It’s not “Teaching English”, but “Teaching something in English”.

Of course, something is Japanese in this column.

I’ve grown up in Japan and my mother tongue is Japanese only.

I’m not naturally a bilingual, I’ve just studied English very hard.

I’ve got an opportunity of teaching Japanese in Australia.

It’s called Indirect method: teaching a language in a different language.

You might think it’d be tricky.

If a target language is your mother language, then you have to explain grammatical things in another language. 

Where I taught was a primary school. There weren’t much lessons which require instructors to explain complicated things.

I found that only basic English skills and familiarity of English conversation are needed.

And when the learners finish elementary stage, it must be the time to change it to Direct method: teaching a language in the same language. 

Don’t have to be so nervous. I would NOT say broken English is okay since you are a language teacher. However, it was less difficult than I’d been imagining before.

Also, it might help students to understand what acquiring a language is like by showing myself trying so hard to speak English in front of them.

Mt. Martha PS, Mornington in 2008

Chief instructor Sato