Been asked to teach English to coworkers

[Natsku]

I live abroad and I'm the only native English speaker in my workplace so they've approached me about conducting a year long language course specific to the professional language of our sector some of my coworkers.

I have no teaching experience (beyond helping out in reception class for a term but I don't think my skills there are quite transferable to this situation ) and a couple of weeks work experience in a language school (but not teaching English there) that I remember little about. But I have always been quite good at informally teaching people.

Would it be insane to take on this extra responsibility (will be compensated with a pay rise, which tbh I need as my partner hasn't had work coming in for a couple of months now) with no experience or is it possible to teach English without teaching experience? Anyone taught English in a professional environment?

Grammar for EFL purposes is a bit different, though. You have topics as ‘question tags’, which you don’t even think about and are fairly simple in a lot of European languages, but are horribly complicated in English for learners! Aren’t they? Didn’t you? Hasn’t she? Wasn’t it? etc.

Well they want me to assess their progress so some sort of measureable outcome but not like training them to pass specific language exams or anything like that. I'm too busy today to have a proper chat with my boss about it, but hopefully tomorrow I can.

make sure that you are not on the hook for your students' lack of progress. That is important.

Well they want me to assess their progress
You get to mark your own homework? Bonzer!

Are your colleagues onboard with this, btw, or is it a top-down thing?

I’ve taught English to adults, I did a CELTA certificate first though which helped a lot

putting aside the whole “how to teach” thing which isn’t that difficult if you have motivated adults, the harder element is going to be finding a curriculum/course. This could 100% be bought in. If not, you will have a heck of a job on your hands with all the materials prep etc. and that would be a 100% no from me.

Boss's idea but its not mandatory for anyone to take part, so only those that want to will do it. I spoke to one person and they seemed quite keen (and another said no way!)

I'll ask about ready-made courses, if I had one of those it might be doable.

IMO they fund/resource/enable you to do a proper TEFL course beforehand (covering pedagogy techniques etc as well as things like grammar that you may need a refresher on) or they get a dedicated TEFL teacher in.

As I've previously said, knowing what level they are is definitely stage 1 in the process. There is a massive difference between an Elementary level (A1/2) and a B2/C1.
Google aviation English coursebooks ... adding pdf will give you the chance to actually see the content etc.
Lifestyle is probably my favourite coursebook for English for work and there is a test booklet as well. I've used several levels for various Ministry Courses.

I‘m an English teacher working mostly with adults but did a CELTA first, which was strenuous but invaluable. There are lots of TEFL programmes out there that you can do as distance learning, I highly recommend doing something like that to give you a basis for structuring lessons, finding suitable activities, considering how to introduce necessary grammar and vocab, etc.

Do you get to pick the course material? It makes such a difference having a textbook and not having to develop every lesson from scratch.

if you can get them to fund a course, do the CELTA. it is very highly regarded. I did the intensive one - it is a month i am NEVER going to forget - but there are longer more spaced out ones, and i think maybe even online now?

When your collegaues fail to learn English it will be your fault. The idea of that would panic me.

I'd advise against (EFL teacher + course developer with nearly 20 years' experience). Prep is time-consuming (60-90 minutes for a 1-hour session minimum, probably more for newbies), you can run out of ideas quickly and it can be uncomfortable teaching colleagues. They'll probably expect you to explain language. Can you tell them why there are two verbs in this sentence? But isn't can a verb too? Why don't we say Can you to tell them...? In-company often also has mixed levels, which can be hard to manage.

A professional English teacher has the skills, knowledge and time to construct a coherent course and assessments. Also, the distance to correct senior colleagues or give them a bad grade!

If you really want to do it, look into a CELTA, as pps have suggested. Short online certificates or tasters aren't much use. A good coursebook from Cambridge, Macmillan or similar will save loads of time, structure learning and some have progress tests - more impartial, and test writing is hard .

editted for my grammer wot is crap

If you do decide to offer the lessons OP, make sure you factor in preparation time for your lessons, planning good lessons takes time, when you are starting out probably at least twice as long as the actual lesson can take to deliver when you take into account researching the topic, planning different aspects of the lesson, preparing materials etc. You need to take account of this when you are negotiating payment. A two hour lesson on a Wednesday afternoon could easily turn into four or five hours of preparation on a Sunday afternoon.

Actually @viques is right re 4-5 hours when you're starting out. I spent just under 2 hours on prep today for a 2-hour business communication class, but I remember doing full evenings preparing for a 40 minute lesson on my CELTA. Different in that I had to do a proper lesson plan and it was assessed, but I guess you'll want to do a decent job with colleagues watching you.

Glad I started this thread, definitely seems more complex than I first thought. Got a lot to think about, and plenty of questions to ask when I meet to discuss it.

Had a chat with my boss, says its more of a 'nice to have' thing than a 'need to have' thing so its fine if I don't want to do it, or even if I start it and find it too difficult. We're going to see if we can find a ready-made course to purchase and consider it again then, and if I do decide to then planning time would be set aside during my normal working hours.

I did this when I was a student abroad. I was doing an Erasmus year and worked with German/ Dutch lawyers. I was suggested by my lecturer who felt I was a good egg. It wasn’t teaching them law but more conversational terminology. They already knew their stuff/ spoke passable English. It was more practice conversations so they’d grasp the English and sometimes Latin terminology when in conversation with an English speaking colleague. There were four of them and we’d have cake and coffee twice a week. Looked at lots of European law and the way it had been implemented in the UK. Spent quite a lot of time just answering questions on if someone said x do they mean y or z. Terminology in context type stuff.