Teach English in Changliangongkuangqu - Yueyang Shi

What are the main problems for English learners in Mongolia? Based on topic 10, Summative task topic options. The land of the never-ending blue sky, Mongolia. A country, with a rich history, that has been largely forgotten by the modern western world. Although the country is large, the impact it made in the last few centuries is little to none. But all this is slowly changing at the moment. Whether it’s because of political reasons or the internet, one thing is for sure. Mongolia is going through an enormous growth spurt, economically as well as socially. This spurt also created a huge demand to learn the English language. Especially among the new generation. In spite of the demand being positive, the road to successfully master the language isn’t always that easy. Being a Mongolian native brings up some specific problems. Four main ones to be exact. We can divide these issues into two groups: pronunciation and grammar. Pronunciation: 1. The Latin alphabet The first problem that arises when learning the English language as a Mongolian national is the Latin alphabet. Although this alphabet is well-known in the western world, it isn’t used in Mongolia. The country used to have its own script back in the day, that was mostly written with a brush, from top to bottom. But after the Russian empire took over, the education system was changed. It was at this time that the Russians introduced the Cyrillic alphabet. Even though the Russians left in the 90’s, the alphabet is still used today. Therefore the Latin alphabet is a big change to incorporate into the lives of the students. 2. The letters R and L Teaching the Latin alphabet, brings us to the second issue. The pronunciation of the letters R and L. These letters also exist in the Cyrillic alphabet (under a different symbol), but have a different pronunciation. The letter R is a rolling R, which is known in other countries too. The letter L has some sort of hissing sound. The tongue is put at the back of the upper front teeth, and air is pushed out of the mouth (this often gives it also a kind of wet sound). Learning the proper English pronunciation of these letters can take some time for Mongolian natives. Grammar: 3. The sentence structure English grammar as a whole, is experienced as difficult for a bunch of countries. But there are two specific issues that are especially hard for Mongolian nationals. One of them is the sentence structure. A typical English sentence would be: I love to play outside. If you would translate this into Mongolian, the structure would be: I outside playing love. As an English speaker may well know, sentence structure is something that you produce without much thinking. This also applies to Mongolian people. Which makes it troublesome for most students to get the hang of it. 4. The articles The second grammar point that is hard to grasp for Mongolian natives, are the articles. The reason is fairly simple. They just don’t exist in the Mongolian language. Although the grammar rules of articles aren’t too hard to understand. The most common issue is that the students just forget to put them into the sentence. As you can see, teaching the English language in Mongolia can be somewhat challenging. But regardless of that fact, it is totally possible with the right attitude, discipline and persistence. Point one and two can be tackled with a lot of repetition, drilling and listening exercises like over-emphasising and peer dictation. Point three and four can be dealt with a lot of board-work, fun worksheets, gap fills, sentence building, word order activities, communication games and other activities of the sort. The most important part is to stay positive!