Teach English in Sanhui Zhen - Bazhong Shi

When you are teaching English in a class consisting of multiple nationalities, a clear understanding of the issues faced by individual students is important in order to effectively organise your lesson. The teaching techniques have to be adjusted depending on their language background, because they possess different strengths and weaknesses when studying English. There are main three factors which teachers need to be aware of, the letters/characters, grammar and pronunciation. In some countries, alphabets are not always the same as used in English speaking nation and non-English speakers often have have their own letters which are not used in English language. For example, kanji has been used in Japan and China, and Hangeul as used in Korea up to the present day. If the students come from a country where Non-alphabetic characters are used, extra support will more than likely be required when reading. In these cases, the teaching plan may include reading textbooks, or other written material, after given a period of time to learn the use of learn phonetic symbols. By understanding phonetic symbols, reading alphabets will be easier in most cases and builds students confidence in verbalising English sentences. All students have various areas where they struggle when studying English grammar. When we compare students from non-alphabetic using countries and those from alphabetic countries, and both have equal knowledge of the English language, the students from Alphabetic using nations are more likely struggle with grammar. The reason for this is that there are a lot of similarly spelled words but with different sentence structure rules. For example, adjectives are generally placed in front of a noun in English, but will be positioned after a noun in other languages. With the article "The", it always remains the same in English, but change depending on nouns in some other languages. The students from alphabetic using countries are frequently confused by this point. During lessons, "spot the mistake" activity helps these students to avoid making these mistakes. The lesson strategy is to illustrate the relevant grammar rules on the white board to ensure all the students in the class have clear understanding of these grammar rules. Afterward, then play “spot the mistake” in English sentences individually but check the answers with all students together. Because there are also great opportunities to learn and master the grammar rules from others mistake. Pronunciation is one of the most difficult aspects to master in English, especially for adult students. The reason for this is that each language has a particular and sometimes unique way to pronounce words. A common problem for Japanese students is difficulty with pronunciation of the sound “R” and “L”, for example as in the words “Rice” and “Lice”. There is no “H” sound in Italian language, therefore it is difficult for the Italian students to clearly verbalise the word between “Hungry” and “Angry” or “Ear” and “Hear”. Playing tongue twister games is an effective game to overcome this issue, with various types of tongue twisters easily found on the internet which focus on individual nationalities particular difficulties. To prepare an effective teaching plan is difficult, especially there are multiple nationalities in the class, because each student has different areas of difficulty needing attention depending on what their first language is. As a teacher, the three factors discussed above, letters/characters, grammar and pronunciation need to be considered when a lesson plan is prepared. If lessons are based upon a suitable curriculum for multiple nationality classes, students will be more interested, confident, and motivated to improve their English, and more than likely enjoy themselves whilst doing it.