Today, the goals and tasks facing the modern education are changing the emphasis is shifted from the assimilation of knowledge to the formation of competence

Tips for Teaching Foreign Language to Young Learners

So how does a language teacher specifically gear their class toward young learners? As we’ve just seen, it’s not only about what they stick on the walls but also what they do. Here are seven tips to help you engage young learners and set up a classroom that’s made just for them.

Kids have energy! Anyone who’s ever raised one, been on an airplane with one or had one in the classroom knows how true this is.

Of course, each individual child is unique and has their own balance of activity and energy, but if you’re teaching young learners you can generally expect your students to outlast you every day of the week. In fact, requiring kids to sit for long periods of time actually makes them less able to learn. So working with this characteristic rather than against it is key in your language classroom.

That’s where Total Physical Response comes into play. This teaching method is built on the idea of students using their bodies in response to foreign language instruction. The teacher gives an instruction in the target language and the students perform the action. A simple way to get started with TPR is to share action-focused sentences with your class and demonstrate what they mean. Then have students repeat the same. Have your kids walk around and associate body movements with the language structures you’re teaching.

3. Fuel the Courage Your Kids Already Have

Do you remember the very first time you tried to ride a bicycle without training wheels? Were you excited? Scared? I’ll never forget when I felt the rush of freedom that came with that first ride without two extra wheels.

Not every kid is so ready to take risks on a crazy balancing machine, but they’re pretty much all ready to take risks when it comes to language. Unlike many teen or adult students, kids are willing to give something a try even if they don’t entirely understand it. They may not know a word, but they’ll get information from the context, facial expressions and body language. They may not be able to say a word correctly, but they’ll say something as close as they can get it.

To take advantage of this in the classroom, be willing to ask more of your students than you think they can do. Most likely, they’ll rise to the challenge.

To make sure your classroom is a safe place for taking risks, encourage a culture where failure is just a part of learning. Show students it’s okay to laugh at themselves and be willing to laugh at yourself too. Make your classroom a place where there’s freedom to make mistakes.When students don’t feel shame for making mistakes and if they can laugh at themselves, you’ll stoke the fire of their bravery. They’ll take chances, and even though it’ll be okay if they fail, they might surprise both you and themselves by succeeding.

4. Aim for Longterm Success Through RepetitionYou’ve probably heard a kid say something along the lines of, “I can’t do it. It’s too hard.” While kids are willing to take risks, they often lack a stick-to-it attitude when faced with something difficult. This means that though they may jump right in and use the vocabulary you reviewed just a few minutes ago, it’s also possible that they’ll give up halfway through an assignment because they don’t have the energy to stick it out. What this means for your classroom is your kids will fare better when you plan for longterm success instead of immediate results. Plan on repeating the same language at many times and in many different ways in class.

Can your kids name two or three colors they’re using to draw a picture? Great! Celebrate that victory rather than forcing them to cover every inch of the page and recite the other eight colors in the crayon box. But later, use the same color vocabulary when you bring out game pieces, when you toss a ball around and when kids bring out their paper bag lunches.

The more times you can bring the same content into your classroom, the more likely your students are to remember it and learn to use it successfully, without feeling overwhelmed.

9.

scaffolding is a process through which a teacher adds supports for students in order to enhance learning and aid in the mastery of tasks. The teacher does this by systematically building on students’ experiences and knowledge as they are learning new skills. Just like the scaffold in the picture to the left, these supports are temporary and adjustable. As students master the assigned tasks, the supports are gradually removed.

Woman with babyTo gain a better understanding of scaffolding, consider the analogy of a child learning to walk. First, a parent holds the child up. His feet barely touch the floor as he mimics walking. Slowly, the child is allowed to support more and more of his own weight. Next, he might support himself by holding on to an object like a coffee table while his parents watch. Finally, the child is ready to take steps, though his parent’s hand might still be just inches away. Soon enough, the child is walking—and running—on his own. Like the parents in this example, teachers teaching new tasks initially have complete control and support their students fully. Gradually, when the students are ready, support is withdrawn until the students are able to stand on their own.

