Teach English in Baiyang Zhen - Yichng Shi

When teaching a new language there are many important factors a teacher should be aware of. Learning a language has no certain formula hence teachers should follow the golden rules of ESL teaching but also know when to adopt and improvise. Lets think about how we learned our first language when we were little, We didn’t learn with teaching materials or drilling techniques. With our primal instinct, as humans we know that in order to survive and adopt to the environment we live in we need communication, the need to express ourselves, that plays the key role about learning a language. That is the kind of classroom environment teachers should aim for. By following the right methodologies teacher should always think if the teaching method or the activity is going to keep the students attention and interest in class or not. Teacher should create an environment that would make the students think that it is fun and needed to practice their English, and also make them feel confident about it. As someone who learned English as a second language i know how frustrating it can be to learn a new language, therefore i can put myself in their shoes and understand that small mistakes such as; excessive error correction, lack of diversity, wrong choice of vocabulary and inappropriate materials can make a bad impact in the long period of time. Thus having a sense of empathy towards the students and not only looking at things from the teachers perspective but also to think like a student too plays a vital role for motivating the students. Unlike adults , young learners are more likely to lack motivation because they don’t usually have a specific reason to learn such as getting a higher position in the company they work for. Adult learners are aware of the importance of learning English, but also young learners tend to be more curious about new things and more open for learning new information. Teacher must always aim to make the lesson interesting with various activities when teaching to young learners. Specially for the younger groups, learning English should always be a fun thing to do due to their short attention span teacher should always use various teaching themes rather then the repetitive ones. Having a communicative classroom environment and having the right manners towards the students such as; knowing the cultural norms, avoiding a body language that would reduce the students motivation and to be a good role model to them would increase the students morale and motivation significantly. Classroom managements also plays a big role, being too rigid or too relaxed about the lesson will cause an unwanted environment which will lead the students to lack motivation, knowing the balance and adopting to what is required in order to create the best classroom environment should be the teachers responsibility. Instead of being a robotic instructor who only follows the course book, teacher must have a passion for teaching and keep the motivation up for the students, if the teacher doesn’t have motivation to teach we cant expect students to have it for learning as well. As mentioned in Howard Gardner’s theory on multiple intelligence there are eight different types of intelligence and teacher should keep them in mind and use the right materials and activities with the right teaching points and not focusing only one type of intelligence type as it would not be the right method to follow. Motivation problems wont be always caused because of the teacher or the classroom, parents play a great role when it comes to learning English and it affects the motivation of young learners on a large scale. If possible parent should provide real world context and an English speaking environment for the students and encourage them when its needed. It was the motivation that made humankind archive many great goals and without it we cannot push our limit to be greater, hence the first thing that a teacher should always keep in mind should be the motivation factor.