Don't waste time "teaching" English. Instead, help your learner acquire it. Here are some tips
How do you effectively teach a new language to a learner? It is an eternal question. Of course, your learner can always memorize lists of words, write them under dictation in their notebooks, and submit them for red-pen corrections.
This is the traditional approach to teaching English. This approach was highly appreciated and used by my teachers when I was learning English in Russia. It seemed to bring positive results. For every English class I struggled to learn at least 15 new words, which I was supposed to reproduce or write under dictations the following day. Of course, I forgot those words a couple of weeks later, because I never used them in situations of communication.
One of the most scary activities for me was to read and retell the text. How could I retell it while not understanding its meaning, not knowing where and how to start? We never discussed it, never did pre-reading and after reading activities. The only way out for me was to memorize the whole text.
Listening activities frustrated me as well. The moment the teacher came to an old-fashioned tape-recorder, I started to shake. I knew that after listening to the story a second time we needed to retell it. How could I retell it not understanding a stream of English words and phrases? Frankly speaking, I hated my English Language lessons and the language itself too.
The first time I bumped into English language speaker from Holland who was invited to our school, I could not understand and talk to him. That was the result of my 5 years of diligent language learning. I found myself desperately sinking. I needed help. The vocabulary and grammar rules I learned during those 5 years could not help me. Some component of language learning was missing.
That was the ability to speak, communicate, express my opinion, and understand the intentions of the person I am talking with. That component was, unfortunately, ignored by my teachers. Coming to college and acquiring methodological terms, I realized that during all these years I was learning language, but not acquiring it.
Acquiring language involves natural communication in a natural and stress-free atmosphere over memorization, practicing words and grammar rules in a context rather than in isolation, not correcting mistakes but learning from them.
In the year 2008 I had a summer internship in Western Germany, where I had a chance to meet with Americans. There after a short period of time of communication with my new friends, I realized that I was coming to a different level. I think in English, I dream in the English Language, and I speak the English Language which I have never been able to do in my country.
I did not need grammar rules and disconnected words denoting different types of houses like bay-and-gamble houses, bungalow houses, and fetched houses to function properly among native speakers. I could easily talk using basic words which I acquired from the conversation with native speakers.
Has all my academic schooling been wasted? Have all the efforts of my teachers been wasted? For the most part I can say, "yes." Language acquisition proved effective in my case.
You can check its effectiveness too while involving your learner in different situations of natural communication.
ENGLISH AT LARGE
Literacy and Learning for Life
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How do you effectively teach a new language to a learner? It is an eternal question. Of course, your learner can always memorize lists of words, write them under dictation in their notebooks, and submit them for red-pen corrections.
This is the traditional approach to teaching English. This approach was highly appreciated and used by my teachers when I was learning English in Russia. It seemed to bring positive results. For every English class I struggled to learn at least 15 new words, which I was supposed to reproduce or write under dictations the following day. Of course, I forgot those words a couple of weeks later, because I never used them in situations of communication.
One of the most scary activities for me was to read and retell the text. How could I retell it while not understanding its meaning, not knowing where and how to start? We never discussed it, never did pre-reading and after reading activities. The only way out for me was to memorize the whole text.
Listening activities frustrated me as well. The moment the teacher came to an old-fashioned tape-recorder, I started to shake. I knew that after listening to the story a second time we needed to retell it. How could I retell it not understanding a stream of English words and phrases? Frankly speaking, I hated my English Language lessons and the language itself too.
The first time I bumped into English language speaker from Holland who was invited to our school, I could not understand and talk to him. That was the result of my 5 years of diligent language learning. I found myself desperately sinking. I needed help. The vocabulary and grammar rules I learned during those 5 years could not help me. Some component of language learning was missing.
That was the ability to speak, communicate, express my opinion, and understand the intentions of the person I am talking with. That component was, unfortunately, ignored by my teachers. Coming to college and acquiring methodological terms, I realized that during all these years I was learning language, but not acquiring it.
Acquiring language involves natural communication in a natural and stress-free atmosphere over memorization, practicing words and grammar rules in a context rather than in isolation, not correcting mistakes but learning from them.
In the year 2008 I had a summer internship in Western Germany, where I had a chance to meet with Americans. There after a short period of time of communication with my new friends, I realized that I was coming to a different level. I think in English, I dream in the English Language, and I speak the English Language which I have never been able to do in my country.
I did not need grammar rules and disconnected words denoting different types of houses like bay-and-gamble houses, bungalow houses, and fetched houses to function properly among native speakers. I could easily talk using basic words which I acquired from the conversation with native speakers.
Has all my academic schooling been wasted? Have all the efforts of my teachers been wasted? For the most part I can say, "yes." Language acquisition proved effective in my case.
You can check its effectiveness too while involving your learner in different situations of natural communication.
Happy tutoring!
Tatyana Pavlova
Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics/ Bashkir State University
MA Education/ESL 2014, Cambridge College
Literacy and Learning for Life
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