Teach English in Yiqiao Zhen - Jining Shi

It is commonly accepted today that English is an international language and anyone who desires to acquire education or meaningful employment in another country than its own needs to communicate in English from a satisfactory to even a proficient level. In the current make-up of English classes, students can be divided into two: multi-lingual and monolingual students. For the scope and the purpose of this essay, I will define multilingual students as the students from a diversity of languages and cultures learning English while the monolingual students are those coming from only one original language and culture aiming to learn English as well. In this essay, I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of teaching English to both of these two groups and I will conclude with my personal preference. The monolingual groups are usually found in state schools in the culture or language of origin, in the student’s own country. Students in a monolingual class speak the same first language and will share most aspects of the culture of origin. Probably the most important characteristic in teaching a monolingual class is involving more use of the language of origin, which can be a useful tool but a downfall as well. Many advantages can be noted here. It can simplify the teaching as well as the learning process and provide translation as needed. Grammar and various syntax forms can be explained more thoroughly by the use of the original language. Class cohesion is high. The shared values of the original culture can be exploited and learners may have similar learning challenges which can be overcome with alike learning strategies. (British Council “Monolingual”) Although is important to use such strengths in teaching monolinguals, is important to remember that most of the teaching needs to be done in English. Prodomou (n.d.) suggests that generally, students get the most important learning benefit from class-related activities when performed in English. The origin language could be useful in various activities as setting up pair and group work, sorting out an activity and even checking comprehension. In sharp contrast to monolinguals, the multilingual classrooms are generally made up by a variety of people with different origin languages and cultures, generally coming from different backgrounds and cultures all having the common desire to learn English. In a multilingual setting, students would rarely have the possibility to ask another student for clarification or translation. All communication would be in English by necessity. While more challenging, every attempt to communicate will help the learning process by providing more practice for students. Also, as students come from diverse countries and cultures, the differences can be used as conversation starters. New topics as holidays, food and vocabulary items can be used to stimulate the class making the learning process more exciting. Diversity is a good tool when used correctly. For instance, students in a monolingual classroom often understand each other not because they speak correctly, but because they all make the same grammar or pronunciation mistakes. However, in a diverse and multilingual class, the students are challenged to speak as correctly as possible because they aim to be understood correctly. Also, the mix of students in a multilingual classroom can help to use more than one set of teaching techniques. Students from cultures where the teacher’s role is to lecture and give tests are mixed with students from cultures where students are actively participating in class. Pairing classroom work and small groups made up of students from different cultures can be the perfect opportunity for students to learn by discovering new techniques for learning English. (Bridge TEFL, 2015) In conclusion, although teaching English to monolingual and multilingual groups can be equally challenging and inspiring, due to my previous experience and teaching style my preference is teaching English for multilingual students. I believe that due to the strengths and challenges already mentioned in this essay, the multilingual class experience can serve the personal learning goals of every student in a better way than the monolingual classes. References Bridge TEFL (Oct. 20, 2015) Teaching English in a Multilingual Classroom (source found online at https://bridge.edu/tefl/blog/teaching-english-multilingual-classroom/) British Council (n.d.) Monolingual (source found online at https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/monolingual) Prodomou, L. (n.d.) From Mother Tongue to Other Tongue (source found online at https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/mother-tongue-other-tongue)