 Re: How many people actually speak the language of the country their in?
To Happy Camper - are you actually teaching English yourself? Should it not be "How many people actually speak the language of the country they're in?", as opposed to "...of the country their in?". I do hope that your students do not pick up on your bad grammar.
In answer to the original question, I teach in Thailand and I do speak Thai to a reasonable degree of fluency with good pronunciation and I believe it does help me in understanding the pronunciation mistakes and word order mistakes that my students frequently make. However, I know many teachers here in Thailand who do not speak much Thai, if any at all and they appear to be doing OK. |