Frequently, when I edit multiple papers for the same client and see a consistent issue in that client's writing, I'll recommend that the client seek one-on-one, advanced English instruction with someone who teaches English professionally (ideally, with an ESL focus).
What if you're no longer a university student, though? What if you're a faculty member who's not eligible to enroll in classes at your home institution? What if you're not in academia at all? What if finances or consistent scheduling are issues? Where do you start when looking for an English teacher? My first tip, which will address most of the above concerns, is to post advertisements seeking a lesson trade or barter arrangement. Obviously, this might be easier to arrange if you're in a large city or college town with many people who enjoy learning new things. If your first language is (for example) French, you may find that an English teacher in town would really love to take French lessons with you to prepare for a trip to Paris. You may trade one English lesson for one French lesson or come to some other arrangement that suits you both. As a pianist who frequently performs with opera singers, I decided to start voice lessons one summer; knowing that many singers need help preparing for piano exams at IU, I advertised that I would trade voice lessons for piano lessons. The arrangement was successful for the time that scheduling allowed us to do it, and because neither of us spent any money, it was a great financial decision too! To address the location issue that potential English students may face when they don't live in a populated area (or live outside an English-speaking country), I'll talk a bit about remote instruction and what to look for in a great English teacher. Remote instruction (via Skype, FaceTime, or Zoom) is an excellent choice if you currently live in a country whose primary language is not English, which makes it more difficult to find great English instructors locally. As a music instructor who's taught a few hybrid and fully online courses for IU, I highly recommend Zoom software for both Mac and PC users. (As a bonus, IU network members automatically have pro accounts!) Many teachers have started reaching out to online students; thus, you have to know what you're seeking in a teacher. Firstly, when you search for and visit a potential teacher's website, make sure that the text on the website is grammatically and mechanically perfect. (You might have an English-L1 friend check the website for you if you're not confident in your own English yet.) If the teacher cannot lead by example with perfect English, how will he or she teach it to you? Perhaps one or two typos on the website might be forgivable (particularly if the teacher hired someone to create the website on his or her behalf), but someone who has fully mastered English and English instruction needs to demonstrate through his or her advertisements that he or she can effectively model what will be taught. This should be the case for any teacher you're looking to hire: music teachers should also be able to demonstrate exemplary playing on their instruments! (Voice is a little different because advanced age will affect a person's ability to sing opera.) Another consideration is that, if you're interested in undertaking speech and pronunciation instruction from this teacher, you may be looking for a teacher with a specific accent or one who is from a specific place, like England or Australia, so you may develop the same type of accent yourself. Conversely, if you begin lessons with a teacher whose accent is really unfamiliar to you (I have difficulty with the Scottish accent myself!), you may struggle more in the early instructional stages than you would with a teacher whose accent is more neutral. A related consideration is that some rules and spelling conventions vary between British English and American English (for example). If you're planning on studying at Oxford, you may prefer to practice English with someone from a country that uses British spellings and mechanics rules. If you're not sure of your prospective teacher's English background, just ask! He or she should be happy to tell you. Finally, after you've looked at teachers' websites, inspected their credentials (whether they have an English teaching certificate of some kind or have taught in other countries for years, etc.), and narrowed down a list of people to contact, ask your friends! If you have many friends who are also nonnative speakers and have recommendations, they can tell you a lot more (and in much more detail) about a specific teacher than a website can. Word-of-mouth referrals are vital to my editing business, too, and many of my most loyal clients first came to me with referrals from friends. Teachers work the same way!
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Lately I've had the privilege to work with several clients who are bilingual from birth; that is, they were born and/or raised in the United States (or somewhere else where English is dominant) but their parents spoke another language with them at home. This is a gift for someone born in that environment (and I really wish I had been raised bilingual, but alas, my mixed ancestry did not allow for that!), but it can pose its own challenges when such a person starts writing academic work in one of those two first languages!
One challenge bilingual authors may face is that the syntax structures from the two languages (let's say English and Spanish for simplicity's sake) may mix with each other when the author is writing in one of those languages. Thus, their English may have Spanish-flavored syntax or their Spanish might use some unidiomatic, English-flavored syntax. As someone who learned Spanish as a teenager and has some bilingual-like characteristics (though I'm not truly bilingual from birth), I've noticed that when I have been speaking/writing in English for long periods, I often have difficulty code-switching and my written Spanish won't be completely fluent/free from English bleedthrough until I've been working in Spanish for awhile (maybe a couple hours). During my cruise ship performing tours, when I was trying to draft Spanish-language program notes for a new musical composition, I figured out that it was easiest for me to do so if I worked on them right after chatting with my Spanish-speaking friends on the ship for awhile (this wasn't hard to do, since my best friends on that ship were from Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico!). If you notice this in your own writing experience, then, you might try spacing out your writing schedule accordingly: rather than having a phone chat with a relative in your other first language and then immediately sitting down to write your latest dissertation chapter, try writing the chapter first (but also after you've been engaged with English for awhile, like by answering emails from your professors or watching an English-language TV show) and then calling your relative. You might see a real difference in what you produce! While this language mixing may never completely go away, depending on you and your brain wiring, you may want to try this experiment and see if it works for you. |
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