Teach English in Songlin Zhen - Liaocheng Shi

How different students learn vocabulary and how to adapt as a teacherefore a teacher (in the further text is only used the male form even though it refers to male and female teachers) can provide new language to his students, he has to be aware of what kind of students are in his classroom. Learning and therefore as well teaching depends a lot on the students, their learning styles, level, educational and cultural background but most important on the age of the students. While children almost automatically learn new language, older students might have some problems to remember vocabulary. If we have a closer look, we can say that most of the children up to the age of 6 years are able to acquire language with almost any effort. In many countries all over the world children grow up speaking two or more languages without any problems, they just seem to pick up new language effortless. The older the kids grow the less easy it is for them to acquire language. And on the other side, one also has to know that acquiring language also means, that the children are able to forget new vocabulary as easy as they learned it, which means a constant repetition of vocabulary will be necessary. But what is necessary for a kid to acquire language? First of all the children need to hear and be exposed to a lot of the target language. Second, the nature of language a kid is exposed to, also matters. If one observe parents talking to their child, one can notice that it is limited to a very simple way: They use easy words, simple sentences and mostly talk in a higher pitch and more enthusiastic than they would speak to other adults. This rough-tuning is essential for children to stay interested in the language and not feel overwhelmed or frustrated, as they would if the language would be too complicated and difficult for them to understand. In general you can say, that children learn new language by trying out and repeating phrases and words. Knowing that, as a teacher it makes it quite easy to teach new words or junks of words. You present your students new language with the help of pictures, flash-cards or realia and make students repeat the words in a drilling phase. You can therefore imitate the voice of animals or people and vary the pitch of your tone, the volume or the speed to keep kids interested. Repetition and games help them to acquire new language, and as there concentration span is quite short, each activity should be entertaining and not last for too long. On the other hand, teenagers and adults have more or less competely lost the ability to acquire language, so they will need to learn it. And here start the problems, as the teacher will maybe have to teach new language to people of big age differences, as well as every person responds to a different stimulus: Some people remember things easier, that they have heard (auditory), other students are more visual learners and need to see what they want to learn. There is also the type of learner that needs to write down everything and read it again to remember it and there are students who are kinesthetic learners, which means that they have to use their sense of touch to learn new language. As a teacher you should be flexible and use as many different styles as possible, to not only engage all of the students, but also to help them to learn by activating the different stimuli. It is helpful to elicit new vocabulary by showing pictures, diagrams, realia, flashcards and so on. Let your students hear the words and repeat them in short sequences of drilling, so that they get an idea of the pronunciation (don't overdo the drilling, as teens and adults learn different than kids. You should drill maximum 3 words, each with 3 group repetitions and 3 individual repetitions). After that show them, how the words are written. This presentation of new words or junks of words should be a part of the study phase of the lesson, as well as a controlled practice phase. This way the teacher can make sure, his students understand the new language and can use it in a controlled environment. Make the exercises as interesting as possible, to engage your students to participate: Use a variety of exercises, make them personal for the students and use interesting topics. Some options to do so might be some gap-fill-exercises, audio-sequences with questions on the new language, crosswords, maybe some short games or any other activity, which might be useful here. At the end of a vocabulary-learning section, the students should activate what they have learned by producing the new language themselves. Here the teacher can use a less controlled practice, like role-plays or completely free practice like simple debates, students writing their own story, email, profile and so on, using the new vocabulary. Here as well, the teacher has a lot of options. If the students understand the new language and are able to produce it themselves, it is less likely that they will forget it again. Anyways, no matter if the students are young learners, teenagers or adults, in general you can say that a very important thing of teaching new language is, that the teacher includes all his students in the lesson, engages them to participate and makes them feel the necessity of learning the new language. Another thing to keep in mind is not to overload the lesson, keep it simple and keep the amount of new words at a level students can cope with. Vary the exercises to avoid students being bored but don't overwhelm them with super complex or complicated tasks. (Not only) For successful vocabulary teaching less is often better.