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This unit covered strategies that are advised for ESL teachers to take when approaching different types of students and different types of student groups. There is one particular point that I find both reasonable and potentially objectionable at the same time; the recommendation to avoid use of the student's native language. While I understand the position that avoidance of the student's native language forces the student to be attentive and to use only English to communicate; I think that this approach has a major draw back. In regards to language teaching; I do not think that it is necessary to reinvent the wheel so to speak. A student already has a language that he or she uses on a day-to-day basis to navigate the world; strategic use of a student's native language could potentially allow an ESL to accelerate the student's language learning through translation. Since the student already knows how to relate to the world through one language, the task for the ESL teacher is to help the student take what they already know and express it in English. I think that by strictly refraining from the use of the student's native language, the ESL teacher is limiting themselves in certain ways when it comes to teaching vocabulary. In regards to basic nouns, adjectives, and verbs; many languages share exact equivalents.Instead of spending time and effort preparing visual aids, props, skits, ect. to convey the meaning of the respective English forms; the ESL teacher could simply take advantage of the fact that these concepts already exist in the student's language and just simple juxtapose the source language and target language equivalents on a black or white board. This accelerates the language learning process by using the student's source language as a tool to teach the target language.
