Teach English in Xinqiang Zhen - Yueyang Shi

Topic 107. INTRODUCTION Parents play a very important role in the education of their children. They are the support system to improvement or excellence of the children’s education. Since parents are the first people the child gets to know when coming into the world, that makes parents their first teachers. DISCIPLINE The first and important role played by parents is that of shaping up the character of the students. This depends on how well parents encourage their children to learn and behave at school. As the saying goes ‘Charity begins at home’, this emphasizes the responsibility that parents have in character building or discipline of their children. In unit five (5) that discuses ‘Management of classes’, the issue of maintaining discipline is discussed in detail. Even though the unit discusses more on the role played by the teacher in maintaining discipline in the classroom, the parents are equally responsible for disciplining their children. Parents are supposed to address the issue of appropriate behavior at home. They are supposed to teach children how to behave when at school and show them the importance of good behavior to their education. If children are well behaved at home and are continually encouraged to behave well by their parents, then chances of them misbehaving at school are minimal. Disciplined children respect other people including their peers at school and this would assist the teacher a lot in maintaining discipline in the classroom as there would be less or no issues of problem behavior in class. FOREVER PRESENT COMPANION The role of parents is not only limited to home but it also includes involvement in school activities. Parents should be forever present in the education of their children. Continuous encouragement from the parents molds successful and confident English students. Kids are easily inspired by what their parents do, that is to say parents are role models to their children. Showing children that it is exciting and meaningful to be a learner can motivate them to do their best at school. Parents should read together with their children what they learnt at school during the day. This helps in familiarizing the child with more English words, it improves children’s vocabulary and pronunciation. This is the time to even explain in native language to the child so that learning becomes easier. Other activities could be visiting the library together and nature a culture of reading English. Care should be taken not to overdo these activities though, since children spent most of the time at school doing school work. If these activities are overdone this might lead to boredom. As a parent there should be keenness to know how your child is doing at school. This is done by checking the child’s school work at home and also checking for homework given. Whilst assisting the child at home with school work, give constructive criticism especially if the parent notices that the child is not performing well. Some performance rewards can also be given to motivate the child to perform better at school. MAINTAIN PARENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP Most institutions have parents and teachers’ associations. It is at such association meetings that parents and teachers meet to discuss children’s performance. The parents should make an effort not to miss these meetings as it is good to keep a relation with your child’s teacher. This makes life easier for the teacher to discuss any unfamiliar behavior with the parent especially those that could be as a result of what is happening outside the class or family issues. Feedback from the school helps to know how the child is doing at school and if there is some assistance that the parent can offer before the situation gets out of hand. The parent teacher relationship also helps the parents to be able to communicate with the teacher any difficulties that the parents have noticed in their child’s school work that the teacher might not have noticed. Even in situations where the family is going through rough patches in life, the parents are free to alert the teacher to bear with the child during such difficult times. CONCLUSION In conclusion, parents’ involvement in the education of their children boosts their confidence levels and helps them perform better in learning and other school activities. The child becomes free to seek guidance from both the parents and the teacher. Such children grow up with better social skills and improved behavior. In English language lessons, the child normally becomes fluent more quickly than other children since he/she has support at home and at school.