Teachers must learn to implement many skills and techniques to effectively teach English as a foreign language. Many educators have different opinions about which methods and approaches are most effective when teaching English as a foreign language. John Rassias, an American professor who developed a new method for the teaching of foreign languages, is an individual I greatly admire as he implements a theatrical and immersive approach to teaching English as a foreign language. He explains that to teach English effectively as a foreign language, one must understand the culture and language of the country whose language is being studied. John Rassias also stated that one must seek to eliminate inhibitions and create an atmosphere of free expression …show more content…
An instructor must establish a circular curriculum to cover the same topic several times to give students time to absorb the language. When creating a lesson plan, it is essential that instructors create a unique lesson to appeal to all learning styles such as visual, auditory, oral, and tactile. To keep students engaged, instructors must vary their approach and make lessons relevant to students. Educators set reasonable time limits on activities and topics in their lesson plans to cover material as efficiently as possible. Lessons plans for foreign educators should be flexible and very …show more content…
Assessments help determine what instructors are doing well and what needs to be altered to the curriculum to meet the class objectives. The assessments are used to collect data and reflect on the progress of the class and to improve. Instructors may use various informal assessments to track the progress of their students regularly. Performance based and portfolio assessments are two different types of assessments that educators will provide to their students. Performance based assessments can evaluate students based on oral communication and reading. Some examples of performance based assessments would be role playing, completing incomplete stories, playing games, and reading with partners. The portfolio assessment is utilized to assess the progress of individual students by evaluating their work throughout the year. It is a systematic collection of descriptive records collected over time to reflect the students’ growth and curricular objectives. Examples of portfolio assessments would be formal test data, samples of student work, teacher descriptions of the students’ progress, and a collection of activities that represent content knowledge and proficiencies. It is extremely important to make sure that students are progressing and it is important that educators adjust to the needs of the students
Multiple means of assessment requires more planning and long-term, ongoing measurement. When conducted properly, measuring student learning is essential in order to gain a true understanding of student ability. The use of multiple means of formative and summative assessments provides appropriate evidence of student learning that can be used to help modify instructional practice to better meet students’ individual learning needs. Some of the multiple means of assessment include student portfolios made up of work examples, letters from educators, pre-tests and post-tests, wri...
In your company, a position that pays a higher salary and has more regular work hours opens up so you decide to apply for the job. Your supervisor tells you that you cannot be considered for the position because although you are fully fluent in English, you have a Vietnamese accent. Instead, another employee who speaks with a British accent is interviewed for the position. In Myriam Marquez’s article “Why and When We Speak Spanish in Public” and Amy Tan’s article “Mother Tongue” we get a taste of what it feels like to be linguistically impaired and discriminated against. Through exploring Tan’s and Marquez’s articles, one can see the importance of learning a certain amount of English so one can get far in life and not be taken advantage of,
This teacher views the assessment portfolio system as an authentic method of gauging a child’s progress throughout the school year. She feels it encompasses many different components of growth and development.
Performance assessment is an all-encompassing term used to include products and procedures such as portfolios, projects and experiments (Johnson, R., Penny, J. A., & Gordon, B, 2009). The portfolio is one type of performance assessment which is employed to establish the student’s achievement of learning in practice (Popham, 2005). A portfolio is a meaningful collection of student work that recounts the story of student achievement or development. Performance assessment determines students’ skills based on authentic tasks, that require students to show that they can perform. This is an approach to teaching and learning that values application rather than rote memorization. Performance assessment requires students
A major proportion of class time is taken up by teachers talking in front of the classroom(Nunan & Bailey, 2009). No matter what teaching strategies or methods a teacher uses, it is necessary to give directions, explain activities and check students’ understanding (Richards & Schimdt, 1985). This clearly emphasizes the importance of teacher talk in language classrooms. Walsh (2011) claimed that teacher talk is more important in language classroom than any other classroom since in this context the language being used by teacher is not only the means of acquiring new knowledge; it is also the goal of the study.
The ultimate goal in many classrooms is to communicate in meaningful and appropriate ways (Slavit 1998). In the United States, American students get the opportunity to learn a second language in high school, yet it has been proven that children learn better when they are young. Some schools are taking this opportunity to teach a foreign language to elementary students.
Teaching strategies of a foreign language class have evolved from a long history of useless methods that do not fulfill the goal of language acquisition. The main goal of a foreign language class in terms of the New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards is that the students be able to communicate using the foreign language. Communication refers to the student’s ability to converse with a native speaker of the language that has been studied. In the past, it was assumed that students must first learn the rules of grammar and then use those rules to construct sentences and communicate, but there have been several linguistic theories that have refuted this methodology.
