ESL Guide for About.com, Kenneth Beare talks about his work as an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher and educational writer.

Dorit: Kenneth, thank you very much for participating in today’s interview. What is your experience in ESL?

Kenneth: I worked as an ESL teacher for 20 years. I began teaching in Germany in 1984 and continued in New York City for the New York Association teaching Vocational English to Russian immigrants from the former Soviet Union, as well as in Italy in the 1990s.

For the last ten years I have been developing English language teaching materials for administrative purposes of special courses. I haven’t been teaching for the last five years. I also work as a content creator and consultant for English language development products.

In regards to my work at About.com, I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Since 1997, I have developed thousands of pages of curriculum free for use by ESL teachers and students.

Dorit: Your answer actually leads me to my next question. What are some of the main needs and concerns of ESL students and teachers who visit your site?

Kenneth: 60-70% of students want to improve their communication skills by speaking. They also come with a more traditional mindset when it comes to learning English and love traditional quizzes on a wide variety of topics.

ESL teachers are using industry-specific dialogues, such as situational-specific content in the dentist’s office, which has become very successful. Ready-made lesson plans are also very popular with teachers. I also have requests for resources on teaching and learning English as a foreign language and will point people to those resources.

Dorit: How do you see the development of online language teaching and learning?

Kenneth: I have been involved in a number of start-ups and am amazed at the lack of entrepreneurial spirit when it comes to online language teaching. Teachers need to be aware of what their online personalities look like. You have to engage and help and create a relationship. That is where I see the future of online language teaching moving.

On the other hand, students expect teaching to take place traditionally online. Regarding my online content development, I’m not sure if what I’m doing always makes pedagogical sense. We will be at a tipping point ten years from now as people grow into technologies.

Dorit: Yes, it is certainly an interesting thing to ponder. What do you think about the common teaching needs of EFL and ESL teachers?

Kenneth: Often the meeting point between EFL and ESL is when teachers teach vocational materials that involve shared materials and set similar instructional goals. Language fragments and standard phrases, and the particular jargon of various areas are part of this development of global English. The cultural consideration of the status of English must also be taken into account, as English is increasingly used as a lingua franca. Other issues, such as needs analysis, are also important to consider as learners recognize their own particular learning goals. For example, are they learning English to be successful in a job?

Needs analysis is very important and that dictates your curriculum, your teaching purpose and ultimately determines success.

Dorit: The same needs analysis is also important for teachers, right?

Kenneth: Yes. You have to have instructional goals to achieve goals and in different cultural classrooms, teachers have to think about this. Adding materials and leaving completely on your own shows, on the one hand, that you are a motivated teacher, but too often, teachers do not set appropriate cultural standards for the needs of their students. For example, do students need and want to learn about British culture in an EFL environment?

In high school, many students wanted global English learning material that was open to contextual communication, such as discussing what is happening in Iraq now.

Dorit: Well, we don’t have time right now, but I’m sure your information will be very useful to ESL and EFL teachers and students if it hasn’t already. Well, thank you very much Kenneth for your time and participation in this interview. I always enjoy talking to passionate teachers and educational writers like you.

Kenneth: Thank you Dorit.