Teach English in Xiaoling Zhen - Shangluo Shi

Marcus Vincent Wade 02/06/2019 Summative Task: Comprehensive Essay When teaching English as a second language to young learners it is very important to consider multiple factors such as their age, language level, interests, and motivations. To be successful, it is essential to be culturally competent when teaching grammar and vocabulary to these students. I would define cultural competency as simply being considerate and respectful of the beliefs, practices, and linguistic needs of diverse populations. This helps to ensure that the needs of all students are effectively addressed. It creates a classroom environment that is both engaging and encouraging of practice and mistakes. The ability to effectively develop cultural competence takes time and effort, and should consistently be improved upon. Lastly, it is important to consider if the vocabulary being used is appropriate for that group of students and the topic/task being discussed. This would be the most effective way to not only communicate instructions, but also convey larger meanings to students. In my opinion, English is difficult to learn mostly because it is not a phonetic language. Often, the way words are pronounced is different from the way they are written. Some letters are even silent in their pronunciation, when in conjunction with others. Many words in the English language have several different grammatical forms as well, as indicated by suffixes. Since the English language has so many grammatical rules, it can quickly become confusing for a beginner or pre-intermediate learner. The best way to comprehend the many technical rules that govern our language is to continually practice the language in order to build comfort and confidence. Practice exercises are essential for language acquisition because they allow students to practice different forms of grammar and vocabulary in a safe and comfortable environment. Teachers should always use English in class when speaking to students because frequent exposure to the language supports their learning. Language awareness is essential to language comprehension. Students should be encouraged to build independence by discovering language for themselves through self-correction techniques. In my opinion, the more time students can practice the newly acquired language, the better! In addition, it’s important to have a solid understanding of your student’s language level and, for explanations, use language that is simpler than what is being taught. Consistency is key to comprehension, and teachers can limit confusion by using the same set of words for instructions. Teacher’s talk time should be limited appropriately to encourage student’s talk time and peer interactions. When giving explanations and instructions, teachers must choose language carefully and increase their use of gestures and visual aids to avoid profuse talk time. Teaching professionals have many different responsibilities but perhaps their most important is managing their classes to ensure that lessons are effective, engaging, and interesting. The teacher needs to be prepared with materials/supplies, visual aids, and practice exercises and activities to maximize class time and ensure flexibility in the lesson. Frequent observations and assessments on student’s progress levels are essential towards effectively adapting future lessons. Function-based lessons need the most structure because they include several different moving parts. These lessons are focused on teaching students how to accurately apply newly acquired language, situationally. Lesson planning is a vital element in teaching language effectively. Students need to know the meaning of a vocabulary item followed by how and when it’s appropriate to use. Then they need to learn how vocabulary items interact and affect one another. Once the grammar rule has been presented, it is most important to practice applying it to situational contexts for further comprehension. Lastly, you want to ensure accuracy in spelling and pronunciation. The outline of most lessons should include an engage, study, and activate phase. The engage phase of a lesson should focus on prompting the lesson ahead while capturing the student’s attention with discussions and engaging activities. The study phase of a lesson should always focus on eliciting what the students already know followed by the presentation of new vocabulary items. Elicitation is essential because it allows teachers to effectively adapt future lessons to be more personalized to the student’s needs. The final portion of this phase consists of practicing the newly acquired language with repetition/drilling exercises to ensure accuracy. Last is the activate phase where students can creatively practice the newly acquired vocabulary and grammar in a safe environment. Students are encouraged to use the language communicatively where fluency, rather than accuracy is the focus. Teachers should be providing individual attention to those students who may not fully understand or cannot perform the vocabulary task. During this time, it is most conducive to keep other students occupied with tasks as well. In addition, good teaching practices include encouraging equal class participation and avoiding teaching exclusively to the strong or weak students. Giving praise when students are accurate allows them to build confidence in their language acquisition. It is imperative that teachers build incremental goals into the lessons in order to provide both teachers and students with something to strive for. Furthermore, revision of lesson content is necessary to ensure students are effectively retaining information. When learning the English language, grammar and vocabulary should be practiced and studied conjointly because they are so interrelated with one another. Also, it is very helpful to learn a group of words, at once, that all have the same grammatical functions. Major takeaways from this certification include an understanding that students need to be motivated to learn, exposed to the language frequently, and given the opportunity to practice it. Students tend to understand more language than they can actively produce. My teaching perceptions have positively changed since completing the TEFL certification!