Teach English in Ninghe Qu - Tianjin

Teaching EFL in a KindergartenOver the past few years teaching english as a foreign language to young children, preschool and kindergarten age, has become very popular. This recent interest is indicated not only by the growing number of children studying modern languages, but also by a range of international publications on methodology and research (Curtain 5). While no official age range has been determined officially as the 'critical' age that a student should start learning a second language by, it has been agreed that people "whose exposure to a second language begins in childhood in general eventually surpass those whose exposure begins in adulthood, even though the latter usually show some initial advantage over the former." (Singleton) Even though some studies have shown that "older children are better than younger children at learning a second language," many schools and academies are offering EFL classes to younger and younger students (Cook). This is because it is widely believed that teaching english from a young age can be great for the children as they can pick up the language easily, but from an instructor's perspective teaching kindergarten age students can be difficult as they are very young and immature. Singleton said that even though adults initially have the advantage in learning english, those who learn from a young age eventually surpass adult learners in their english ability and go on to become more natural speakers of english. Also, many parents believe that if their children are introduced to english from a young age that it will help them later in life. They believe, along with many others that starting in childhood is meant to help overcome attitudinal and learning difficulties older learners face (Curtain 7). This is why, despite a lack of real evidence suggesting that starting EFL classes in kindergarten is more beneficial than starting later in childhood, many schools are doing it anyways. This leaves many EFL teachers wondering how to teach younger students. It has been found that children are "often more enthusiastic and lively as learners" (Cameron 1). But in many cases, younger learners "lose interest more quickly and are less able to keep themselves motivated on tasks they find difficult" (Cameron 1). On top of that many parents have high levels of expectation for their children when they are enrolled in an EFL kindergarten. So how should an EFL kindergarten be taught? There are many opinions on how teachers should correctly handle EFL kindergarten students because younger learners cannot be pushed to study as hard as older learners. For very young children, classes must be fun and the teacher is in focus. The development of self-confidence also seems to play a major role (Nikolov 36). This is because if they do not find something fun, they will not be motivated or interested in learning english. Therefore classes for kindergarteners should be child-centered and experiential, holistic and multisensory, and include active and playful learning while still providing meaningful english instruction (Lang 50). In my personal experience this approach of considering the child and their interests has worked the best. Using storybooks, puppet shows, art, pictures, stuffed animals, props, the classroom itself, the outdoors, games, songs, and achievement charts work the best at keeping students interested in learning. Using a stuffed animal and a chair to teach prepositions with the students moving their stuffed animal to match the teachers and repeating a sentence (ex. The rabbit is on the chair) help maintain their interest while still teaching vocabulary and key grammar. Repetition is key to helping young learners acquire basic english grammar structure and vocabulary, but since young learners get bored easily it should be done for short periods of time throughout the lesson. Creating lesson plans to follow an arcing theme can help spread out grammar and vocabulary introduction over a period of lessons so that students get more practice with new topics and revisiting old topics in reference to the new topics also helps them retain what they have previously learned. It is also important to note that young EFL students cannot concentrate on one activity for more than five to ten minutes, after which time they become tired and bored (Djigunovic 47). Therefore, when creating lessons it is important for the teacher to plan a lesson full of short, interesting, and theme-focused activities to 'change-up' the lesson and keep students interested instead of doing a few long activities, which is a common choice with older students. And lastly, the teacher should consider how important building rapport with young children is, because children of this age become emotionally attached to the teacher to such an extent that it may become a decisive factor in their attitude towards the foreign language they are learning. As a rule, they either like their teacher very much, or dislike her (him) completely (Djigunovic 47). While difficult and immature, kindergarten EFL students can be very fun to teach and watching them grow as english speakers can be very satisfying to a teacher. As long as teachers keep in mind that kindergarten students must be taught according to their age, abilities, and needs, I think that teachers will find that teaching EFL to young children really can help them build the structure they need to understand and acquire english more effectively later in life.