Teach English in Yuping Zhen - Yibin Shi

Although there are many different theories on learning a second language, and different theories have different and sometimes contradicting views and beliefs (e.g. silence from the teacher versus the teacher’s active involvement through talking), this course has chosen an approach that draws mainly on four different theories; Audio-lingualism, Task Based Learning, Community Language Learning and the Lexical Approach. These theories many stress creating as close to a natural and contextual learning environment (which is the way a first language is acquired) and using mainly student centered teaching approach in which the student has ample time to practice speaking and using their language in a free method with the teacher only giving input occasionally when language input is required and to provide constructive stimulus (e.g. a topic or prompts) to start these parts of the lesson. This is especially in the Engage and Activate stages of the lesson, which draw mainly from Task Based Learning and Community language learning. The teacher is more active in the study part of the lesson, where new content knowledge is taught and errors are addressed. This part of the lesson draws mainly on Audio-lingualism and the Lexical Approach. During this part habits are formed and there is a clear and specific learning objective (e.g. a single grammar rule). The content is still taught in as contextualized a manner as possible, and for example a student would be encouraged to find a language pattern themselves through looking at a few sentences (e.g. they could be given a few adverbs and could find the ‘ly’ pattern at the end of the words). For feedback and error correction, the child finding the answer themselves through the teacher’s guidance is also the preferable strategy.