Teach English in Linjiang Zhen - Changzhi Shi

In my teaching career until now, I’ve taught mainly two types of students, young learners from age 7-11 and adults. According to my experience, the most substantial task in teaching young learners is to draw their interest in English. I’ve interviewed several teenage students of mine, “What do you think about learning English?” Their answers are almost the same, “it’s boring, but I have to learn it.” The worst thing for some of the students is, after 6 years of studying English at school, they still remained at the elementary level. They kept on getting unsatisfied grade that lead them to losing belief in studying English well. As a consequence, they try to avoid studying English, making English their least favorite subject. In the end, a vicious circle is formed. That is why I think an English teacher should concentrate on how to make their class interesting and attractive when teaching young learners. For young learners, unlike teenagers and adults, they have difficulty in understanding grammar. So the teachers need to put aside all these theories, just give them some examples and let them practice. They don't need to understand why this sentence have to form this way, all they need to do is to follow suit. Of course, for some young learners, if they have the ability to understand, simple grammar points can be explained. All kinds of fun games can to be added to practice the vocabularies and grammar points. Such as “ I spy…”, hangman, bingo game, card game and so on. In my opinion, 1 on 1 class is always my last option for young learners, especially for young children. It will make the class duller. Young learners like to compete with each other, they think it’s a fun thing to do. And this can also help them to establish their self-confidence. They’re into little presents as rewards. This can help to motivate them. By the way, when choosing teaching materials for young learners, the content should be chosen carefully. For me, since I mainly focus on the reading part in teaching, I would prefer to choose some contents that are related to general science and myths stories that they might catch their interest. The advantage for this is, they can not only learn new vocabularies out of it, but can also help to broaden their horizon. Compared to young learners, adults have a more clear aim in studying English and most of them have already mastered the basic structures of English. They can be separated into two main descriptions, university students who are still studying at school and the ones who are working. Here the adults I refer to are the social people. Their purposes of studying English are various. Such as to get a better job, be able to communicate when traveling abroad, hope to have a further in developed countries, etc. So the class is often designed according to their needs. Unlike young learners, 1 on 1 class sometimes is a good choice for adults. It helps the teacher to know where the student’s weakness is and focus on the shortage. Since the grown ups are more rational than kids, they understand the instructions more clearly and pay more attention during class. In that case, the students can get an improvement in a relatively short time. But for me, I still prefer group studies to 1 on 1 class. Group study can give students the opportunity to think on their own and to listen to other’s opinions and ideas. Like role-play and debate allow the students to practice their communication skills. And let the student to act like a teacher to give a lesson to the whole class on what he or she has learnt is likely to help the students to bear the important points in mind. All these activities are more effective when carried out in groups. No matter what materials were chosen for the adults, the class needs to be practical. For example, when I was teaching a group of students from human resource department, one activity we have had is to let them imitate a scene of an interview in order to practice the language they have learnt. For grown ups, the way to build a rapport is not only to let them know you’re a nice and qualified teacher, but also can help them to learn something useful. Teaching is a job that I am really proud of, especially when I see my students have made achievements in their studies. I really like the saying “live and learn”. As a teacher, studying is a lifetime task. I get to learn a lot through my classes and my students, and I need to add more stuff to my knowledge bank in order to make my class more vivid and rich in content.