ELT for Young Learners; the Basic Principles to Language Skills and Learners' Characteristics

English Language teaching (ELT) to young learners has a different concepts and procedures from ELT to adults. These differences occur due to the kind of language skills we want them to deal with and to the nature of those learners. Teachers who deals with those children need to take into consideration number of things that are related to these aspects. Before talking about the principles of both language skills and learners' characteristics let us explore some definitions of the term young learners. According to Thornbury (2006) (as cited in Chi, 2010) this term "is used to describe children of pre-primary and  primary school age, although it is sometimes used to include adolescents as well." Phillips (1993) (as cited in Chi, 2010) defines them as "children of formal schooling (five or six years old) to eleven or twelve years of age." These definitions show that we are dealing with learners who have unique characteristics especially in terms of foreign language learning.

Should we really 'teach' children?

It is more effective, in my opinion, to spend time exposing learners to the language rather than teaching them the language. This exposure will deliver the same knowledge that the teaching will do but in more effective and motivating way. In our situation in Saudi Arabia, where teachers supposed to cover the subjects in the textbook, teachers can expose learners to the language of the subjects in different ways for example, presenting videos that cover the subjects in interesting and interactive way; and suitable pace, in terms of speaking and presenting items. After that, you can set scenes to let learners communicate with each other in the same language they are exposed to. Such communication provides young learners with the authentic language and way that are used in real discourse. the aforementioned information indicates that young learners need to integrate the main four skills with the language which help to create a real communication environment that is leading to produce authentic language.

What are the principles that we should take into account in teaching skills?

Here I will discuss some principles that should be taken into consideration while teaching skills. First, activate the roles of learners, in case of what is known as receptive skills. The roles of learners can be activated in reading and listening by integrated these skills with the active ones, speaking and writing. For example, in groups learners read to reproduce new sentences or to summarize. The learners listen to reply or to answer certain questions. Integrated helps in keeping all learners involve with active roles using skills. This leads us to the Second principle, which is, skills are not to be taught but they are to be used. Learners need skills to use the language to communicate. The best way of taking benefit of that is by letting them use the skills rather than teach them the concepts of these skills.  Third, language is a system. Any system consists of elements that interact together to make the system work appropriately. In relation to language skills, this shows that we should not teach skills individually. Lessons should be planned to make learners use the skills interactively this brings us back to the main goal which is making learners able to communicate in authentic situations.

The characteristics of young learners

As mentioned before young learners have unique characteristics that make them remarkable from adults. These characteristics need to be taken into account in teaching youngsters. Here I will present some of these characteristics with comments on each.

-         Youngsters interact better in familiar situations. Teachers should know what type of knowledge their learners have. The new knowledge should be considered as addition to the old one. The learners will find it easy to get the knowledge as they follow the logical order.

-         Youngsters are willing to interact. Young learners are more eager to interact using the new language either in class or in real life situations. Teachers need to keep the level of motivation by involving learners in authentic interactions in peers.

-         Youngsters have short attention span. This leads us again to involving young learners in practice the language in class. However, if the teacher needs to present some parts of the lesson by himself, he should vary his techniques to avoid boredom.

-         Youngsters are eager to present their knowledge in front of their peers. Giving opportunities to the learners to present their ideas and opinions help them to get more fluent in using English. In terms of personality, it helps learners to be more confident. It is also encourage them to learning and searching to find new information and knowledge to present. The teachers can get advantage of such eagerness by preparing small debate and discussion class, which will help in using some linguistic functions such as agreeing and disagreeing.

-         Youngsters are imaginative. This characteristic will help teachers in teaching some areas such as vocabulary by linking pictures with the concrete meaning. The teachers can develop creative thinking of their learners taking advantage of their wide imagination.

-         Youngsters are easy to be encouraged to learn. Presenting topic of interests encourage learners to interact with the content, teacher and their peers. Challenging learners motivates them to think and find solutions. However, challenges should not be represented in form of obstacles.

-         Youngsters are more willing to be native-like speakers. Young learners are good in copying the accent of native speakers. They are less shy in imitating natives in their speaking manners. The teachers should use audio materials that are presented by native speakers to fulfill learners need.

To sum up, ELT for young learners has special many principles that teachers should take into account. These principles either related to the skills of the language or to the learners' characteristics. The teachers should treat both types in a parallel way to ensure that the environment of the classroom represents a perfect environment of language learning.

References

CHI, N. (2010). TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING VOCABULARYTO YOUNG LEARNERS AT ILA SCHOOL. SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FORTHE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS (TEFL)

http://farwaniya03.tripod.com/id6.html

WILLIAMS, M. (1998). TEN PRINCIPLES FOR TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS. Cambridge press.

Teaching methodology or teaching classroom pedagogy: where should the priority be?

In classroom, teachers need a solid ground of knowledge to stand on. This solid ground represents, in my opinion, in the teaching pedagogy as it includes the knowledge that the teachers need in their classes.

 The simplest definition of pedagogy is the art of teaching. This definition shows that teaching is a creative skill, which has a social side that is teachers' interactions with their students. Watkins and Mortimer (1999) (as cited in Cogill,  2008) define it as ‘any conscious activity by one person designed to enhance the learning of another’. In this definition implicates that pedagogy is a planned procedures and strategies that ensure avoiding haphazard actions. Leach and Moon (1999) (as cited in Cogill, 2008) described a Pedagogical Setting as ‘the practice that a teacher, together with a particular group of learners creates, enacts and experiences.’ Again, communication is considered as an advantage of pedagogy. This definition ensures the active roles of learners that pedagogical sitting provides. Cogill, (2008) suggests that this definition shows that the learner has an active role and draws light on the social interaction between teachers and learners. Garcia, (wisegeek.com) defines pedagogical teaching as strategies that are used by teachers in the classroom to deliver the knowledge of a subject depending on their skills. From this aspect, we can consider pedagogy as knowledge in many different forms such as knowledge of the content, knowledge of the teaching approaches, knowledge of the class management…etc. In the same article she mentioned that these strategies might include choosing methods, assessing learners, using outside resources from the society … Daw, (wisegeek.com) divided pedagogic skills into two types classroom management (managing students behavior)  and content-related (teaching content effectively).

