As the title says, I want to be multilingual. Not just for fun, I would like my career to be based around international business relationships. I have a Chem E degree from a top program and have always admired multilingual people. This seems like a good way to reach that goal. Is it?
Posted Oct 13, 2012, 8:56 PM UTC
It will definitely help buuuuut
Put in groundwork for that language and try to have at LEAST a basis down that you can build on. Try and hit the ground running so you're not totally overwhelmed.
You'll need to get lessons / put time in to teach yourself, and then use co-workers/language exchanges/day to day life to practice as much as you can. Depending on where you're going it can be very easy to just get by without learning the language- your friends and coworkers will most likely be English speakers, and it can be easy to just use basic english when talking to locals. You won't just 'pick it up', it will take work, but if you're driven, then fantastic.
EDIT- At the end of the day living in the country of the language you're trying to learn is undoubtedly the best way to learn it!
Both very useful suggestions. Thank you!
Yeah, listen to this guy. Get a massive vocabulary and you'll be fine. You'd be surprised how far the word 'chicken' and pointing can take you.
Chem E? Get a Engineering job in Shanghai and you'll be working with multilingual people. The living abroad and being forced to use the language is what helps with fluency, not necessarily the "teaching English" part. You'll be making more money in Chem E, and as long as you can escape Shanghai's (English speaking) expat bubble, you can gain fluency quickly. Also, language exchange. Language exchange everywhere and anywhere.
edit And really, this goes for any larger Chinese city. Kunming and Chengdu are pretty awesome, but I don't know about their engineering market. I just know a lot of Engineers in Shanghai :/
I find this very encouraging. Do you have suggestions on how to get a job in general in shanghai? Ive looked in the past and it seems darn near impossible. Do you happen to know what your friends are involved with?
Engineering is not my field, so I can only say so much to it, but from what I recall most of these guys got hired with foreign firms doing work out of Shanghai. http://www.shanghaiexpat.com/ and http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/shanghai/ have been pretty good for job hunters. Might have better luck asking people on Shanghai Expat how they got their positions.
As for jobs in general, it's really easy to find a school willing to take you and provide visa. I've known several people who come for one job, and switch once they've made enough connections to land them something better. Read up in r/shanghai or r/china - there are a lot of threads on getting a job or asking about specific companies. My advice would be to get here, make connections, and see what happens. Also, if you're into gaming, we have a lot of tech companies out here too. I don't know how closely your degree and what they're looking for are related, but it certainly couldn't hurt to widen the field.
I haven't done TEFL yet, I'm going to start my CELTA course next month but I have to say TEFL is a bad way to learn a foreign language. I lived in Bolivia and Armenia through the Peace Corps and both times I found that I spoke much better Spanish or Armenian than TEFL teachers that had been there longer than I had. Their work was in English, they could order dinner at a restaurant or go shopping but that was about it. I was always the one who was forced to translate when we got to topics like international relations.
In my experiences if you want to learn a foreign language you need to get a job that doesn't allow you to think in English.
this is sage advice. i'm teaching TEFL in Daejeon, South Korea right now, and I'm finding my pick-up of Korean slow, at best. i compare that with how i learned French, and it was only after i had a base of French and i got a job that required me to speak French for 75% of my day, did i find my skills drastically improve (have native fluency now). here in Korea, all of my coworkers and students speak at least minimal English, so my Korean is currently limited to 'hello', 'thank you' and the numbers. mind you, i've only been here a month, so hopefully my abilities will improve going forward, but so far, i don't feel so immersed in the language as i did when living in French-Canada.
99% of the TEFL teachers I know in the country I teach in don't speak a lick of the local language. They simply don't have the time & energy to study. I speak rather fluently, but I've put in long hours and tried to stay motivated to study after long days of screaming half-pints.
I've just recently decided to give up on TEFL for a while so that I can have time to study, and I'll be taking full time language classes for a while at least.
Overall recommendation: if you need to work, rather than go to school, TEFL is not a very reliable way to be in the environment you want. Going to school will be much more effective. If you want to do international business, just go study international business in the country that you want in the language you want, and at a school that offers courses in the other languages you want. For example, at National Taiwan University you could do a Master of IBA in Mandarin, and take courses in Japanese and Taiwanese, while teaching a few hours of English a week at the school's language center to cover rent.
Yes, living abroad is the best way to learn/improve a non-native language. TEFL allows you to live abroad.
Keep in mind that learning a new language is never going to be that simple though, you still have to put in lots of time and effort and it's not always terribly fun. Also, if you have any specific languages in mind, it's possible that there might not be many TEFL opportunities there, with your nationality coming into play concerning the EU. If you just want to start learning any language then there are plenty of places you could start.
It also should be noted that a 'language' can be viewed from multiple perspectives. Living abroad will most certainly help you with speaking somewhat how the people actually speak, rather than the language's formal grammar. For example, in Beijing the dialect of Mandarin spoken usually drops the "N"s at the end of a word, e.g. Sanlitun is pronounced "sanlitur". Moreover they add "R"s, I swear arbitrarily, to the ends of words. Hence why Sanlitun because Sanlitur.
TLDR: If you want to be multilingual go to another country. You should also understand that TEFL isn't necessary, but it is an option.
If you can, I think you'd be better off working as a chemical engineer for a little bit and then just going to wherever to study the language. Something related to your degree probably pays at least twice as much as what an EFL teacher gets if not more assuming you're just some guy with an unrelated degree and no other qualifications.
Most of the comments seem directed towards learning an Asian language, and cover that fairly well. You can, but it's a fuck ton of time (I worked way overtime last year so I could do intensive language study this year). On the other hand, if you wanted to learn a European or language that's not too difficult for an English native speaker, then TEFLing could definitely get you there. A little work before hand and you should be grand.
I'm going to disagree with what others have said. Teaching English abroad is one way to help learn a language. You'll have immersion depending on where you go (in some rural backwater in China, probably no one will speak English).
However, when you're teaching English, you're thinking in English, spend most of your time teaching English and your students want to speak to you in English.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but there are better ways to learn a language in my opinion. If learning a language is your only goal, don't use teaching as a means to achieve this.
Teach because you want to teach.
EDT: Typo.