Teach English in XinkAi Zhen - Yueyang Shi

HUANG Li How can parents help Students to learn English? Parents are role models for students! I think parents should let their children be interested and confident in learning English. Moreover, parents must be good at developing and protecting their children's self-confidence and self-esteem. I would recommend the following concepts to be taken into consideration: 1. Don't always compare with "good students" in the eyes of others. Some parents like to give their children a "good student" (as a model), and often praise their children for how good he is, thinking that this can motivate the child. However, it can only make children very offensive. Each child's learning foundation, and intelligence are different, and their language skills are different as well. Each child has self-esteem and self-motivation that can be easily ruined by unconditioned comparison with more outstanding students. It is best for parents to switch to another method, especially for students who currently have problems with learning English. "Vertical comparison" can be used to compare child’s "current" with his "previous" results, and to carefully evaluate his progress. This is what people often call "finding the flash point", cherish a good start or a little progress, so that children feel good about learning English. Build their confidence in learning. 2. Develop children's persistence, perseverance, and ability to overcome difficulties in learning English Although the current English teaching activities are lively and fun, letting children take up leisure activities for a long time, and going to English classes at night can bring certain difficulties for students. Parents should encourage children not to take time off or miss classes, which makes the process of learning English not only efficient, but also cultivates children's good personality in doing things. In addition, competition in teaching, interaction between classmates, examination and grading, etc., will have good and bad, and often challenging setbacks. Children will complain or feel sad when they get home. Parents should consider this time as an opportunity to educate and exercise the child's character, to improve their ability to resist difficulties and setbacks. As long as the parents pay attention to child’s needs and circumstances, the child ’s mood will continue to change. In addition, it is necessary to select special textbooks and books on mental health education to cooperate with learning to cultivate a good personality. 3. Create conditions for children to listen to recordings Psychologists suggest that adding regular listening practice while learning a new language can bring fluency and improve listening skills much faster. There are plenty of recording materials available online and with books. Moreover, after learning a certain vocabulary at school, it is recommended to listen the material again at home during different time of the day. It can be done after getting up early and before going to bed, during child’s bath time, and in the car or bus while commuting to school. Regular listening exercises will bring fast and good effect. 4. Strengthen listening and speaking training. Just as young children can't speak first, they are learning to observe and listen to other people, and this observation can help them to develop language skills. The same is with learning a foreign language. We should listen and observe, as well as practice words and sentence structures in order to master a new language. Some activities such as drawing pictures, or responding with body movements, simple communication, are suggested to make the process of obtaining a new language more interesting and natural. Moreover, children will be able to understand and respond, they will be interested, and they will have a sense of success. If the students will begin learning a language with writing and reading only, they will be confused and tired because of boring repetition and meaningless for them activities. Therefore, in English teaching, the first thing to focus on is strengthening listening and speaking skills, and only after that to cultivate literacy. Not developed listening and speaking skills, and poor communication skills in English are the problems of English teaching of the past, especially in Asian countries. That is why parents are recommended to pay more attention to providing all the necessary materials to their children for practicing listening and speaking (including recordings, videos, interactive games and hiring competent teachers), then the correct speech, intonation, and tone will be developed in the process. In addition, some languages are so different from English language, as for example Chinese. There are four tones in Chinese language; but English has long sounds, short sounds, and double vowels, which are different from Chinese pronunciation. That is why paying attention to learning correct sounds from reliable sources is important. 5. Educate children to pay attention to the lecture, teacher's pronunciation, movements and posture. Develop good habits. The power of habit is a huge and lasting power. Many important things are done by the power of habit. Three to eight years is a critical period for learning a foreign language. That is why from a young age, children should develop good learning habits. It's more important than getting them to learn more or get good marks. 6 Connect with reality. In addition to the previously mentioned, to learn and review the words, sentence patters, and dialogues, parents can also combine in-class learning with real life experience of using the language. It can be achieved during holidays (travelling), by joining some communities and playgrounds. Moreover, it is a good idea to encourage children to send post cards to new friends (foreign pen friends). Furthermore, designing and making handmade cards and letters with children, not only can strengthen the relationships with parents or friends, but also to cultivate and develop a sense of innovation and creativity. The development of learning ability is far more important than learning knowledge. To conclude, parents have an important role in children’s education including learning English. Parents are able to encourage or discourage children from learning the language, that is why parents should be careful with the classes, teachers and extra materials and experiences that can support the learning environment for their kids.