Is The ESL Industry Broken? A Language Teacher’s Honest Take

Recently, I received an email from Paul, an Australian language learner considering getting his CELTA, a teaching certification. His question was simple: “Do you think it's worth teaching English as a second language (ESL)?”

But his follow-up revealed something more interesting. Paul compared ESL classroom learning to his once-a-week classroom French lesson, which was okay for tourist-level French but not enough.

He's now learning via daily hour-long conversations with native speakers online. His real question? What are my views on the ESL industry?

This is going to be controversial, but after years of highly qualified ESL teaching experience – including CELTA, DELTA and a master's degree – I need to be honest about what I discovered.

If you prefer watching videos to reading, hit play on the video version of this post at the top of this page. Otherwise, here's what you'll discover in this article:

My Journey From Independent Learner To ESL Teacher

Before I started teaching English, I'd already learned four or five languages independently. I was completely self-taught, an autodidact who figured out what worked through trial and error.

Then I entered the world of professional English language teaching.

I learned teaching theory. I learned teaching techniques. I was taught how to be a teacher. And the more I taught, the more I got absorbed into teaching theory and the ESL industry way of approaching language teaching with the communicative approach and all of that.

The problem? I moved further and further away from what I knew to be true from my own experience.

What's Wrong With The ESL Industry Approach?

Here's the fundamental issue: there's a massive gap between what works for independent learners and what's possible in an ESL classroom.

When you're learning by yourself, you can control your own learning. You can study in the most efficient way possible, provided you've got a decent amount of awareness.

But as a teacher, the challenge is completely different. It's no longer “what's the most efficient way to learn a language?” Instead, it becomes: “How do I teach 20 people sitting in front of me in the most efficient way?”

The Key Tensions In ESL Classroom Teaching

The ESL classroom creates several unavoidable compromises:

• The time paradox: Should you assume class time is students' only English exposure, or should you use it to coach independent study?
• The speaking dilemma: More teacher talk time (the amount of time a teacher spends speaking during a lesson, as opposed to students speaking) means more listening exposure but less student speaking practice
• The homework problem: Most students won't study outside class, so you must fit everything – listening, speaking, reading – into limited classroom hours
• The motivation gap: Highly motivated students get frustrated because class time is used for activities better done at home

“The most motivated language learners never set foot in a language school because they are learning by themselves.”

Who Actually Goes To Language School?

I'm going to say something that might get me into trouble: generally, the people who go to language school are among the less motivated language learners out there.

Why? Because the most motivated language learners are learning by themselves. They're self-teaching.

Now, the fact that people get themselves to language school in the first place is a good sign – it's better than doing nothing. But what I experienced as a teacher was students saying, “Right, I've paid a bunch of money for 30 hours of lessons. Now teach me, teacher.”

They abdicate responsibility. They think that because they go to the classroom for three hours a week, they will learn. But it doesn't work like that.

Many students have this mentality: “I'm going to learn English, but I'm only going to do it in the classroom three hours a week.” As soon as they leave, they don't do anything else.

Should You Use Class Time for Reading and Listening?

This creates a huge tension for teachers. Do you:

Option A: Make the assumption that class time is your students' only contact with English, and therefore use it for reading, listening and speaking practice?

Option B: Set students up, discuss their language learning, give them feedback on their approach and send them off to do the real work independently?

Option B is more efficient. If I have a student that comes once a week, I want to say, “What have you done this week? How have you been studying? Could you spend more time listening? Could you arrange speaking sessions?”

That's what works. That's how you learn a language.

But it doesn't work like that because students come with the attitude of “this is my English learning time”.

The Reading Practice Example

I remember discussing this with my friend Alex Rawlings, who did a CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) a few years ago. When you do a CELTA, you're taught to help students with reading in class.

Students would come, you'd give them a reading text, and in class time they would read it. Then you'd ask questions and teach vocabulary from the text.

Alex and I acknowledged this is a very inefficient use of class time. You're paying good money to have time with a teacher or other students to practise with. Why would you want to spend class time reading text or listening to audio?

You should do that heavy lifting at home by yourself in a focused environment. The best way to use a teacher is to get feedback, discuss things and go into depth with the language.

But because most students will never do that, the only option is to provide that reading practice or speaking practice in class time.

What About Teacher Talk Time (TTT)?

Here's another compromise. Some people say teacher talk time is great because it's the only time students will listen to English during the week. But if they're listening to you all the time, students get less time actually speaking.

So you turn it around and give students speaking practice time – but that's with other learners in the class, not native speakers.

Then you think, “We should be doing reading as well, because otherwise they'll never read.”

Your typical picture of the ESL classroom becomes one huge compromise. It's a problem-solving exercise: “Here are all the things you could and probably should do to learn a language. Now let's try and fit those in, in a balanced way, in the classroom.”

Is The ESL Industry Worth Joining?

When you understand all these limitations, you realise that an ESL teacher's career is really spent trying to maximise a very undesirable situation and make the most of something that really shouldn't be there in the first place.

Ideally, I'd grab people and say, “What did you do this week? How much did you study? How many hours? Who did you speak with? Fix it. Now go off and do better this week.”

The role of a teacher has to be to empower students.

But inevitably, the reaction is, “I don't have time. I'm busy. I come to English school to be taught. I don't want to do stuff by myself.”

The Institutional Reality

There's another shadow that looms in the background: the institution you work in. Whatever your thoughts about language teaching theory or methodology, there are certain realities.

The school you work in will want you to:

• Teach a certain way
• Use a certain textbook
• Follow a certain style
• Cover certain parts of the textbook in a set number of weeks

You don't get a say over that most of the time. All this discussion about the best way to teach is often just academic because the realities of working as an ESL teacher mean you might have some freedom, but it's usually within very tight constraints.

“My career as an English teacher was really spent trying to maximise a very undesirable situation.”

So Should You Get A CELTA Certification?

Despite everything I've said, my answer is still yes – if it's the right life choice for you.

I wouldn't change it for the world. The four to six weeks I spent on the CELTA was the most fun time of my life. I made lifelong friends. I had amazing students.

As a result of that qualification:

• I travelled the world
• I lived in Japan
• I worked for the British Council in Qatar and Egypt
• I did my DELTA and then a master's degree
• I met amazing people
• I learned so much about language learning, linguistics and life

It's a wonderful career. You won't get rich, but it's a very human pursuit. It's extremely rewarding, and it will be an extremely positive experience in your life.

I had lots of students with whom I had great relationships. I feel I impacted their lives positively. Many students said they really enjoyed my lessons. If I inspired them to make English a greater part of their life, that's a job well done.

This is in spite of the fact that I would always have in the back of my mind this basic problem: I knew I wasn't being the most effective teacher I could be because of the inherent restrictions of the environment and the setup of the classroom.

ESL Industry FAQ

The Bottom Line On The ESL Industry

There are teachers around the world who do great work and are inspirations to their students.

But when you compare the ESL classroom to what's possible as an independent language learner, the main challenges and drawbacks become clear.

The ESL industry has structural problems that make truly efficient language teaching difficult. But that doesn't mean becoming an ESL teacher isn't worthwhile.

Approach it with an open heart, understand the limitations and focus on empowering your students to become independent learners. You won't regret it.

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.