xandreu wrote: ↑Tue Jun 29, 2021 7:52 am The entire English language industry, wherever in the world, is one of the biggest cons ever to be invented.

Sitting in a classroom for an hour or so a day learning about the difference between the present perfect and the past simple tenses will do nothing for your fluency and natural ability to understand and speak English on a similar level to a native. The human brain simply does not work like that. It's why the huge, huge majority of English learners drop out after a very short time.

But nobody will admit this because it is a milti-billion dollar industry and there is never a shortage of new gullibles lining up to come through those rotating doors.

Language, like everything else we learn, is done through necessity. If the brain believes it is necessary that something is learned and remembered, it will learn and remember it. Reading a random story from a text book about Bob and Sheila's trip to the shop and whether the verbs used were in the correct tense serves no necessity whatsoever to the brain, and the brain will quickly dismiss it.

I used to teach young kids English. Like most kids, they would play online games with other kids all around the world. Chinese kids, Korean, Indian, Russian, you name it.... but they all had to communicate so they all spoke English. My students learned more English in those games than I could ever teach them in a classroom. Why? Because I could teach the the phrase "Hide behind the bush, someone's behind you' - and I could teach them that this phrase is made up of a verb, a preposition, an article, a noun, a comma, a pronoun, another preposition and a personal pronoun. And I could spend an entire lesson explaining the differences between the words, the sentence structure, why we put the words in that order etc....

Or... they could simply be playing a highly intensive game as part of a team and hear someone shout "HIDE BEHIND THE BUSH, SOMEONE'S BEHIND YOU!' - Which method do you think they will learn the meaning of the phrase the quickest? Of course, it would be while they're playing the game. Why? Because of necessity. It is fundamentally necessary in that context for them to understand what is being said to them. In a classroom, it is simply not necessary and the brain will not absorb it and soon forget it.

Of course going to a classroom to help improve your English has it's benefits, but it's not the way you truly learn a language. You learn it by immersing yourself in it and creating a need and necessity that it is learnt.

Bong Kri wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 2:39 pm

BillDoe wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 8:53 am

Khmerican wrote: ↑Sun Jun 27, 2021 4:40 am

steven.lee wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 11:28 am So, teaching English is one of the popular jobs that an expat can take up to make a decent income.

Don't forget, highly respected too.

Is 1200 decent for an expat? I honestly have no idea how teachers are even surviving on that, let alone saving for whatever next "adventure" they'll go on

Some are currently getting paid less than this as they have forced salary cuts due to Covid. Anything from 15%-50% cuts. There was an old thread on here discussing it 6 months or so ago.

xandreu wrote: ↑Tue Jun 29, 2021 7:52 am The entire English language industry, wherever in the world, is one of the biggest cons ever to be invented.

Sitting in a classroom for an hour or so a day learning about the difference between the present perfect and the past simple tenses will do nothing for your fluency and natural ability to understand and speak English on a similar level to a native. The human brain simply does not work like that. It's why the huge, huge majority of English learners drop out after a very short time.

But nobody will admit this because it is a milti-billion dollar industry and there is never a shortage of new gullibles lining up to come through those rotating doors.

Language, like everything else we learn, is done through necessity. If the brain believes it is necessary that something is learned and remembered, it will learn and remember it. Reading a random story from a text book about Bob and Sheila's trip to the shop and whether the verbs used were in the correct tense serves no necessity whatsoever to the brain, and the brain will quickly dismiss it.

I used to teach young kids English. Like most kids, they would play online games with other kids all around the world. Chinese kids, Korean, Indian, Russian, you name it.... but they all had to communicate so they all spoke English. My students learned more English in those games than I could ever teach them in a classroom. Why? Because I could teach the the phrase "Hide behind the bush, someone's behind you' - and I could teach them that this phrase is made up of a verb, a preposition, an article, a noun, a comma, a pronoun, another preposition and a personal pronoun. And I could spend an entire lesson explaining the differences between the words, the sentence structure, why we put the words in that order etc....

Or... they could simply be playing a highly intensive game as part of a team and hear someone shout "HIDE BEHIND THE BUSH, SOMEONE'S BEHIND YOU!' - Which method do you think they will learn the meaning of the phrase the quickest? Of course, it would be while they're playing the game. Why? Because of necessity. It is fundamentally necessary in that context for them to understand what is being said to them. In a classroom, it is simply not necessary and the brain will not absorb it and soon forget it.

Of course going to a classroom to help improve your English has it's benefits, but it's not the way you truly learn a language. You learn it by immersing yourself in it and creating a need and necessity that it is learnt.