Teach English in Dazou Zhen - Taizhou Shi

I am submitting 2 essays for summative task 1. It is certainly true that an appropriate lesson plan and appealing materials play significant roles in having a productive teaching system for children. However, it is unrealistic to think they would be enough for that purpose. There would be a lack of relationship enabling teachers to apply their plans and this issue would be even more sensitive about the very young children. After providing careful analysis on how lack of relation could negatively affect the learning process, I shall suggest a number of ways to facilitate establishing rapport with kids. Starting the class without creating a mutual feeling is one of the worst mistakes teachers could make so as to all the teacher’s efforts depend on this factor. There are many reasons which are to blame for it. First of all, mental health is believed to be of great importance more critically for the sensitive age of childhood. Everything in the world of children looks bigger, bolder and even sometimes scary. As a result, they need to feel safe in each new environment they enter in the first step. To be concise, majority of children exclusively feel safe along with their parents and they tend to build an imaginary safety zone, so outside that territory they would not be comfortable enough to learn. Second significant reason is that should kids let teacher inside their safety zone and make that zone larger, they need to get to know teacher as a new member. Otherwise, all the teacher’s efforts fail. Needless to mention, knowing somebody is not that complicated for kids so teachers just need to ravel the mystery of world of kids. Consequently, the third reason would be about the trust which is supposed to be built in order to complement the process of rapport establishing as a solid basis for learning. The children are believed to have different and unique personality and behavior, therefore, the challenging part for teacher is to find a way to make a connection with each kid in the light of the feedback s/he gets from the kid throughout the session. Some children are stubborn in their opposition and some more easy going but in any way there is a way to their world. However, this problem could be looked after by several precautionary measures. First and foremost, a main welcoming and introduction method could be devised for the class. Creative actions and movement or short mottoes could be a great way to break the ice. Besides, using a toy for making the first connection or at least facilitating in reaching this purpose could be handy. Secondly, teacher should try to make eye contact with each single child and deeply smile while talking to them so that they can get the security and comfort feeling from the teacher. Next, teachers are advised to study the psychology of children and learn about different personality as well as having a plan for potential and expected situations. Thereafter, some other measures and preparation for unexpected situations could also be implemented to reduce the severe effects of the mentioned problems. That is to say, being flexible enough to change the current strategy and having extra equipment and toys available could be some of these preparations. In case of children, teachers need to be funny and make children laugh. S/he must step inside the kids’ world, sing, dance and play with them. In this way they learn to trust teachers and accustom to be with them. For some kids, teachers need to make this connection in every lesson by the time they can set aside their fears. Both teachers and parents must be aware that kids are different and for some it is just a matter of time to fit the class. Hence, patience is the healing and it is not the case that some children are smarter or have better social relationship. The case is they just need more time to deal with things or perhaps their external world or their fears. Let them keep going with their own pace but simultaneously try to track their behavior and ravel and decode their secrets and what they are thinking about. It is worth penetrating in the mind of kids through tracking them during the class. To conclude, although teachers raise concerns about rapport building with kids, if the above mentioned steps are taken into consideration, none seems insurmountable. Anyway, when it comes to establishing a connection with children, three main key words are essential to remember; smile, patience, making fun. 2. It is certainly true that there are various methodologies for developing speaking skills in English learners. However, teaching in kindergarten levels is of greater importance requiring significant consideration and creativity seeing this level as a basic and substantial stage of kids’ development in terms of both psychology and acquiring knowledge. In this essay, I would suggest a strategy in light of some work experience first to arouse students’ interest to learn English in kindergartens and then to teach spoken English as well as encourage students to speak more frequently in spite of fear of making mistakes and failure. Learning to speak any languages can be seen as a process and could not happen over a night. In another point of view, it could be seen as a system requiring input, some components in operating, interactivity and feedback to eventually out a successful result. In either way, it is vital to find out where the weakness of the students is to tackle the situation more efficiently. With this in mind, let’s look at the case of Chinese kindergartens, the problem in which students have with speaking and pronunciation might be the way they use their tongue and mouth. Therefore, they need to first exercise the muscles of their tongues and mouths enabling them to utter the sounds and words as native English speakers do. Thus, the first step in this process and system might be teaching how to utilize and practice those muscles. In other words, they need to learn how to use their mouth and tongue to make low/high and other form of sounds. Sometimes, it needs to speak with the head as you are happy or you aim to emphasis on something important while sometimes with the chest as you are depressed. The students are taught to perceive the connection between the feelings and language. This study phase could be in group and using chorus and drills. One lesson is sure enough for teaching step one though it must be reviewed or practiced in the beginning of each class for about two minutes in every other week for two months. This step may also help for teaching words and sentences in the future lessons via tones and rhythms. Following the first step, the second step in teaching process in kindergartens would be the sound of alphabets. This step demands patience and persistence and it is expected to take forty lessons to cover all letters along with word building. Engage phase may include introduction and a simple song coupled with elicitation. Meanwhile, should review section be used, it occurs just before the engage phase for no longer than ten minutes. In study phase, songs, drilling, matching games and worksheets are appropriate for kids. In activate phase, the kids are given a story book to find the day-taught letter. This activate game is more akin to making kids be involved in story books. On the condition that each kid owns one story book or at least a copy of that. Magnet alphabets, flashcards and videos should also be used. Every four lessons, there would be a review and a word making lesson. At the beginning, the words are supposed to be built with the taught letters with the purpose of teaching how to connect the letters together. For instance, after teaching letters a-c, kids learn how to make bad, ab, ad. Subsequent to it, the vocabularies would be better to come from the story book. In this step, it is widely advised that the sentences are exclusively practiced through songs repetitions. Needless to mention, all the material must be matched to make the lesson organized, coherent and understandable. In the third step, a combination of vocabularies and simple sentences would be introduced. In this level, songs and story books play pivotal roles in speaking development so that we use a reversed process. To illustrate, first a game “I say you do” would be played and then “I do you say” and even later “you say I do” will be a good practice. Some games interest kindergarten levels more to speak up such as hammer game, noodles speaking, hide and find, hot potato and so on. In activate phase, crafts and role plays seem also motivational and fun for the kids. To have a conducive learning environment, all components of teaching must be relevant and appropriate. That is to say, the words must properly be chosen in parallel with the toys and teaching material, songs and story books. Each topic could have two lessons vocabularies would be focused in the first one while the second lesson would be about using the vocabularies in a sentence. Drawing, crafts and talking about them could be great activities. To elaborate the concepts for kids, miming, body language, drawing and using real objects could be absolutely intrinsic and productive. Besides, rhythmic and rhyme could be interesting for teaching both words and sentences. Reinforcing speaking skills, available objects in the classroom could be helpful. For instance, pointing to the door and say "open the door". In this activity, there is a reversed process so as to kids first listen a sentence while learning the concept with real object. After drilling, teacher says the sentence and ask the kids to do that. At last, the key vocabulary is asked to be written. After all, the challenging part of teaching to kids is the conceptual and intangible words. In this case, videos, miming and story books could be highly recommended. Despite the difficulties with using story books, there are some ways to shed some light on the problems. First of all, story books with more fancy pictures are advised to be used. Second, kids are asked to build a story looking at the pictures. Afterwards, the story will be read and drilled page by page. The characters in the story book can be also prepared in real toys, if available or possible to make. What’s more, Kids enjoy miming and being in the place of teacher, so teacher can take cue from this and make them speak in turn. At last but not least, prize and appraising is of great significance in keeping kids motivated unless it misused or used too much. Feeling comfortable and having fun are a must for kids’ development. As a result, the most important factor in this level is to smile, make the class fun and enjoyable.