Teach English in Xiqu Zhen - Wuwei Shi

As teachers, we give our students a chance to get exposed to new vocabulary so they would understand, practice, and use it in their daily lives. New words should be exercised often so they would enrich the students' language knowledge. While grammar is the base of most languages, we cannot teach it without vocabulary as they go hand in hand. We can explain vocabulary and grammar lessons using ESA methods like straight arrow, and teach function-based lessons using the boomerang or patchwork approaches. The difficulty of new words depends on how close the words are to the students' own language and the English words he/she already knows. It also depends on the words' spelling, pronunciation, and appropriacy to their level. So when coming to select vocabulary words for the class, teachers should make sure they are appropriate to the students and task, can be used frequently and applied to situations they face, and how they are going to be taught. Learners need to know the meaning, usage, word grammar, interaction, spelling, and pronunciation of the new words being taught. Moreover, in the engage phase, they can be taught or elicited using Realia, mime and action, pictures, contrast, discussion, and discovery. Moving on to the study phase, teachers may use the gap-fill and matching exercises, word searches and crosswords, example sentences, drilling, or studying from texts as in-class activities. For the activate phase, activities such as discussions, role-play, simulation, story building, material production, or debate can be used. When it comes to ESA structures, a straight arrow approach is typically exploited when coming to teach a vocabulary lesson to lower level students for example. First, in the engage stage, the class may bring related pictures to class and have a discussion about them. Second, in the study stage, the teacher may check pronunciation, spelling, and meaning through showing a small text or playing a dialogue related to the new vocabulary. Third, in the activate stage, the teacher may ask the students to produce a project in pairs or small groups showing what they've learnt from that lesson. On the other hand, when teaching grammar, students should understand the meaning of the language, how and when to use it, its forms and patterns, and its spoken and written form. Therefore, the techniques for presenting and practicing language structures begin with the engage stage, where discussions, scenario building, prompting, questions and answer, pictures...etc can be used in class. Then for the study stage, students can practice intonation and pronunciation patterns, looking at the language through texts, drilling, gap fills and information gaps, word order activities, and sentence building. For the activate stage, communication games, role-play, story building, or debates can help students master the lesson. However, for ESA structures in grammar lessons, the patchwork approach can be used for mid level students. As an example, teachers engage the students in the lesson by discussing books or pictures they have already brought to class, activate the lesson by writing in pairs, then study the lesson by analyzing the usage of the grammar and reinforcing the meaning, formation, and pronunciation of the new language structure. The teacher uses the activate stage once more by grouping students to write a piece from a prompt. The groups then study the language by checking each others group-work for any grammatical errors. Then for activation again, students play a chain story communication game. As for language functions, using the boomerang or patchwork ESA structures would be the most effective and role-plays are also very helpful in this case. Examples of Language functions are inviting, refusing, agreeing, etc. It is also related to the appropriacy and the kind of language they use such as formal, informal, tentative, etc.