Clarifying the Field of English as a Second Language/English as a Foreign Language to the General Public

Abstract

In the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), practitioners are frequently asked questions such as: What does TESOL (or our other acronyms) stand for? How many languages do you speak? So, you teach English? How do you teach students who do not understand anything you are saying? It was clear that the general public needed to know foundational concepts in TESOL in order to envision how to interact and proceed equitably with non-native speakers in the public schools. This project is the synthesis of information about the field of ESL/EFL instruction, which was compiled by the student and faculty researcher from a wide variety of field texts and resources, and was fashioned into an informative, user-friendly video to be shared with the general public.