The aforementioned information about pedagogy shows its significant and that it is comprehensive for many other aspects in teaching situation such as planning, teaching methodologies and assessment. That makes pedagogy, in my point of view, the base that any teacher must have to accomplish teaching.

References:

Cogill J (2008). Primary teachers’ interactive whiteboard practice across one year: changes in pedagogy and influencing factors. EdD thesis King’s College University of London. Available at www.juliecogill.com

Daw, E. Available at  http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-types-of-pedagogical-skills.htm

Garcia, M. Available at  http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-pedagogical-teaching.htm

How Can Classroom Tests Help Students?

Classroom language testing in its all 3 phases; pre-test, test and post-test; helps learners in different aspects. These aspects could be related to the language learning or to the future life in general. Before discussing the advantages of the classroom language tests for learners, we need to define the term test and other related terms, evaluation and assessment.

Staring from the big circle evaluation is "the process of gathering information in order to determine the extent to which a language program meets its goals" (Loannou and Pavlou, 2003, as cited in socyberty.com). This definition shows that evaluation deals with the whole educational elements to find out whether the general goals were achieved or not. Assessment takes place at the middle circle as a tool of evaluation. Nunan (2004, p118, as cited in socyberty.com) defines assessment as "the set of processes by which we judge students learning."  It is obvious from the definition that assessment concerns with a more specific educational element that is learners' performance. Small circle represents test which is defined as "one of the procedures that can be used to assess child's performance. A test has a certain objective, for example, to see to what extent a child understand a written text." (Loannou and Pavlou, 2003, p.4, as cited in socyberty.com).

The aforementioned definitions show that testing is one of many instruments that help us to answer many questions that are related to the teaching/learning process such as, to what extent do our learners reach? Are we, as teachers, doing well in class? ...

But what are the good things that learners can gain from classroom language test? To answer this question I will talk about each phase of classroom test taking starting with the pre-test phase. Tests or marked tasks derive learners to make real revision or study to get good marks. This will help learners to go over lessons and try to understand them. If the learner finds difficulty in certain points he will try hardly to get the correct answer by asking the teacher or even a classmate. Preparing for the tests or marked tasks involve searching for some extra help using the web which might helps learner to understand a piece of information through different resources specially with the availability of multimedia.

The second phase is the test taking. In this phase learners start to use the main four skills independently. They read/listen to comprehend the instruction, they negotiate the meaning to difficult or unfamiliar words after trying to guess their meaning, they follow the roles of writing …etc. This will help learners to use language in more authentic setting. Tests usually focus on important knowledge i.e. knowledge that is needed either for upper stages on for the real life situations.

The last phase is post-test. In this phase learners get benefits of feedback from teachers. Discussing mistake correction with learners one by one helps them to know how they can answer using the context. Learners may motivated by their scoring either to keep it high or to improve it. Regular tests make learners in a continuous contact with the subjects that they suppose to study. Crooks (1988, as cited in Gibbs & Simpson, P 12) mentioned that tests, as self-evaluation, help learners to track their progress. They also help them to feel the sense of achievement.

To sum up, although tests are designed by the teachers to give them an overview about the efficiently of what they do in the class and about their learners progress, learners can get benefits from these tests in different phases and aspects. Each phase of the test has its advantages. For the learners either in the language learning processes as in going over and over subjects, looking for the information using different resources, using the skills authentically and motivating them to do better in their upcoming tests or in their future life as classroom tests prepare them for more important tests like placement tests and job interviews.

References

- Gibbs, G & Simpson, C (2004) ‘Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning’, Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, Issue 1

- Testing, testing… what is a language test?, Oxford University Press

- socyberty.com

Positive washback on Curriculum Designing

Curriculum design is a phase of curriculum development phases. It falls between two phases, planning and implementing[1]. Tyler's curriculum development model[2] shows that curriculum designing consists of two processes that are selecting & organizing of learning experiences. Designers need to test the curriculum in authentic settings to measure its validity and efficiency. The next paragraph will discuss the positive washback on curriculum design processes.

Testing the curriculum in authentic settings provides designers with a great deal of information about their work. From test results designers can determine wither the learning experiences that they select and organize work to achieve the desirable objectives or not. Test helps designers to measure the efficiency of the provided teaching/learning activities.  It also gives a clear view about the quality of the chosen experiences. Designers may re-sequence or re-grade some experiences in accordance with the test results. Test also helps in avoiding unnecessary details in the content (redundancy). There is a possibility that the content is good but it is presented in a way that does not suite the target students; in this case, designers have the opportunity to represent it in an interactive way. One of the information that test provides and need to be dealt with carefully is students' needs and interests. Designing curriculum according to students' needs and interests increases the chance of their learning autonomy. In terms with teaching, test shows wither, the followed methods are sufficient to achieve the objectives or not.

The aforementioned positive washback helps designers to avoid defects in the curriculum and to enhance strengths. This kind of washback comes as a result of a well constructed test i.e. to get such washback we need a test that have the characteristics of the good test.

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[1] http://bit.ly/SXY5s0 P:8

[2] Same reference P:5