Teach English in Huangqian Zhen - Tai'an Shi

Teaching young learners is quite a lot of fun, but not always easy. Teachers always have to be on guard (not physically, of course) and ready to deal with whatever problems there may occur. I am not talking about "big" problems but the "small" ones like losing students' attention and willingness to learn. Being prepared does not necessarily mean to prepare the lessons ahead. It includes also some improvising in case students are not in the mood of learning the stuff "traditionally". In these cases books are useless, since they, in a way, represent the "traditional" way of learning. New things are always welcome for young learners (and not only them, but to people of all ages). Even if one has loads of books in a subject, getting a new one is always fun and exciting. However, since there are not more than two-three books for a subject, that means more work for the teacher, i.e. they have to find some new useful and interesting stuff to keep the students' concentration constant and motivate them, or another approach would be to squeeze all the information from the book and be creative by applying it into a different level. A good way of using the books and not searching for other materials would be role-playing, which is one of the best speaking practice. When deciding to organize a role-play activity one has to take into consideration a few preconditions: ▹First, the topic has to be familiar, i.e. if "shops and shopping" are taught, the activity has to be about "shops and shopping", the interaction between the shop assistant and the customer, for instance. ▹Second, the topic should deal with real, everyday life situations, for example "asking and giving instructions" (everyone once in their lifetime will find themselves in a situation where they have to ask for or give instructions). ▹Finally, the topic has to be liked by the students. This is a wider area, which most of the time excludes the other two conditions, since there are many useful topics and situations students dislike, asking for directions, for instance is not really an enjoyable experience even in real life, let alone in a classroom activity. Therefore this last precondition is often considered to be the leading part of role-play activity. The first two conditions are easier to deal with since they are based on the curriculum. On the other hand, the last one is a little more difficult because it requires the teacher to know their students, in other words to have a sort of emotional bound between the teacher and their students. I am not implying that if the students do not like the topic, they will not play their part. Moreover, there are cases that even though the students do not like something, they pretend that they do or perhaps show their dislike openly, but then again, they fulfill their task amazingly, and that only because they feel like they have to. But we all know that one cannot learn (or like, as a matter of fact) something one is forced to (although a little push here and there is always welcome). Furthermore, teachers tend to forget that their students are human (just like them), that each and every one of them has got his/her own personality, that they have their own way of thinking and more importantly that the teachers were once students. This is, perhaps, the biggest reason why role-play activities may turn out to be a complete waste of time from time to time. Therefore before deciding on the topic teachers should put themselves into the students' shoes and ask themselves: Would I be able and willing to do this particular activity? If not, they should not do it, because students sense it and then, they, them-selves, will not want to do it. Another important issue is introducing the topic. When introducing the topic teachers have to make sure everyone understood what is required from them, that means, first of all, the teacher has to know what he/she wants the students to do, otherwise the students will not be able to understand their part, which would lead directly into a chaos. Another issue, not less important than the above-mentioned ones is the attitude of the teacher during the activity. During a role-play activity teachers should be passive by-standers. They, absolutely, should not correct students’ mistakes. Students should feel free to express themselves and to show their speaking ability. Students have the tendency to surprise the teacher with their performances. Even the weakest student will be able to interact without having many difficulties, when they feel like they are not being evaluated, which, certainly, must not be true. The teacher should not lean back and relax, he/she must supervise and evaluate the students, making mental notes of the mistakes so as to turn to them in later lessons. Finally, when the activity is over, teachers should give some feedback encouraging them, but they should not go into details because it will depress the students and make them lose their interest in this kind of activities. Teachers can also choose the best group/pair (everybody likes a little competition).