I mostly teach young students at the beginner level – rather at elementary school. The fact that the students don’t have the ability to read and write in English always add to the difficulty in teaching these students. The Younger beginners are also a fun group to teach, especially due to the fact that they tend to have more energy. The students also have a more open view and approach to English and thus the world. Their Young minds, keen on taking in the new information as the fun teacher coax them into learning as he plays.
In teaching these students, one should always start with the basics of language; these include phonics, phonetics and the alphabet when the students have a different alphabet than English. In this case I can agree that the students love to learn the new alphabet, when there are cute and fun characters to explain the sounds and to show a new word.
Pronunciation, punctuation and other harder topics of the language should always be practiced by repetition, writing and learning the spelling. The younger the students the more fun you can have in adding songs and crafts to the lesson. This also helps them to concentrate on the lesson for a bit longer than is usually seen in their normal classroom setting – this is my view, the classes I give are more on the active and almost crazy part. The students react quite fondly to the different games and less strict classes. Their ability to create and interact to the lesson is drastically higher. This amazes the normal teachers who teach in the strict Korean system.
The classroom setting for the younger learners should allow the possibility for team work, this helps the teacher to investigate areas where the students struggle with, and what activities make the students think and react more. Also the more activities that force students into competition is done, the more reactive the students are to the learning of the new language. The teacher should also consider that the younger students have lower attention spans, so the more fun they have, the better they learn, thus if something seems like work the less receptive the student will be. Progress is a slow thing, and the more the students are stimulated, and as the time goes on the more the teacher can start to focus on adding a few new things to what have been learned. Also a teacher should always give praise to the students as this is their source of encouragement.
In teaching older to adult beginners, one would find it harder, as the older the student the harder it is to take in information. Teaching older beginners is also fun; this means that the lessons don’t have to be “childish” and more appropriate to the age group being taught. The theories for younger learners also apply to this group. The lesson should be fun, and embracive to the students’ own surrounding. The activities and work papers can also be changed to suite the need of the older students.
The teacher should try to get to know the students individually, as this will give him a set view or reason why the student want to learn English. In class the older students should be made more comfortable in an environment of groups or pairs. This will help them to cope more with the stress of learning a new language, when they know there are someone that also struggle with the same problems he or she does.
So in a brief overview I can say that to add music, art pictures, fun activities and worksheets to the lesson would help to stimulate the learning process for the different beginner level students. The activities and lessons shouldn’t be to long and boring. Also the more body language, especially facial expression the teacher use in explaining the topic, the better the students will understand what is wanted form them
