Teach English in Xinji Zhen - Liaocheng Shi

-- Introduction Teaching beginners could be intimidating for a new teacher. How and where to start? – will he be able to plan an attractive lesson and control the class? One of the first steps will be to get to know the students as to identify their level and needs. Being well prepared with a lesson plan and have plenty of backups will be the key for a successful session. “A picture is worth a thousand words” -- What do “beginners” mean? In today's challenging world, most of the beginners could be considered as false beginners since, up to a certain point, they have had some contact with the language through travel, Internet, movies or an international working environment. Total beginners, with no contact at all with the language, could be mixed in a class with false beginners as usually, both have similarities. All will certainly look at new vocabulary, or freshen up, and grammar review. Business adults would expect the lesson to focus on their interest. Are they mainly attending English lessons for work or private reasons? – most of the time the answer will be for business and expecting to get the language related to it. Nevertheless, it is usually not expected to have a teacher fluent with the specific technical terms related to his students’ professional environment. As far as beginners with no roman alphabet are concerned, sounds, phonetics, linked to the alphabet on the board or flashcards will require more time and potentially higher attention. -- Suggestions for a successful “beginners” class Mixing two levels and having the students working in pairs, stronger with lower, will hopefully increase their interest into the newly acquired language by, kind of, forcing them to share their knowledge and experience. However, to check the L1 isn’t overused. Besides, in a business class avoid pairing with a direct report. To keep beginners motivated, the teacher should adapt the lesson plan to their right level by amending the exercises or activities as to lower the bar for beginners and to increase for false beginners. Topic could remain the same but task should differ according to the respective individual level. No student should be kept apart nor to feel lost. All should be able to speak, enjoy and take part in the lesson. At lesson end, they should be able to reproduce the learning. The teacher should answer all questions that may arise. For a successful lesson, as far as total and false beginners are concerned, business or not, it will be recommended to focus on the following main points: 1. Use visuals. Could be pictures, objects, videos, and brochures. Visuals should be simple, straightforward. 2. Mime 3. It is essential to be concise and provide extremely simple and strongly clear instructions. 4. Repeat as often as required the questions or introduction to the question. If it’s perceived as not understood, slightly amend the wording, mime or exaggerate the tone as appropriate. 5. Expose the students to the new language, drill, repeat, keep them talking as much as possible and until the new words are assimilated. 6. Check as to make sure all did understood the meaning and do feel confident to use the new vocabulary. 7. Do not over correct. At the contrary, compliment, encourage the students as often as possible as to bring self-confidence. They should be kept motivated and inspired as to have them progressing. 8. Introduce sounds, phonetics, linked to the alphabet either on the board or with flashcards. Activity will require higher attention if students with no roman alphabet. 9. Increase motivation by having fun. Students should by no means feel bored or they will lose interest. Their curiosity should be encouraged to discover new vocabulary and allow them to use it. 10. Activities should be selected carefully, according to their level, cultural environment and interest. 11. Teacher overall to show respect, be patient, keep a low profile and to lead by the example and his positive attitude. -- Conclusion In my opinion, the above isn’t only related to adults. All suggestions could be of use when teaching young students. As far as precisely young students are concerned, activities and selected topics should definitively have to be highly fun. Even with no serious subject will be acceptable, as to have them to don’t lose focus. Teacher should adapt and keep in mind the main goals, which are students to acquire a new language and get to use it. In my view, it might be easier to introduce new language with music, video games and people media news. Young students are particularly sensible not only to visuals but to what they hear as they easily associate sounds to visuals. To add nowadays continuous exposure to social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, What's up and web games. The cultural environment could be a sensitive matter. It is absolutely essential teacher pays the same attention to all students, either young or adults.