Teach English in BAojiA XiAng - Anqing Shi

Problems for learners inWhen it comes time to study english, students in Chile face two basic types of problems. First, they face linguistic and grammatical issues that all spanish speakers encounter when learning english. These problems include pronunciation, false cognates, and specific phrases. Second, the educational system in Chile is unequal; even in those schools that are considered to be reputable have undertrained teachers and lack quality materials. Two major pronunciation problems exist for spanish speakers who are learning english. First, in spanish all of the letters make just one sound, so it is quite obvious how a word is to be pronounced. In english, of course, this is not the case. First, students will need to learn the alphabet in english. They need to know both what the letters are called and the sounds that they make. This is just the beginning, though, because the sounds that an individual letter makes change depending on the letters that surround it. This is what confuses spanish speakers. For that reason, a teacher with a beginner class should dedicate time to reviewing common letter combinations and the sounds they make (i.e. ?sh,? ?-tion,? and ?-ing?). Students should also learn about the ?Silent E,? and the rule, ?When two vowels go walking, the first vowel does the talking.? Aside from pronouncing different letter combinations in english, spanish speakers also tend to have trouble pronouncing the letter ?s? at the beginning of a word. ?Stop? becomes ?Estop,,? ?struggle,? becomes ?estruggle,? etc. This problem is more basic and can be addressed with repetition drills and much practice. Both the cognates and the false cognates between english and spanish are many. While cognates are a helpful way for students to remember vocabulary words, they also need to be made aware that cognates do not always work. For example, students could confuse the spanish word ?carpeta? which means folder, with carpet in english, or ?compromiso,? which means obligation with compromise in english. While students will likely gain an awareness of these as they go along, it could be well worth the time for intermediate students to study and memorize false cognates. Along with false cognates, there are also various examples of words in spanish that have multiple meanings while in english the student will need different vocabulary words to express the same ideas covered by the one word in spanish. For example, in spanish ?ganar,? means both ?to win,? and ?to earn.? Once students learn the vocabulary ?to win,? they will likely try to use this to talk about salaries as well as games. The teacher would be well advised to cover a list of these errors along with the false cognates mentioned above. Regarding the Chilean school system, a teacher will definitely need to be flexible and creative in order to teach here. Many schools here are not equipped with modern technology, so the teacher may need to adapt to not having a computer-projector combination in the classroom and using a chalk board instead. Books in Chile are heavily taxed and difficult for many students to afford. Even though the teacher may choose to use a course book, he or she may have to adapt as it is unlikely that the school will have copies or that the students will buy the student version of the book. Due to this, the teacher needs to be prepared to deliver the material to the students in alternate ways. When working with false beginners or elementary students here, teachers will likely find that students had english classes for a number of years in school, but learned very little during that time and retained even less. It is likely that these students have covered the same material various times, but that it was taught in a traditional classroom setting where the students were not encouraged to talk and experiment with the language. An adept teacher will tap into that base of knowledge that students already have and provide their Chilean pupils with plenty of opportunities to practice speaking the language so that the knowledge gained will be retained.