Teaching English in Pakistan

The following comments are from teachers who have taught, or are currently teaching, in Pakistan. If you are a teacher and have some advice to share, please add it here.

Aamir on 22 January 2007

quote Most Pakistani students do not take advantage of the resources that are available to them. There are 5 or 6 FM radio channels available. FM89 is a channel that airs only English songs and the DJs speak English all the time. They could read The Dawn newspaper (Karachi), international experts of a variety of fields often write for this newspaper. To improve pronunciation, they could listen to native speakers from the BBC Telecast and Broadcast.
Best of Luck!

Rehmat on 20 February 2007

quote Pakistan is a country with a flavor all its own. The largest city, Karachi, is fairly cosmopolitan and offers a number of opportunities for people willing to work in this country. However, the other cities and the hinterlands are where there is little competition and anyone willing to do some private tutoring can have a great time. Opportunities for teaching English are basically with schools, some university level is available too, but the ideal thing to do is join a language teaching center or do private tutoring. The amazing part about teaching here is to get to understand what people want.... which is generally NOT pure ESOL or EFL or ESL or ESP. What people generally crave are conversation classes... or discussions. Professionals, on the other hand, generally demand grammar. Cost of living is affordable, and the best part is the domestic help that is available to handle all the mundane chores of housework.

Kamran on 28 August 2008

quote A lot of Pakistani students cannot follow English language properly in their classes, as a result most of them fail in English language examinations. Teachers need to update their standards by not only reading the text from the book in front of students but by explaining their text with some common examples at the student's level. They should give full confidence to students to ask, share their difficulties and insist students speak english language during the class no matter how much they know about the english. Students also need to watch/listen to english movies, songs, debates, talk shows.