Teaching English in The Primary Classroom“Young children did not come to class empty handed but are equipped with an already established set of instincts, skills and characteristics to help them learn”
So, in working with them, educators need to consider :-Children are very good at interpreting meaning without necessarily understanding the individual words.-Already have great skill in using limited language creatively.-Frequently learn indirectly rather than directly.-Take great pleasure in finding and creating fun in what they do.-Have a ready imagination.-Love to talk!!!
In considering those characteristics, I believe that children are very good at showing that they are learning. Educators need to identify as well as manipulate it to achieve the educational objectives.
Children ability to grasp meaningIntonation, facial expressions, actions and circumstances help them to interpret what the unknown words and phrases probably mean. By understanding the message in this way they start to understand the language. So, when children encounter a new language at school, they can call on the same skill to help them interpret the new sounds, new words and new structures.
Children’s creative use of limited language resourcesEither word or concept. A four-year-old British child who said ‘don’t unring’ when she wanted to tell a telephone caller to wait, was using her existing knowledge of the way the negative prefix works in order to create a meaning she needed.
Children’s capacity or indirect learningEven when teachers are controlling an activity fairly closely, children sometimes sees to notice something out of the corner of their eye and to remember it better than what they were actually supposed to be learning. Conscious direct learning seems to encourage worked-our accuracy. While, unconscious encourages spontaneous and therefore more fluent use. In learning, there will therefore need to be times for conscious focus on language forms and times for indirect learning with its focus on making meaning.
Children’s instinct for play and funNo matter how well a teacher explains an activity, there is often someone in the class who produces a version of their own. Sometimes it is better than the teacher’s original idea.
ImaginationIn the primary school, children are very busy making sense of the world around them. Claiming a dinosaur in a list of pets is hardly real in purist terms but perfectly normal for a nine year old with a sense of the absurd.
The instinct for interaction and talkIt is one of the most powerful motivators for using the language. The only way to learn a language is to use it. So, teacher’s job is to make sure that the desire to talk is working for learning not against learning.
That’s all for theory today! Now, technological tools. This is the first class of ESL Resources. Today, I learn on downloading, saving and encoding files. I was introduced with dap, which is downloader accelerator plus, mozilla firefox, encoder and also some software like flash. At this moment, I realize on the usefulness of these tools and how it will help me to make my teaching more interesting. In order to use it to its maximum level, I need to master the step-by-step instructions.
