As language teaching professionals, we’re constantly on the look for ways, tips and techniques to improve our craft and our teaching. Here are two notorious areas where teachers may fall prey to practices which can actually have a highly negative impact on the learners’ language learning and acquisition and cause them serious problems. In the article, “Three Mistakes Language Teachers Make That Cause Learners to Fail”, we discussed three of the principal ways teachers can derail their learners’ progress. Here are two additional practices that need to be avoided on the part of ELT and other language teaching professionals.
Don’t test what you teach
If you write your own exams be sure to include only what learners have actually been taught and the way it was taught and practiced if possible. If you don’t write the exams your learners take, know exactly what has to be covered, the style of the exam and the types of questions and make sure to cover and practice the materials accordingly. Use the materials adapted as necessary for the learners to acquire it, then expand your reviews to practice it in ways similar to the exam style. Give exam simulations which match, as closely as possible, the conditions learners will have when actually presenting the required exam. This will do a lot to help overcome their initial anxieties on exam day. You will in fact, as prominent ELT author Stephen Krashen says, “significantly lower their affective filter” in relation to the evaluation process.
Use Too much Teacher Talking Time
On occasion we’re all guilty of this one, but if you’re a frequent or constant offender you can be doing more damage than good in your classroom. Since you’re the teacher we’ll assume that for the most part you’re not the one who needs the language practice. (And perchance, if you DO need the language practice, your classroom isn’t the time or place to get it) Many teachers just won’t shut up and let the learners communicate. It’s the learners who should be doing the bulk of the speaking, reading and otherwise communicating in the target language. Have a trusted colleague sit in during a class session to track your TTT.
I’m sure your Director or Language Coordinator will do it for you too, but you may be less than happy with the feedback. Either way, review your results. If you need to make an adjustment, then you know what to do. (If you’re not sure how to plan and execute a TTT tracking session or you don’t know how to minimize the problem, contact me for some ideas and suggestions) Remember the learners will always communicate more with clear instructions, opportunity for guided and unrestricted practice AND if you zip your flytrap and let them speak.
So, are you a stumbling block to your students’ progress? If you are guilty of any of these problem practices in ELT or language teaching, make the needed adjustments to your teaching practice. Then watch your teaching and results improve like never before. And by all means, please feel free to contact me with your questions, comments or requests.
Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an expert author and photographer offering Web Content Writing Services for top-quality articles on: Education, Language learning, Salt and Fresh water fishing, exotic foods, South American travel and culture, Ethnic issues - Blacks, Latinos, Indian native tribes, Health, Internet business resources and more … His work has appeared in Transitions Abroad, South American Explorer, Escape From America, Mexico News, Brazil magazine and hundreds of sites online. For fr*e*e sample articles and available web content e-mail: lynchlarrym@gmail.com
There is an increasing amount of English language learners represented in our schools for whom a unique approach to developing literacy is necessary. The development of literacy by English language learners (ELLs) includes all of the challenges implicit for English speaking children literacy attainments, and is additionally compounded by a diversity of linguistic, cognitive and academic variables.
In general, the following are critical variables that need to be targeted in effective reading instruction:
Phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency, including oral reading skills, and reading comprehension strategies. The National Research Council’s Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children recently completed the most authoritative, comprehensive review of the research on normal reading development and instruction and on preventing reading difficulties in young children1. This study documented a number of important findings about teaching English reading to language-minority children. These include:
- English-speaking children making initial attempts at reading understand, if they are successful, the products of their efforts; they read words they know and sentences they understand, and…can self-correct efficiently. Non-English speakers have a more limited basis for knowing whether their reading is correct because the crucial meaning-making process is short circuited by lack of language knowledge.
- Giving a child initial reading instruction in a language that he or she does not yet speak can undermine the child’s chance to see literacy as a powerful form of communication by knocking the support of meaning out from underneath the process of learning.
- Initial reading instruction in the first language does no harm. To the contrary, it seems likely both from research findings and from theories about literacy development that initial reading instruction in the second language can have negative consequences for immediate and long-term achievement. Primary language and reading literacy is critical and should be strongly encouraged.
It was highly recommended that “initial literacy instruction in a child’s native language whenever possible” and suggested that “literacy instruction should not be introduced in any language before some reasonable level of oral proficiency in that language has been attained.”
On the question of which language to use when teaching English language learners to read, the committee recommended the following guidelines:
- If language minority children arrive at school with no proficiency in English but speaking a language for which there are instructional guides, learning materials, and locally available proficient teachers, then these children should be taught how to read in their native language while acquiring proficiency in spoken English, and then subsequently taught to extend their skills to reading in English.
- If these second language children arrive at school with no proficiency in English but speak a language for which the above conditions cannot be met and for which there are insufficient numbers of children to justify the development of the local community to meet such conditions, the instructional priority should be to develop the children’s proficiency in spoken English. Although print materials may be used to develop understanding of English speech sounds, vocabulary, and syntax, the postponement of formal reading instruction is appropriate until an adequate level of proficiency in spoken English has been achieved. In other words, the instructional priority need to be to develop spoken oral English prior to attempting to facilitate reading in English.
This author has used this approach with many second language children and has developed effective methods to facilitate literacy in English language learners based on these recommendations which have been associated with high levels of efficacy.
Deborah Jill Chitester received her Masters of Science in Speech-Language Pathology from Adelphi University in New York and was granted her Certificate of Clinical Competence (C.C.C) by the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA). She has 10+ years experience working with all age levels both mono-lingual and Spanish speaking, having received special certification by the State of New York as a Bilingual (English/Spanish) Speech-Language Pathologist. Deborah has worked with all age levels and all disabilities. She began her practice in New York, where she worked with both private patients as well as with the major school systems and corporations.
In her practice, Second Language, Literacy and Learning Conection LLC she treats both monolingual and Spanish speaking clients of all ages and disabilities and utilizes some of the latest computer based treatment especially designed to promote optimal language development. Her expertise in second language learning is extensive and as such, she is currently publishing a resource guide to be used by educators in “connecting” with ELLs.