Students at their desks Providing support, or scaffolding, is a critical component in teaching new tasks with multiple steps. Likewise, scaffolding is a critical element in the teaching of instructional strategies (see the IRIS Module SRSD: Using Learning Strategies to Enhance Student Learning). Many teachers do this naturally when teaching a new task or strategy, whereas others need to purposefully incorporate scaffolding into their teaching styles. It is important to remember, however, that even when students have learned the purpose of a strategy and have memorized its steps, they may still not be ready to use the strategy independently.

Students with learning disabilities are often not actively engaged in the learning process when being taught a new skill. Instead, they are only going through the motions of the task. This is so because students with learning disabilities often don’t understand the underlying concepts to which they should be attending during each step. For this reason, teachers should observe their students closely to ensure that they understand the information being demonstrated. Having students demonstrate the task independently will help teachers to determine whether the students are learning.

10.

probably familiar with the traditional classroom. At the center of this instructional model, the teacher is the provider of education, and students are the recipients. The limits of this 'teacher-centered' model are that it fails to address the unique needs and interests of each student, and worse, it can make students dependent on teachers for learning. In today's complex and changing world, the earlier students learn to become independent, lifelong learners, the more successful they will be.

In a learner-centered classroom, students are the focus of education, while teachers facilitate learning and help students reflect and become responsible for their education. There are several strategies to ensure that a classroom environment is learner-centered. Let's look at how one teacher uses each of these strategies.

Get to Know Your Students

Ms. Jackson is a 2nd grade teacher. Every year, she strives to make her classroom learner-centered. The first thing she does when school begins is start to get to know her students. In order to have a learner-centered classroom environment, you must know as much as possible about your students.

Learning about your students can be accomplished in a variety of ways. Ms. Jackson usually has her students fill out a short fact sheet about themselves, on which there are various yes or no questions written for their reading level. She also sends a more in-depth sheet home for parents or guardians to fill out.

Through these sheets, Ms. Jackson learns about her students' interests, abilities, and personalities. She also spends the first week doing various icebreaker activities that help her get to know her students better. With all of this information, Ms. Jackson can begin to design lessons that appeal to each student in her room.

Promote Reflection

A large part of a learner-centered classroom is helping students become responsible for their own learning. To do this, Ms. Jackson engages students in activities that allow them to reflect on their learning and work, which helps them become more thoughtful about their education.

For example, Ms. Jackson will meet with students after tests to discuss their performance. Students who do well often come up with reasons why they think they succeeded. Students who might not have done as well are encouraged to think about what they can change about their learning in order to improve. Through this process, Ms. Jackson's students develop self-reflection skills that are critical for a learner-centered classroom.

11

Language acquisition is the process by which we are able to develop and learn a language. This generally includes speaking, listening, writing, and overall communication. Our ability to acquire language is a uniquely human trait because although bonobos, a species of primate, can produce vocalizations with meaning, birds can produce songs, and whales have their own version of a language, no species on Earth that we know of can express an unlimited amount of abstract ideas with a limited set of symbols (gestures, words, and sounds).

The term language acquisition often refers to the first-language acquisition, which simply means that it’s the first language learned as an infant (unless the child learns two or more languages at the same time). However, there is also the term second-language acquisition, which refers to the process in both children and adults when they learn additional languages apart from their native one. Each of these terms has at least one language acquisition theory behind them which seeks to answer the big question of “how do we learn a language?”

The History of Language Acquisition Theory

As with much of history, it all begins with some philosophers in ancient societies who were interested in how the world worked—in this case, how humans were able to develop language. Using “armchair psychology” (sitting and thinking about the problem), these philosophers came to the conclusion that we were able to learn languages due to the subset of a human’s ability to gain knowledge and learn concepts. They believed that language was an innate ability that we were born with. Plato, for example, felt that word-meaning mapping was also innate in one way or another

The purpose of this study is to examine the language acquisition approaches whose conceptions of language acquisitions are transferred to learning environments through adjustments made on the basis of application methods. The paper also discussed their similarities and differences. Different approaches to language acquisition in various disciplines, different views, and perceptions of it have been developed. There are some approaches completely distinct from others, while there are some others affected by different perspectives. In addition to the language acquisition approaches mentioned above, the paper delineated what literacy skills are and what kind of hierarchical order is followed by the development of these skills. The study, on one hand, deliberated children’s innate abilities and their acquired skills. by examining the reading and writing methods and from which approach they have been affected.