Teach English in Maqiao Zhen - Taizhou Shi

Every student comes across difficulties in each aspect of learning English. The final goal of a student is to be able to understand English speakers and texts very well and to produce English speech by themselves spontaneously. To be able to understand oral speech, learners need to understand all the words or most of the words they hear, have an idea of grammar structure, understand sounds which native speakers produce in everyday life. That’s why students should know vocabulary and increase their vocabulary knowledge as much as they can. They need to learn grammar to be able to understand English utterances correctly. But even if students already know some English words they might simply not understand that they hear them in a speech. This happens because of the differences between phonological systems of different languages. Therefore, students need more practice of listening to native speakers and training their ears. Dealing with reading is a little different situation because students have more time to comprehend a text. They can read it as many times as they need to understand every word or even guess the unknown words from the context. But practicing only reading would be a disservice for students because they wouldn’t know how all these written words pronounced in a real conversation. For developing perceptive skills we can give students some comprehensive tasks. When teaching reading skills we can choose some gap-fill tasks, ordering parts of a text, matching some extracts, or have oral discussions. The second important part of learning English is teaching productive skills which are speaking and writing. This might be the most difficult part for students to deal with because these skills imply that students produce something themselves which requires more effort rather than just perceiving some information they hear or read. Formulating their own thoughts in English might be challenging. Students might think in their native language with a grammar system which might be vastly different from the English one. That’s why students might need more time to produce an English sentence. And this is the most serious mistake students might have because they should think in English to achieve better fluency or just not to have a language barrier which students of different levels usually come across. To develop fluency is the next level in learning English which requires a lot of speaking practice. So, a teacher should include an active stage in every lesson, when students are supposed to use all of their English knowledge in somewhat spontaneous or prepared conversations. The more speaking practice students get the more they get used to thinking in English. And It also depends on how they were taught from the beginning. If a teacher uses only English in class, helps students to associate English words with objects and concepts by showing them pictures, drawings, objects and giving English definitions, then students get the ability to think in English more than in their native language. This helps them to instantly remember English words at the time of speaking. But this wouldn’t happen if students didn’t work with words enough to remember them. That is why during the study stage of a lesson after presentation of new language items students do some tasks such as worksheets, gap-fill tasks, memory games, matching tasks. Writing is also an important skill because someday students might need to write a letter or an essay in English, to pass an exam, for example. Some students might be reluctant to write an essay even if they already speak on a good level. But writing is a good practice of expressing your thoughts and to be accurate with your language, because you are given enough time to think about what you want to say. It also develops creativity and thinking over different topics. So, a teacher can choose some personalized or interesting topics to make writing tasks more exciting for students. Motivation to acquire English is another cause of learning problems. If students are not enough motivated they might be reluctant to participate in activities or have problems with behavior. A teacher should know some techniques how to work with such students. At the beginning of the course a teacher should analyze students language goals and wishes and build rapport with students. A teacher can ask students to share their goals which could help some of them find some more inspiration. Then lessons should be carefully planned to be interesting. Warmers at the beginning of the lesson help students to get relaxed and think in English. During the whole lesson a teacher should involve all the students in activities, make the events unpredictable, change classroom dynamics and give enough controlled practice. At the active stage a teacher can use almost every game adapted to learning purposes to make language practice entertaining for students. Before every task a teacher should demonstrate what to do, elicit the correct answer from students and then start an activity. It helps to make sure that students would know exactly what to do, would be relaxed enough and speak only English. Finally, learning a foreign language is challenging. Students need to master their listening, reading, speaking and writing skills. To help them achieve high results in learning a teacher should motivate them, plan lessons carefully considering their language levels, goals and interests, build rapport with students and give enough practice for developing every language skill.