There are three techniques on how to teach English as a foreign language (TEFL). These are the following: reading, communicative language teaching and blended learning. Reading is basically targeted for TEFL students who are children and teenagers. Take note that they are children in cultures elsewhere, not here in the United States. They may be located in Spain, Japan, South Korea or elsewhere. Reading books aimed for this group are usually literature of that specific country which is written in English. The books are usually accompanied with illustrations to drive home the point of the lesson. In teaching this technique to the students, the TEFL instructor will usually read the story aloud and pause to underscore certain points. He or she will then reread the story but without any pause at all. Students are taught basics of the English language such as the consonant phonemes, vowel phonemes, syllable structure, unstressed vowels, stress timing, connected speech, tenses, functions of auxiliaries, modal verbs, idiomatic usage, articles, phrasal verbs, word derivation and size of lexicon. For stress timing, English has three kinds of stress – stress for emphasis, stress for contrast and empathic apologies.

For communicative language teaching, interactions among the students are used. It is currently popular in European countries where English is not the first language. In communicative language teaching, there is less focus in grammar. Advocates of this teaching concept believe that the student can learn more of the idea if grammar is focused later. Students are tested if they can speak key phrases of the second language coherently. Competence comes short of perfecting the language itself. It is just the basic. Students are usually encouraged to participate in oral recitations by giving personal experiences as examples and translate them to the second language which is English of course. Using this approach, the students perform the following activities – pair work, role play, interviews, games, language exchanges, surveys and learning by teaching. The students still need to take grammar quizzes but this has lesser bearing than the activities mentioned earlier.

Blended learning is of course a combination between actual classroom instruction and interactive learning. A good example is incorporating language exchanges in the program. Some schools offering language courses buy software from learning providers for the purpose. The blended learning concept is also applicable for students who are into self-study like chatting with a language partner online.

Once you’re teaching English as a second language, you will really have lots of misadventures with the students. Brazilians usually don’t pronounce their I’s and occasionally, they’ll say I wi instead of I will. There was this one instance when two Brazilian men wanted their chit in a pub divided into two. They told the waiter two bees please which the waiter inadvertently interpreted as two beers please.

All in all, the basic rule in learning a foreign language like English is to use mnemonics. One example of a mnemonic is using the link method. One will link words to form a mnemonic. A fast learner can achieve learning the English language in about three weeks.