my experience isn't likely worth a whole lot to you, as I'm just starting out as a TEFL tutor to immigrants (Hmong and Somali primarily) and it's presently volunteer and not paid-position.
However - my tutoring (which I start next week) was preceding by a 12-hour course in teaching English to non-English speakers, where the premise is you don't know their language at all, and vice versa. This covers all aspects of communication from listening and speaking to reading and writing, all of which are clearly different skills and are learned at different paces/rates.
I'm sure different locales/institutions/contexts warrant different requirements for the tutor/teacher to be fluent in the native language of the students. The approach of many learning centers here in Minneapolis is total immersion where the instructor does not speak the students' language and often they are starting from the very lowest-level basics of teaching English, often including students who are illiterate or preliterate in their own languages.
I'm not sure yet whether this total-immersion approach is entirely need-based (given the sheer numbers of immigrants in the Twin Cities needing to learn English) or whether it's also been shown to be a better way for teaching adults English.
So as for your desire to teaching English in another non-English-speaking country - I'm not sure what is typical for requirements of instructors to speak the native language. But I can tell you there are some contexts here in the states where there is zero requirement for knowing the learners' own language(s).
However - my tutoring (which I start next week) was preceding by a 12-hour course in teaching English to non-English speakers, where the premise is you don't know their language at all, and vice versa. This covers all aspects of communication from listening and speaking to reading and writing, all of which are clearly different skills and are learned at different paces/rates.
I'm sure different locales/institutions/contexts warrant different requirements for the tutor/teacher to be fluent in the native language of the students. The approach of many learning centers here in Minneapolis is total immersion where the instructor does not speak the students' language and often they are starting from the very lowest-level basics of teaching English, often including students who are illiterate or preliterate in their own languages.
I'm not sure yet whether this total-immersion approach is entirely need-based (given the sheer numbers of immigrants in the Twin Cities needing to learn English) or whether it's also been shown to be a better way for teaching adults English.
So as for your desire to teaching English in another non-English-speaking country - I'm not sure what is typical for requirements of instructors to speak the native language. But I can tell you there are some contexts here in the states where there is zero requirement for knowing the learners' own language(s).
anyway - good luck :)
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