Teach English in Yebao Zhen - Tianshui Shi

English learners falls under different categories. Teaching English to specialized groups is discussed as follows: 1. Teaching beginners: The term ?beginners? has various connotations. Students can fall into more than one category. - The absolute beginner: Students who have no English at all. - The false beginner: Students may have studied or been exposed to English language. They may be able to produce a few simple structures. - The adult beginner: They are self motivated as they will often have made their own decision to learn English. - The young beginner: They often lack motivation as they haven?t usually made the choice to study but they are likely to pick up language more easily than adult beginners. - The beginner without Roman alphabet: They need a lot of initial work on basic literacy skills and a lot of reading and writing practice. Teaching beginners requires special skills. The teacher should have realistic aims and must be aware of students? needs. The instructions should be simple and clear. Students must be encouraged to speak English in class as much as possible. Choral repetition and giving homework is important. Listening skills take time to develop. Students must be exposed to different accents and speech patterns. The teacher can give out tape scripts or read it out more slowly as a final option. The teacher should create a relaxed environment. Overcorrection should be avoided as students might lose motivation. 2. Teaching individual students: Teaching individual students is advantageous to the teacher as there are no mixed levels of students and students? needs can be clearly defined. A few activities that can be done in class are reading stories and newspaper articles, teaching idioms, discuss relevant topical news items, personal history, listening practice, pronunciation and practicing phrasal verbs. Students can be given homework according to their need and ability or can be asked to read an article before the next lesson or to prepare a short oral presentation on a topic of student?s choice. Newspaper articles should be pre-read for any potentially difficult vocabulary. The teacher should always prepare plenty of gap-fill and comprehension questions about the article. 3. Teaching children: Children possess an innate curiosity which in itself is a motivating factor but his attention span and concentration is much less than that of an adult. The child?s early efforts at speaking are greeted with excitement while mistakes are overlooked. By repetition, positive encouragement and frequent praise, the child develops self-esteem and is less conscious about potential mistakes. The activities in the class room should be fun and varied - In the classroom: The classroom environment can be made a pleasant and welcoming place. It can be decorated with posters, cartoons and child?s own artwork. - The lessons: The instructions must be in only English language. Teacher can make use of mime/gesture, props, objects or picture cards. The teacher can come down to the level of the student by sitting on the knees or on the floor. The students must be made to play simple games. Children love competition and winning or amassing points or rewards. Students must be given smiley or other reward stickers for good work or behavior. - Class-discipline/management: The behavior and attitude of the teacher is an important factor in the classroom and can thus have a major effect on discipline. A few reasons that cause discipline issues in class room are problems at home, students seeking attention, peer pressure, boredom and lack of consistency from the teacher. Despite discipline problems, many teachers find teaching young learners to be the most rewarding of all their language teaching experience. 4. Business English/ English for specific purposes (ESP): Business English involves teaching for specific purposes, for example teaching the language of law to lawyers. A lot of teachers have initial fears about teaching business English arguing they have no experience in the field while it is not a pre-requisite to teach English to business people. Teaching business English includes teaching language for presentations, telephoning, introductions etc. Teaching can be one-to-one, In-company group or in-school group. Clients? ages varies from early twenties to mid fifties. Often groups are small usually around four to six people. The main problem of teaching business people is that they are usually very tired as most classes tend to be after working hours. Sometimes lesson materials must be planned such that they are less challenging. Homework may also difficult due to family and work pressure. Before a course begins, it is important to differentiate a student?s wants and needs. It is important to have a general understanding of a client?s job to understand the areas of English that the students require. A needs analysis in the form of a questionnaire for the clients to complete should be given. A needs negotiation session should include the following: - Getting each participant to state precisely what they use English for in their jobs and what they will need it for in their future. - A feedback session where everyone shares this information publicly. - A discussion on the findings and agreements on the common needs. - Telling then you will give them a planned next lesson with as much attention to individual needs as possible, but obviously focusing on overlaps. After the pre-course assessment of needs and ability from the questionnaire responses, begin listing suitable learning objectives, situation, language etc. Recap on objectives, highlight the aim of each activity, the evaluate progress and ask for feedback. Halfway through the course set some work that the participants can do individually. The material presented to the student should be ideally typed and professional looking. During the course, a record of attendance, material covered, rescheduled or cancelled classes should be kept. Post course report usually includes details of course content, student evaluation, test/attendance percentages and suggestions for further study. 5. Monolingual and the multilingual classes: In a multilingual class, students are from different nationalities. They have no common language except English. Students are forced to communicate in English and they get more opportunity to use English. Monolingual classes usually take place in the students? home country and cannot offer the same advantages as multi-lingual class. The cultural background is similar and it is likely that they will all have the same kind of difficulties with English. Learning English can be made easier by following a few simple tips as follows: - Deciding where the teacher places herself in the classroom. - Monitoring more overtly. - Making the work task oriented. - Keeping speaking activities short until the students have more confidence and increased fluency. - Assigning roles to monitor and evaluate the use of English in the classroom.