Teach English in Hongzehu Nongchang - Suqian Shi

Learning English has become more and more important in China. Most students will start learning English at a young age. Because in mainstream education English will be added to the school curriculum quite late, most parents will send their children to after-school training centers for their first English lessons. Below are some of the main observations from my own time working in an English training center for young, beginner students in China. There seems to be a trend where beginner students are getting their first lessons at a younger and younger age. Many parents will start looking for suitable training centers when their child is only 2 to 3 years old. Even when most training centers will advise to not sign the children up before the age of 4, many parents will try to get their own child into the training center at 3 to 4 years old. They feel this might give their children a head-start compared to their classmates. From a business perspective, it can be hard for training centers to turn these parents and children down. For a typical 3 to 4 year old beginner student, there is of course no real motivation for learning English besides that it should be fun. This is why it's important that the way of teaching is attractive to these young, beginner learners. Even for a relatively short one hour lesson, there will be many different activities planned to make up for the short attention span of the young students. A clear reward system can also help in keeping the young students' attention focused and keeping them motivated for class. A typical lesson plan will show the types of different activities that are meant to keep the young students' attention. An example of one of these activities is the beginning of class. A good way to start a lesson is by singing a song, for example a hello or welcome song. Signing, like role-playing, can be a way for students to overcome their fear of using a new language. By using the same song for a while, the students will be able to practice and master the song and start feeling more confident about this new language that they're learning. When combined with dancing, an opening song can really loosen the students up and be a lot of fun to do. When there is a strong emphasis on making the class fun for the young students, there is also a risk of the children becoming a bit too wild. This is why clear and consistently enforced rules should be introduced from the very beginning of classes. Although fun and rules don't seem to go together well, it is important for the young students to know which behavior is acceptable and which is unacceptable. Fun can then be had within this defined spectrum of acceptable and good classroom behavior. Personally I use the following rules in my classes: Speak English. Sit down. Listen to each other. Listen to the teacher. Hands to yourself. Regularly reciting these rules is part of class and also helps with increasing the students' familiarity with the new language. It is mostly through fun and playful activities that the young learners build confidence. Building confidence is an important aspect of learning English, or any other language for that matter. Especially with young, beginner students, the language is quite easily acquired through playful exposure. And if the kids are having fun, it doesn't feel like there is much pressure on them to learn or perform. As their understanding of the language grows, so does their confidence, and with this confidence they will understand quicker: confidence and language understanding build on each other. Songs, role-play and acting out, games, chants, these things all contribute to this language learning process for young, beginner students. It's definitely best to have a teacher with some sort of “infectious energy”. A teacher who is confident and therefore not afraid to take the lead in the games, in acting out, in singing and dancing. The students will want to actively join this kind of fun teacher. There is however a fine line not to be crossed when doing this. It can help if the teacher doesn't take her/himself to seriously, it should however never turn into a circus with the teacher acting like a clown. This would work for a short while, but the students would quickly lose respect for the teacher. Also, the learning part would be replaced with just entertainment. It would only be a matter of time before the parents start asking questions about their child's lack of learning progress. Children, like all other students, would learn best from an immersive language experience. A training center that offers the students a one hour class twice a week, is far from an immersive experience. For the young learners to really have language progress, daily practice at home is very important. This is where the parents play an important role. They need to make sure the young learners practice every day and they need to support the students in a positive and rewarding manner. Teaching young, beginner students can be really interesting. The most rewarding aspects are definitely the amount of energy that the young students bring to class, as well as the incredibly fast learning progress they can achieve if they are taught and supported correctly.