I'm revel, ESL teacher for the past 28 years, living in Spain and eager to meet other ESL teachers on the site that might be interested in debating a particular subject with me....the teaching of ESL in non-native English speaking countries.

Though I've been pretty successful in teaching ESL here for the past twenty years, I have recently found myself up against a number of road-blocks created by the public school system. Seems that test scores are much more important than really learning to use English and kids are being railroaded through text books that are not helping them to acquire useful language skills.

In reality, most of these texts are pretty uninspiring for the students and add to that that most of the teachers are non-native as well and you have a lot of frustrated kids taking extra-study courses in academies where most of the time is spent helping them with their current homework and explaining concepts that will be randomly included on tests.

What's worse, the University Entrance Exam in English is really very very difficult, requiring a very high level of comprehension and reading skills that most students are not prepared for by their English studies at school. Though most do pass the test, it does not reflect their actual English proficiency and thus leaves them short when English becomes an important tool for furthering their education.

So, if you have anything to say on this subject, jump in and have your say, I can assure you that I have plenty more to say than what I have included in this intro!

peace,

revel.