Teach English in Huangyadong Zhen - Changzhi Shi

Our EFL elementary group consists of many students up to twenty with a wide age range starting from sixteen-year-old teenagers to sixty-year-old all with the same purpose, to learn English. We can categorize them into two groups of teenagers and adults. Although their educational backgrounds vary, most of them have some English background from their schools. However, the purpose of learning English for them is different. Our teenagers want to have a better education and the chance to study abroad and have better job opportunities in the future while the other half are looking for communication skills for traveling. They feel more comfortable with visuals and writing on the board as many of them take notes during the class. By the help of visuals aids (using flash cards, realia or OHP), antonyms and synonyms they understand the target lexical better especially the weaker ones. Turkish educational system used to be more teacher-centered in the past so the learning environment was mostly based on deductive teaching rather than inductive. Therefore, our older learners in the class are usually quieter than the younger ones but when it comes to pair and group work or a competitive activity they become excited about it and participate, and put their learning into practice. Areas of development During my teaching in Turkey, some problems of the language skills and phonology issues were recognized and are listed below. These problems are most common problems amongst Turks and are mentioned in ‘Learner English’ by Michael Swan and Bernard Smith. • Phonology (Pronunciation, intonation and words stress) A) Turkish language like French and Italian is a syllable-timed, unlike English which is stressed-timed. Syllables tend to take up the same amount of time and there are generally no reduced vowels. Therefore intonation and words stress is slightly different from English. For instance, wh-question and statements have falling intonation but Yes/No-questions have rising intonation and it should be practiced in the class as well as the word stress. • ‘’WHERE are YOU from?’’ falling • ‘’Does he WORK in the morNINGS?’’ rising • ‘’She LIVES in IZmir’’ falling B)There are also many students who have problems in pronouncing some certain sounds, e.g this /ðɪs/ there /ðeər/ and think /θɪŋk/, theater /ˈθiː.ə.t̬ɚ/. The th sound /ð/ /θ/ seems very difficult for Turks to make as they don’t occur in Turkish. My students have found it hard to pronounce there is/are or some other similar words. In minimal pairs, the same problem can be seen in /ɪ//iː/, e.g live/lɪv/ and leave /liːv/. The sounds /æ/ as cat cannot be distinguished when they pronounce Canada as the say /ˈkɑːn.ə.də,/.The sound /aʊ/ as down /daʊn/can be pronounced /dʌn/ or /dɑː/. Also the students cannot differentiate the sound between V and W and may become confusing for them. Like while, weand very, value. • Written and spoken language (To be) As ‘learner English’ brought it up, there is no independent verb to be in Turkish. So students usually tend to either not to use it in their sentences ‘’He a student’’, or overuse it ‘‘I am live’’, ‘’He is go’’,‘’ They are know’’ and ‘’He is like get up at 7:00’’. The same thing exists in their writing as they think and write in the same way. • Written and spoken language (subjective and possessive pronouns) Students usually have difficulty using the correct pronouns both in gender and differentiation of possessive and subjective pronouns at this level. For instance ‘’she lives in Izmir’’ while referring to a boy and vice versa. The other common mistake is when you want use possessive pronouns ‘’she’s name is Petek’’, ‘’he’s name is Batuhan’’ or ‘’Her is 40 years old’’. How to tackle To tackle the phonology problem of the elementary students I usually chose the exercises in English pronunciation in use, Elementary level by Jonathan Mark. The reason is because of its variety exercises and the diagrams and explanation it has plus it provides the audio file and correct pronunciation of the words. It can also be used by the students at home as homework for further improvement of the pronunciation. It compares both sounds /ð/ and /θ/, /ɪ/ and /iː/ and /ɑː/ and /ʌ/ so that students can differentiate them from one another. First, through the visual diagram and mouth movement illustration (the mouth, tongue and the jaw) students practice how to shape and produce the sound. Then through sound and spelling, they will listen to the audios of the target sound first words then sentences and repeat them. At the end, they will have a gap-fill exercise which they will listen to audio and will complete the dialogue. Also, some maze game can be prepared and be used in the class. (Mrs. Lucy Pereira introduced this game by Mark Hancock at her pronunciation class).A tongue twister is one of the good and fun activities that teachers can use in the classroom. For example, Tomas thinks of terrible things. I wish to wash my Irish wristwatch. As for to be verb, I usually do Essential grammar in use 3ED by Raymond Murphy, using present tense units 1,2 and 5 to make it clear for students how and when we use to be and the main verb. They need to fill the gaps with the correct verb without any interaction of the main verbs. Later on, we will go through individual grammar points then I will assign them with a task on page 254 to cope with a more complex activity where they have to understand which verb is needed to be used. References Swan, M.,& Smith, B. (2001).Learner English, Cambridge University Press. Jonathan, M.(2007).English pronunciation in use, Elementary level.Cambridge University Press. Hancock, M. (2001).Pronunciation games, Cambridge University Press Murphy, R.(2007) Essential grammar in use (3ED), Cambridge University Press Mitra Mirdamadi