Teach English in GAoxinshiyongjishu KAifAqu - Zhangye Shi

This unit focused on teaching specific groups of students. The first group covered was beginners. There are true beginners, false beginner, child beginners, adult beginners, and beginners that don't use the roman alphabet. With these students it's important to make the lessons very visual and to move at a realistic pace while taking care to constantly revise old topics. It's important not to over-correct at this stage and to keep learners encouraged. Teaching individuals was the next section. Teaching individuals takes away the potential for group activities, but allows for a very tailored and personal experience for the student. The teacher can focus on very specific problems areas and topics of interest. The teacher can also very closely monitor the progress and problems of a student. Often students seeking 1-on-1 instruction will be very motivated to learn. It's important to be very prepared for these types of lessons as topics and activities can be completed at a significantly faster pace. The next group discussed was children. Teaching children is almost always a specific case of teaching beginners. It's important to keep the classroom environment fun, varied, and encouraging. Focusing on accuracy isn't the aim here. It is to get the students speaking English and enthused about it. Games, interactive lessons, and short activities are all good for children. Teaching children can introduce the need for taking a more disciplinarian role in the class. When doing so, it's important to be fair and consistent. The teacher should never raise their voice and should absolutey never threaten/resort to physical violence. It's important for a teacher to take preventative measures and keep students interested, engaged, stimulated, and out of trouble. Many behavioral issues can be prevented by the teacher, but sometimes it's cased by external factors in a student's life. Business English or English for specific needs was the final group of learners covered. These groups can vary greatly in age, language level, and desired goals. It's important to be attentive to these challenges by designing a course plan based on the input of students. The teacher must also focus on individuals with more care in this type of environment due to the large potential differences in students. If teaching at a company, there can also be many company/employee dynamics to be aware of while interacting with a group of students. With these types of learners, it isn't so important to be an expert in their field, but instead to understand what kind of English an expert in their field would use and know. The final section discussed two classroom types based on native language. These types are monolingual and multilingual classrooms. Monolingual classrooms offer some benefits such as student's being able to help other student's in their native language. Other benefits include common errors in English, common culture, and potentially common interests. It's important for the teacher to avoid any use of the native language of the class and to encourage the students to use English as much as possible in the classroom. Multilingual classrooms don't have the problems (or benefits) of a common culture and native tongue. However this adds the benefit that students are forced to use English as it's their only common language. Another benefit to this type of classroom is that it brings many ideas and cultures to the classroom. However, the challenges faced by students may vary greatly depending on their native languages and this can make it difficult to tailor lessons for specific problem areas.