PART II CONTEXTS
OF TEACHING
CHAPTER 6
LEARNER
VARIABLES I: TEACHING ACROSS AGE LEVELS
A. TEACHING
CHILDREN
Popular
tradition would have you believe that children are effortless second language
learners and far superior to adults in their eventual success. On both count,
some qualifications are in order.
First,
children’s widespread success in acquiring second languages belies a tremendous
subconscious effort devoted to the task. Second, adults are not necessarily
less successful in their efforts. Third, the popular claim fails to
differentiate very young children (say, four- to six-year-olds) from
pre-pubescent children (twelve to thirteen) and the whole range of ages in
between.
1.
Intellectual Development
An
elementary school teacher once asked her students to take a piece of paper and
pencil and write something. A little boy raised his hand and said, “Teacher, I
ain’t got no pencil.” The teacher, somewhat perturbed by his grammar, embarked
on a barrage of corrective patterns: “I don’t have a pencil. You don’t have a
pencil. We don’t have pencils.” Confused and bewildered, the child responded,
“Ain’t nobody got no pencils?”
Since
children (up to the age of about eleven) are still in an intellectual stage of
what Piaget (1972) called “concrete operations,” we need to remember their
limitations. Rules, explanations, and other even slightly abstract talk about
language must be approached with extreme caution. Children are centered on the
here and now, on the functional purposes of language. They have little
appreciation for our adult notions of “correctness,” and they certainly cannot
grasp the metalanguage we use to describe and explain linguistic concepts. Some
rules of thumb for the classroom:
Ø Don’t explain
grammar using terms like “present progressive” or “relative clause.”
Ø Rules stated
in abstract terms (“To make a statement into a question, you add a do or does”)
should be avoided.
Ø Some
grammatical concepts, especially at the upper levels of childhood, can be
called to learners’ attention by showing them certain patterns (“Notice the ing
at the end of the word”) and examples (“This is the way we say it when it’s happening
right now: “I’m walking to the door’).
Ø Certain more
difficult concepts or patterns require more repetition than adults need. For
example, repeating certain patterns (without boring students) may be necessary
to get the brain and the ear to cooperate. Unlike the scene with the little boy
who had no pencil, children must understand the meaning and relevance of
repetitions.
2.
Attention Span
One
of the salient differences between adults and children is attention span.
First, it is important to understand what attention span means. Since language
lessons can at times be difficult for children, your job is to make them
interesting, lively, and fun. How do you that?
Ø Because
children are focused on the immediate here and now, activities should be designed
to capture their immediate interest.
Ø A lesson
needs a variety of activities to keep interest and attention alive.
Ø A teacher
needs to be animated, lively, and enthusiastic about the subject matter.
Consider the classroom a stage on which you are the lead actor; your energy
will be infections. While you may think that you’re overdoing it, children need
this exaggeration to keep spirit buoyed and minds alert.
Ø A sense of
humor will go a long way to keep children laughing and learning. Since
children’s humor is quite different from adults’, remember to put yourself in
their shoes.
Ø Children have
a lot of natural curiosity. Make sure you tap into that curiosity whenever
possible, and you will thereby help to maintain attention and focus.
3. Sensory Input
Children
need to have all five senses stimulated. Your activities should strive to go
well beyond the visual and auditory modes that we feel are usually sufficient
for a classroom.
Ø Pepper your
lessons with physical activity, such as having students act out things
(role-play) play games, or do Total Physical Response activities.
Ø Projects and
other bands-on activities go a long way toward helping children, are excellent
ways to get them to learn words and structures and to practice meaningful
language.
Ø Sensory aids
here and there help children to internalize concepts. The smell of flowers, the
touch of plants and fruits, the taste of foods, liberal doses of audiovisual
aids like videos, pictures, tapes, music-all are important elements in
children’s language teaching.
Ø Remember that
your own nonverbal language is important because children will indeed attend
very sensitively to your facial features, gestures, and touching.
4. Affective Factors
A
common myth is that children are relatively unaffected by the inhibitions that
adults find to be a block to learning. Teachers need to help them to overcome
such potential barriers to learning.
Ø Help your
students to laugh with each other at various mistakes that they all make.
Ø Be patient
and supportive to build self-esteem, yet at the same time be firm in your
expectations of students.
Ø Elicit as
much oral participation as possible from students, especially the quieter ones,
to give them plenty of opportunities for trying things out.
5. Authentic, Meaningful Language
Children
are focused on what this new language can actually be used for here and now.
Your classes can ill afford to have an overload of language that is neither
authentic nor meaningful.
Ø Children are
good at sensing language that is not authentic; therefore “canned” or stilted
language will likely be rejected.
Ø Language
needs to be firmly context embedded. Story lines, familiar situations and
characters, real-life conversations, meaningful purposes in using
language-these will establish a context within which language can be received
and sent and thereby improve attention and retention. Context-reduced language
in abstract, isolated, unconnected sentences will be much less readily
tolerated by children’s minds.
Ø A whole
language approach is essential. If language is broken into too many bits and
pieces, students won’t see the relationship to the whole. And stress the
interrelationships among the various skills (listening, speaking, reading, and
writing), or they won’t see important connections.
B.
TEACHING ADULTS
Although
many of the “rules” for teaching can apply in some ways to teaching adults, the
latter age group poses some different, special considerations for the classroom
teacher. Adults have superior cognitive abilities that can render them more
successful in certain classroom endeavors.
So,
as you consider the five variables that apply to children, keep in mind some
specific suggestions and caveats.
1.
Adults
are more able to handle abstract rules and concepts.
2.
Adults
have longer attention spans for material that may not be intrinsically
interesting to them.
3.
Sensory
input need not always be quite as varied with adults, but one of the secrets of
lively adult classes in their appeal to multiple sense.
4.
Adults
often bring a modicum of general self-confidence (global self-esteem) into a
classroom; the fragility of egos may therefore not be quite as critical as
those of children.
5.
Adults,
with their more developed abstract thinking ability, are better able to
understand a context-reduced segment of language.
C. TEACHING
TEENS
Perhaps
because of the enigma of teaching teenagers, little is specifically said in the
language-teaching field about teaching at this level. Nevertheless, some
thought are worth verbalizing, even if in the form of simple reminders.
1.
Intellectual
capacity adds abstract operational thought around the age of twelve.
2.
Attention
spans are lengthening as a result of intellectual maturation, but once again,
with many diversions present in a teenager’s life, those potential attention
spans can easily be shortened.
3.
Varieties
of sensory input are still important, but, again, increasing capacities for
abstraction lessen the essential nature of appealing to all five senses.
4.
Factors
surrounding ego, self-image, and self-esteem are at their pinnacle.
5.
Secondary
school students are of course becoming increasingly adult like in their ability
to make those occasional diversions from the “here and now” nature of immediate
communicative contexts to dwell on a grammar point or vocabulary item.
Reference
:
Brown,
H. Douglas. 2000. Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language
pedagogy (Second Edition)