English Teaching for Children

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English Teaching for Children
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• ?????????
• ????A
• ??MA0973007
• ?????(Leonard)

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Chapter 1 In search of an approach

• Millions of children are learning English in
  Asia, and thousands of teachers are searching for
  an approach to teaching that will work most
  effectively.

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Finding an Effective Approach

• It is time for each of us to build an approach
  that fits the particular needs of Asian
  elementary school children learning English as a
  foreign language.

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EFL in Asia

• The teaching techniques we use in one kind of
  situation may be very different from those we use
  in another situation.
• There, because the teaching of English to
  children in Asia is still in its infancy in many
  respects, techniques designed for different
  situations have often been imported and assumed
  to be appropriate.

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The distinctions between EFL and ESL

• ESL refers to the learning of English by
  immigrants to a country where English is the
  native language.
• Melissa who is a foreign English teacher teaching
  in my school, for example, had immigrated to
  Canada when she was in her mothers belly. Her
  father, a Chinese, had escaped from Southern
  China into Thailand where he met and married her
  mother. While in pregnancy, her mother moved to
  Canada and lived there until now. For Melissa,
  Thai is the first language and English is the
  second. She is now not only a French teacher but
  also an English teacher in Canada. English to
  her is very different from those of us living and
  growing in Taiwan.

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• ESL learners generally have more chances to use
  English naturally outside class.
• They are also likely to have much more exposure
  to English.
• In general, they are more likely to deeply
  understand the importance of English and feel it
  is natural and necessary to learn it.

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• It is true that in many Asian countries, not
  only is there little exposure to English in the
  childrens daily lives, but their native
  languages also have little in common with
  English, and have different writing systems.
• we need to be careful about using teaching
  techniques that were originally designed for very
  different situations.

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• How do children learn effectively?
• Because of the distinct situations, the answers
  are very different between EFL and ESL.
• This means a child-centered lesson in an Asian
  EFL classroom may appear quite different from a
  child-centered lesson in a French EFL or an
  American ESL classroom.

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We need an approach

• A new language target may be introduced in a
  teacher-centered way and practiced in a
  child-centered way.
• Kate, a foreign English teacher in my school one
  or two years ago, had always adopted this kind of
  idea to teach in the classroom.
• It did work to enhance students level in some
  English aspects successfully.

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• All approaches to teaching have strong and weak
  points, and that standard approaches may not fit
  our particular teaching situation, so we need to
  draw on ideas from a number of different
  approaches and add ideas that come from our own
  experience.
• However, the methods we choose need to fit
  together coherently.

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• I always think that phonics learning and
  vocabulary word memory are parallel in
  impertance.
• Both are the most important parts for elementary
  school students to learn and to establish a good
  foundation in learning English.
• Therefore, the learning process from phonics to
  words is especially crucial to elementary school
  students from beginners through the advanced
  students.
• Through this, the students are asked not to use
  the alphabet in their own language .

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• We need to develop a general approach based on
  our views on how children learn most effectively,
  and then teach, manage, and assess the children
  in ways that are consistent with this approach.

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Starting from established approaches

• There are many approaches or opinions for us to
  choose and use in our teaching.
• Some are compatible with each other but others
  are diametrically (or exactly) opposed to each
  other.
• Some approaches that are dominant in western
  educational psychology, may not be suitable so
  well in Asia.

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• It is important to understand some of the most
  recognized approaches, and think about which
  aspects of each approach we agree with or
  disagree with.
• Behaviorist psychology, humanist psychology and
  constructivist psychology are three examples that
  are stated in this chapter.

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INFLUENTIAL APPROACHES
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Behaviorist approaches

• The behaviorist view focuses on the reinforcement
  of behavior through repetition and rewards.
• This is especially important for the starters in
  elementary school to learn English.

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A lesson influenced by the approach may contain
the following five of all elements

• The teacher controls both the childrens behavior
  and learning process.
• He has a clear lesson and step-by-step
  syllabus.
• English patterns are repeated through drills and
  choral repetition.
• Children are protected from making errors. (the
  idea of trial-and-error, the example of the mouse
  in a cage)
• Success is reinforced by praise and rewards.

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Questions to consider
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How important is it to control the childrens
behavior?

• In the classroom, if the children behave badly,
  the rules will be violated so that they will not
  get what they must learn. It is especially
  important for elementary school teachers to teach
  because the children are always out of control
  without restrictions.

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Is it important to make a careful plan before
starting a lesson?

• Sure. It is especially important for a novice to
  make a careful plan before teaching. Without
  plan, the teacher could be too nervous to find
  good ways to teach.

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Is it best to have a step-by-step syllabus?

• I think so. But even with the step-by-step
  syllabus, the teaching must change if the
  condition or the situation requires change.

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Are repetition drills important?

• Yes, it is a must. With repetition drills, the
  children may learn some new words and realize
  some patterns in sentences unconsciously. Even
  though it is like a kind of military training
  that may possibly have some danger to it, it may
  evoke childrens inventory potential.

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Should we try to prevent children from making
mistakes?

• No. Making errors is a kind of nature in human
  beings, and it is a process of obtaining success.
  I had learned trial and error from the subject
  of Educational Psychology that was about the
  research of the procedure of a cat in a cage to
  get the fish. The cat had strived many, many
  times to find the key button to open the door for
  getting the fish, and it succeeded eventually. A
  very small part of childrens learning language
  is like the cats learning, so do not ever try to
  prevent them from making errors.

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Are rewards and praise important?

• If the rewards and praise are worthy and
  effective, they are important. If they are used
  too much to help students, and even tend to
  decrease their learning they are unimportant and
  harmful.

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Input approaches

• A lesson is generally influenced by some or all
  of the following basic principles
• 1. We should expose the children in our classes
  to English they can understand at present or that
  is just beyond their present level.
• 2. They should not be expected to produce new
  words and patterns until they feel ready to do
  so.
• 3. We can introduce new words and patterns
  through physical demonstration, and we should
  encourage the children to be physically active.

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Questions to consider
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To what extent should we try to control the new
words and patterns the children encounter in our
lessons?

• Find new words which would happen and be used all
  the time in the daily life first. Start learning
  English from some simple tenses in sentence
  patterns, and they would usually be used in life
  too. There is no extent in learning English, the
  more you learn the better it is.

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If Asian EFL learners are not expected to produce
new words and patterns until they feel completely
comfortable in doing so, can we expect them to
speak out and be communicative?

• This is an abstract question, so maybe I can
  answer it in an abstract way. If you do not know
  how to walk, how can you run and jump? However,
  if you can walk well, why not try to run or to
  jump at all?

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What do you feel are the benefits of using
gestures and physical activity in a lesson?

• For children, the way of teaching using TPR
  (Total Physical Response) is always the best. It
  has been used the most in elementary schools to
  teach English compare to other methods. The
  teachers use their gestures as an aid to
  communicate with students from time to time and
  their lesson plans are full of physical
  activities here and there.