Assessment is the process of observing, recording and documenting a child’s actions and behavior to measure a child’s development. Assessment is an essential part of teaching and educating, because it can provide a record of cognitive, physical/motor, and language development. Records of this documentation can help identify strengths and weaknesses of the child as well as a helpful tool for the families to see the development of their child. There are different types of methods to use for assessment. Observations, portfolios and standardized test are some of the methods I would incorporate in my teaching. An observation is simply observing what the child is doing and recording what you see. A portfolio is a folder filled with different recorded
Thus, the book answers numerous practical questions that teachers have often struggled with; for example, how to increase the chances of academic success for language learners, how to use technology to teach language effectively, or how to teach language and content material concurrently. From the preface, the author makes it very clear that the book is designed to support language teachers in their journey as new teachers and throughout their teaching careers. In total, the book contains eleven chapters, which have been divided into four parts. The first part, "What Do Language Teachers Think About?" includes topics of foreign/ second language acquisition theories and language teaching methodologies. This part introduces the background knowledge readers will need in their journey as language teachers. The second part, "How Do You Teach a Language?" introduces approaches to teaching and learning that improve students’ writing, listening, speaking and reading abilities. Each chapter in this part includes suggestions for how students can be motivated and describes teaching and testing approaches to assess students ' language skills and academic literacy. The third part, "How Do I Know What to Teach?" is instrumental in helping teachers adopt teaching practices to particular teaching settings. The fourth part, "Where Do I Go from Here?" helps teachers gain a clearer perspective of what language teaching is all about; this section also considers teacher 's self-assessment and personal
As a language teacher, we need to be able to engage our learners with a variety of English text such as songs, newspaper, movies, websites, and so forth. If this is done, not only the learners are more exposed to a variety of discourses, they are also likely to be more motivated to learn since the language that they get is authentic as opposed to the inauthentic classroom books. Limiting the language...
Teaching students a language that is foreign can really be challenging for students as well as for the teachers. The dynamic rule for implementing instructing in a diverse class to English-learners is to use resourceful life skills such as diligence, hard work and patience. There are also methods that are involved in teaching English as a second language that can be creative for the teacher, yet beneficial to the student. First building a strong foundation that is essential to English learners will promote the language acquisition process. To do this teacher’s should always start with preparation. Advance preparation is essential in order to provide necessary adaptations in content area instruction and to make content information accessible for second language lear...
In most institutions of learning today, the classes are made up of students from different ethnic backgrounds. These have different traditions and also speak different languages. In a typical classroom, the majority of the students will speak the same language. The teacher must then employ strategies which will accommodate all the students in the class. This will ensure that every learner gets the best quality of education. This will enable them to be better prepared for career and expressing themselves. In this paper, strategies to assist learners of the English language in their literal development for third grade learners. In the paper, three strategies that can be used by the teacher will be discussed. New strategies and research that will help the English language learners to gain in depth mastery of the language will also be discussed. Due to the widespread learning of the English language in most schools, addressing issues of the language learners is of vital importance. Teachers should have the understanding that cultures are what give someone identity and therefore no student should leave their culture for another. Instead, there should be the blending of different cultures so that students can appreciate and learn from each other.
This assessment can be done by the teacher portfolio is a systematic collection of student works are analyzed to see learning progress in a certain period of time in terms of the achievement of learning objectives. Assessment is done by means of self-assessment and peerassessment. Self-assessment is an assessment conducted by the learners themselves to his efforts and his work with reference to the objectives to be achieved (standard) by the learners themselves in learning. Peer assessment is an assessment conducted in which learners discussed to provide an assessment of the efforts and results of the completion of the tasks that have been done alone or by a group of friends in
Recent studies, as described by Lyster in the Handbook have put forth the theory that the most effective means to teach a language is a counterbalanced approach that includes some form-focused instruction in content-based classrooms and, at the same time, putting “more emphasis on experiential strategies in traditional programs where the target language is taught as a subject” (615). It seems this method of instruction would obviously be the most effective method of language instruction. Providing both useful context for language demonstration and explanation of the framework of the language covers all types of learners and all of the functions of language. However, the implementation of such curricula would be quite difficult in any mainstream
English language has been rated as one of the most important international languages nowadays. It has been found at primary levels around the world. Teaching English as a foreign language is not an easy task and need a lot of hard work, especially for young learners. However, starting earlier is not the solution for producing better English speakers. EFL teachers of young learners have to follow some strategies and techniques to understand and teach young learners better. YL Students who aged 5-12 can not spend two or three hours sitting on chairs and listening to teachers lectures as adults do. They lose interest more quickly and less able to keep motivated on tasks for long time because these students have short attention spans and are easily distracted. YL Students will be usually learning very basic material but a skillful teacher has to design creative lessons that get students attention and participation during the class, such as moving around and speaking with one another. Interacting with each other improves their communication skills and even building confidence in using the language. In addition, young learners are generally very enthusiastic at this level about songs and games. In order to encourage everyone to participate, it is important to include your sessions with different types of songs and active games to make the lessons relaxed and fun. The teacher should be able to create different activities to encourage and activate students that everyone can enjoy learning in.