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Comment by lallysingh | Hacker News Reader

Not at all. I've got a few friends in South Korea teaching English. None of them know Korean.

How do they teach then? Are they teaching students who already have some English knowledge? Your friends are helping them improve, instead of teaching from scratch? Its understandable if thats the case.

Most of the times they have some prior background in the language. But often you teach to very young kids as well, in that case you are usually paired with a local teaching assistant.

ok, that makes sense. any idea how the pay is? enough to sustain oneself and travel?

http://www.eslcafe.com/

Check the left hand side for the forums, there's volumes of information on just about any question you could ask.

Tealit.com is good for Taiwan.

Second language acquisition beyond entry level should be in the target language. There are methods ( http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/language_stages.php is a quick example ) that require no actual native language knowledge on the part of the teacher.

I haven't taught a second language myself, but I am around a few people who teach or have taught languages, and I've picked up on it a bit.

I share your.. concerns.

Of course, the people teaching English without knowing any of the local language would claim everything is alright.

But it's undeniable that teaching will be more efficient if you do know some of the local language too.

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