Teach English in Baiju Zhen - Yancheng Shi

After more than seven years of teaching English to young learners, teaching beginner level students is not new to me. I believe there is no exact guide on how to handle students of all levels, but there are tips that I have learned along the way. 1. Presenting the lesson. Stepping in a classroom with 16 beginner students around two to four years old is not a joke. It’s even more difficult to think if you’re doing the class without an assistant teacher. However, if you add creativity, fun, and varied activities in your class, handling this level will be so much easier. Before I plan my lessons, I always think of how I am going to present new words to the students. There are flashcards that we can use but they don’t always work for presenting the lesson. Some young learners with no background or interest in English find it boring to always learn a new language through flashcards. Introducing new words through drama, roleplay, musical play, actions, short videos, drawings, songs, and others work better for me and my students. 2. Total Physical Response (TPR) There are times that my students don’t completely understand what I say. I know some teachers will translate the words or sentences right away to make sure the students understand them, but for me translating to students is only going to make them think less in English. If simplifying the words or sentences doesn’t help at all, the best thing to do is to use TPR. There was once when I asked one of my students to help me pick the eraser up. The words eraser and pick up were probably new to him. But instead of telling him what “pick up” and “eraser” means in Chinese, I showed him the TPR for “pick up” and “eraser”. Right away, he followed and gave the eraser to me. I asked him the same thing again after a week, but without TPR and he was able to understand me. TPR is a fantastic way to teach English to young beginners. 3. Incorporating students’ interest During my first years in China as an ESL teacher, I was bombarded with a lot of new things. I had to learn and accept their culture and language, I had to get used to eating their food, and most importantly I had to make my students like my class. It wasn’t very easy to do it for the first few months. I had a class with all boys, another class with all girls, and other classes with mixed levels, abilities, and interest. It was very challenging to control them and keep them motivated for forty-five minutes. Taking advantage of each student’s interest was my last hope. Most of my students love anything about Ultraman, even girls do! I printed nametags with different Ultraman pictures and I also included other cartoons like cars, dinosaurs, and princesses. Before we start the class, I ask each one to choose a nametag and I write their names on it. I use the nametags for roll call, scoring, and groupings so students can see how they participation in the class. Most of them don’t know how to read their names yet, but they can identify their own nametags. Aside from using personalized nametags, I also use students’ interest as a frame for teaching what I need to cover in my class. 4. Interactive materials Last year, I conducted a workshop for all the Foreign Teachers in our school about using interactive teaching materials in the classroom. We usually use flashcards in all our classes, but using it all year round is a bit boring. Using printed pictures and designing them to be interactive are one of the things that keep us busy at school. Instead of just printing a flashcard, example a flashcard of an apple, I would use a printed and laminated tree on an A3 size paper. Then, I would cut and laminate some printed pictures of apples and put Velcro on them. When we learn the word “apple”, students will be able to identify the pictures, understand where the fruit comes from, and also practice sticking the fruit to the tree or picking the fruit from the tree. Each student will have the chance to use the materials. It’s the best way to keep them engaged in the lesson. 5. Teaching through games Teaching through games has always worked like magic in all my classes. It works for all levels; even adult learners love it! Games are fun and freeing. It allows students to get engaged with English in a low-stakes, entertaining setting. However, incorporating games is sometimes misunderstood by many teachers. Games should not be used to waste time. Games should be meaningful, safe, and educational. Teaching beginner students is a very rewarding task especially when you handle the same students for a few years. You will witness their growth, changes, and achievements in learning the language. With each class, you will learn a few more ways of teaching English. They are not always found online, sometimes you’ll discover it in your own classes.