Becoming an English Teacher
June 25, 2004

Nearly all people who finish school in Thailand now can't use English. It doesn't matter if it's not bothered our ways of life. We can live, work, entertain and do anything by using our own language. But one day, something happened. The border that prevented us from the world outside collapsed by the power of Internet. We have been flooded by huge amount of information. We have to deal with it otherwise we might have been drowned by it. We have to arm ourselve with a tool -- something that computerizes the information -- English.

That's why I've committed to studying English since Febuary 2000, it means more than four years up untill now. At first I didn't want to be an English teacher. My intention at that time was only to be good at English for I could write my own website, of course, in English. That's all.

I did change my mind. I first started to work as an English teacher after I'd been studying English for about three months. THREE MONTHS, of course, It's unbelievable. Many people say I am a genius, I am an unusually inteligent man, I am extremely wise, I am whatever they could imagine. But, you know, what had I been doing in the three-month? I'd been practicing eight hours a day, seven days a week, and at the end of the three-month, I accumulated about 720 hours of intense practice. Most of English classes nowadays provide only two or three hours a day, two or three days a week. It means if the students in these schools want to have 720 hours, they must have studied for about TWO YEARS. That is my secret. If you do like what I'd done, you will be a genius, many people will call you an extremely wise person.

Why did I do something like that? I compare learning English to being a singer. If you want to be a good singer, you can follow the three stepts; First, you have to ask a teacher to teach you how to sing (this step should not longer than one hour). Second, you have to practice by listening to a song. Before you can open your mouth to sing that song, you have to listen to the song countless times. After you feel that you can confidently sing along with that song you must, third, sing. You have one way to do, according to your intention of being a singer, it is to sing that song countless times untill you feel that you can confidently sing it by yourself with no wrong lyric and tune. That is now you can say you are a singer, you can go on a stage to sing in front of your friends, your audiences, or even, to compete with others.

Many people ask me "I want to study English with NATIVE speaker, and, You are non-native speaker, how can you teach me?" I've heard that question so many times. I will explain why learning with me is better than learning with native speaker. For examples, if you want to be good at English exactly like Mr. John from England, what will you do? You have to be born in England, live there, go to school there and work there for about 28 years like Mr. John. And, if you want to be good at English exactly like Mr. Somchai, who gets a master's degree from America, what will you do? You have to, first, get 550-point of TOEFL Exam and, second, you have to go studying in America for about five years like Mr. Somchai. But if you want to be good at English exactly like me, what will you do? It is easy. You just practice English at home and spend your time exactly like I did, I gurantee, you will be good not only like me but you can be better than me if you have more time and like to study English in all your life.

"I have heard you talked about PRACTICE all the time what about GRAMMAR?" Many ask this question. You know what? Grammar is not that difficult. Practice is a lot more difficult than grammar. For example, if you cannot understand what the speaker says it is not because you don't know about grammar, it is because you don't know which words the speaker's spoken, you aren't familia with those words and their sounds. If you cannot read a book it is not because you don't know much about grammar, it's just because you have not enough vocaburaries. If you aren't familiar with the vocaburaries definded at the back of almost all dictionaries nowadays, which appear about 80% to 90% on any pages of almost all books, you cannot read those books more accurate as you wish. It's exactly because you have not enough vocaburaries to assemble in your head. It's not concerned to grammar alone.

Nevertheless, I can't deny that grammar is very important if you want to use English more clearly, more precisely. But bad grammar can be useful in the first step. If you are an expert of English or you are native English speaker, you might see that, at some points, my writing above and somewhere else in this website have some grammartical errors. But I can say that my writing is easy to read, easy to understand and can convey most of my idea to most of its readers. I don't mind if I sometimes use bad grammar, I do mind if I can't read or write any more.

Good grammar enables you to understand English more clearly. Good grammar enables you to write clear sentences -- 100% clear sentences. But before you can reach 100% of using English, what will occur to you on the way? At first you have to pick up a book and read it, regardless of what extent you understand -- 50%, 60% or 70% -- you keep reading it. And when you keep reading more books, your skill and your understanding will finally be improved to higher level day after day. Many people think that after sitting in an English class and studying English grammar for a while, they HAVE TO be ABLE to read their first book more precisely. But they hardly understand those books as they'd expected. That makes them upset and discouraged. Some gives up. Some decides to go abroad to study English in its rooted countries. But they don't know that before the non-native English experts can reach 100% of all books they read, they have to keep reading hundreds of books, someone I know confessed that he, after graduated from a university, had studied English for almost 10 years before confidently being a translator.

As well as writing. Wherever you live, whatever you study, if you want to be good at writing you, at first, have to be very good at reading because your writing skill cannot be better than your reading skill. It means you cannot write (compose) a sentence that you do not understand reading it. When you feel more comfortable with your reading it's time for you to practice writing. The process of practice is to write. At first you should copy the articles you love; copy them and consume them word by word untill they're absorbed into your mind. You should keep writing day after day and you can feel good with yourself when you compare your work today to the early ones. I like to go back to my early writing to see my mistakes. If I can see more mistakes it means that my reading skill now is higher than the past. Many people who go to writing course in tution school do know very well how to write from their instructor. But very few of them can write. It is because of one reason, that is, they do not spend time to writing more enough. This's more likly to what I'd just mentioned about reading. They think that after sitting in writing class for a while, they have to be able to write splendid piece of work. It's not true. The master piece takes time. So the writers should spend more time to write, whether the outcome is a good piece or not, just keep writing.

In short, it is my REAL experience. It is not my difficult experience compared to some points of my life. I have a good time to study English. My intention nowadays is I want to share my experience to many people who try to find a way of teaching and studying English. I hope all of you, both student and teacher, do not give up with your English. Please keep practicing. The more you practice, the more skill you have. Good bye. see you in next edition of My Experience. :)