What is most important when teaching through English?

Of course, the pronunciation should be as perfect as possible; of course, the vocabulary used should be adequate and, of course, one’s language should not be a mixture of British and American English.

However, teaching in or through English is not only a question of being able to speak the language. It is important to appreciate that students whose native language is not English, must go through a double loop to process the information given by the lecturer: First, they have to translate the information into their own language, and then they have to process it in order for them to store it in their long-term memory. Altogether, their working memory is under pressure.

This means that the lecturer must be conscious about his/her language and his/her teaching practice. As to the language part, s/he must attend to pronunciation, vocabulary, and pace as well as to word/sentence stress. Also, paraphrasing is an important factor in this context. As to the teaching part, the lecturer should work with a sufficient amount of breaks, reflection activities, and have the students work with the subject after class. See ‘The teaching practice’ > ‘Starting and getting through the class’.