soon puts them head and shoulders above those who don’t read books or quality papers, don’t listen to dramas and interviews and don’t mix with people from outside their area. Once in Britain this was such a problem, that a Scot could not converse with someone from Derbyshire, without an intermediary. The railways and the wireless changed this. Today we still see sub-titles for accents which are, for those with less connection to the world, hard to understand.

The European Union has a standard for grading language capability. From this, we can determine what needs to improve. It is called the Common European Framework for Languages, with grades being A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. At C2 someone will understand wit, innuendo and sarcasm. They will have been laughing at jokes and can create new ones. No prestigious university and no course is a challenge to their language abilities. We have them as radio and TV presenters. Yet most people get to C2 standard. It just happens.

What differentiates a native speaker from a C2? Why would someone with a degree from Oxford in English Literature, be less competent than an truculent youth playing on his XBox? Why is a C2 serving donner kebabs, less native than any of his incomprehensible local drunks? It’s because at C2, whatever more there might be to learn, is irrelevant. It’s hard to define any more as a language need. It will be about a cultural awareness, perhaps something from a nursery rhyme, or a TV show from years ago, which would be common currency amongst all the natives. The cultural thing is also a politically incorrect thing, which isn't readily shared. All countries have it. To achieve native standard, is a fluke of circumstance.

I didn’t mention accents. Correct pronunciation is a mechanical affair. We can all do it, but it seriously helps to be told how. The gifted or practiced amongst us, can refine this to obey all the rules which make the delivery of sounds into an accent. It isn’t about dialect, simply adding in recognisable clues. From the duration of syllables, their tone, the patterns of loudness, the rhythm of sentences, we recognise accents.

Acquiring an accent, as opposed to correct pronunciation, led to the story of Yarvis Cross. German spies were speaking such good English that trying to trick them into revealing themselves, was a feat worthy of Sherlock Holmes. Today, illegal immigrants are coached in the questions and answers which will be asked by border control and how to reply in a good English. The goal, to pretend that someone who has limited or sometimes no understanding of English, is actually a fluent English speaker. There is a course for interviewing such people. It’s like a fast game of chess, for which the illegal immigrant has practiced and practiced. So it’s no surprise that a reasonable pronunciation will pass unnoticed in the high street.

Who would be best to teach you? A native speaker, or a C2? If you haven’t got an educated native speaker, a C2 is far better than the vast majority of merely native speakers. However, as you reach the higher levels, you’d benefit from more spontaneity and a walking talking thesaurus.

What if you could have an educated native speaker who has done a course in teaching English. Except they are from Australia or Canada? Or Nigeria or Hong Kong? The world is full of people who, through local circumstances, have grown up speaking English fluently, aware of the cultural idiosyncrasies and able to take you through to C2 level.

Your learning will not be from one person. They will give you the ability to learn from many sources. What matters is making rapid progress, for which you need to be spoon-fed and drilled. The teaching methods matter. There isn’t time for self-learning and the advantage of a native speaker is, they can model correct sentences for you.

Does a university degree equate to good English? It’s generally required, because people think that it does. You don’t get through the initial paper sift without a degree, so your CV never really gets read. Once a degree was a sure guideline to someone’s general education. University educated meant a host of other things, other than just in a particular subject. Let’s re-examine that logically. That’s a clue to saying, I no longer agree. Once, universities set the syllabus and the exams for vast swathes of the country around them. As arts because sciences, became engineering, red-brick universities arose. Then we had poly-technics, teaching not the ability to develop a line of thought and an awareness of what great minds had already achieved, but a mechanical knowledge on how to design things, based on other people’s breakthroughs, which was more involved than a technical college or apprenticeship. A framework of knowledge with bits missed out, because that type of student isn’t going to read around their subject. Nor are they going to come away with a knowledge of other subjects, based on what their friends and flat-mates told them. They will never attend other classes, just for interest. The learning mentality is missing from a red-brick or polytechnic. Then came Mr Tony Blair. Everyone should go to university. The reality is, streaming in schools got rid of the disruptives so the rest of us could learn something. Now we have teachers at A level colleges, specialising in remedial English and Maths so their students can achieve Media Studies or some other paltry subject. University students whose geography, history and written skills are negligible. Yet they achieve honours degrees, based on modules. Once Birmingham University was renown on University Challenge for where all the thick people went. Now they have achieved comparative wisdom. Now every small town has a university and even the act of leaving home with the life-changing experiences that brings, is denied to cossetted media and political studies twits. Why don’t the people who pretentiously require a degree know that? Without digging deeper, would you still blindly pick an honours degree over a little old lady with a grammar school education? Is it about reflected status and conning those who pay, for business purposes. Or a positive outcome?

With that in mind, the British Council require two years of degree. You could have failed. Four years for an honours degree course, three for a 3rd class? Maybe they are talking about the Open University? https://www.britishcouncil.org/

The teaching qualifications are, you aren’t going to teach in Britain, because you’d need a teaching certificate for which you first need a degree. Preferably in sociology or political sciences with all the negative attitudes that implies. No life experiences is good. No transferrable skills, or background in corporate nonsense. If you’re an ex army officer, a ward sister at a hospital, a ship’s captain, worked with the Voluntary Service Overseas or have scars from the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme, you can go away. Are you beginning to see a picture here, of an opportunity?

For those who have done the TEFL courses, but haven’t got a degree and are currently unable to travel, read first hand knowledge of all the things the students are learning English to experience. There is an opportunity.

TEFL UK is a lot more upbeat about job opportunities. There are many more vacancies than people willing to fill them. The degree requirement is generally aspirational. Working from home via Skype just needs a web presence.

The scene is now set.

We at least need a website to showcase would-be teachers, to provide a way for them to be contacted, to arrange a time for lessons via Skype and to take payment.

We can do better than that. We may need to advertise this so it would help if we could see a measure of the interest shown.

The ability to share a work-load, to build in flexibility for individual home-workers, whilst allowing them the freedom to personalise their own offering, would be good.

There is scope to automate material. Freely available lessons would provide a quality assurance for a prospective student before they purchase lessons. Having the website record a student’s current reading and speaking would help with the initial grading, using the European Common Framework for Languages. Beyond face-to-face Skype, material could be prepared to the student’s requirements, then presented on the site in a way which would stimulate learning.

Technically this would be playing video and audio, recording audio, downloading files and computer based training, using a log-in. Plus uploading using a log-in and IP address, probably to a behind-the-scenes directory, prior to being made live for the student.

A standard hacker denial-of-service attack is to upload files to a directory, until the disk is full. Consequently the upload directory needs to be on a different disk drive from the website or the operating system.

Another hacker attack is, if someone can write to a directory, they can generally execute programs. Either built-in programs like cd or C: or ones they upload. Consequently the file permissions need to prevent execution and the fictional user who can write files into that directory, shouldn’t be the fictional user with file access to the website, who also isn’t a user who has access to the C: drive. That might sound like double-dutch. Think of all the bad things which are possible and prevent them. We are programming not simply to do what we want, but to prevent anything else from happening.