Teach English in Haozhuang Zhen - Taiyuan Shi

It is often said that both of Japanese students in school and adults are not possible to speak English or too reluctant to speak. They also have awareness of lack of their speaking abilities. Do they not have English classes in junior and high school? The answer for this is yes, they spend about 1.000 hours for English classes for 6 years. In spite of this fact, most of them are unable to speak even simple conversation in English. What are the main reasons? What should be done for it? First of all, class content and the typical teaching method in school are connected with less ability of speaking. Most schools are focusing on teaching grammars using their native language and teacher-centered style is essential in the classroom. The aim of lessons is taking high score in the exams which are not consisted of speaking and listening parts. There is also no chance for students to have some communicative purpose. As a result, students are excellent in grammar but speaking. The grammar knowledge is certainly important though, a multilateral approach is needed to improve the language itself. As one possible solution to this, incorporating Engage-Study-Activate (ESA) method will be hugely effective for it compere with the conventional way of method which let students sitting down without speaking practice. ESA method is flexible for any levels and gives students opportunities to be exposed the language and use it. It has three components as basis and well organized to elicit student’s interest and motivation to speak. Teachers are possible to provide the variety of speaking activities focusing on both fluency and accuracy in the ESA lessons. If it is proper contents for students, they will find out joy of speaking and have more self-esteem. In addition, using authentic materials and topics which connected with student’s interests are possible in the ESA lessons so that it is easy to express themselves using familiar image of them.. The other problem of prevent motivation for speaking is peer pressure. In general, this is deeply rooted into Japanese culture background because people care about someone’s opinions or ideas more than themselves and try to be the same as others so that not many people talk actively in society and this tendency become stronger when they are in the group such as schools or companies. Moreover, people are scared of making mistakes and it promotes hesitation of telling their answers or ideas. This is because people tend to judge others by correct or incorrect. Japan is homogeneous society which is easy to make a standard compered withe others and young learners are seriously facing this problem in school. For the issues above, ESA method also work efficiently in terms of making friendly atmosphere which gives great opportunities to speak freely to students. In the beginning part of a lesson, the teacher let students be relaxed with simple activities and do work in pairs or groups throughout the lesson. Working with peers bring to them not only practicing to say opinions but also less fear to answer because they are not be individual in the class. Furthermore, expressing feelings or opinions are one of feathers of native English speakers and it is part of culture as well. Teachers are required to teach English culture back ground or customs during the lessons. It will help students to understand why they need to express themselves. Japanese students already have enough grammatical knowledge so there is a hope that they gain speaking skill. From view point of teaching method in school and national traits, adopting ESA method as a new approach to enhance student’s speaking abilities makes sense.