What Are the Biggest Challenges in the Field of Teaching English to Young Learners?
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- Date Submitted: 03/07/2014 09:07 AM
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What are the biggest challenges in the field of teaching English
to young learners?
Being a teacher of English is not an easy job these days. Hidden among the gadgets that offer fast and incredible success in learning English, an English teacher has to fight for his position. Although it looks quite easy to deal with a group of young learners, there are lots of teachers who would never dare to face a classroom full of four or nine-year-old children. Teachers who work with those children know how challenging and demanding the job it is.
The list of challenges that teachers meet while teaching young learners is very long and it seems that every new child brings a new challenge. However, some issues are always present. Indiscipline and lack of attention of young learners are things that can ruin a perfect, well-planned and organized lesson. Can it be prevented? The answer is both yes and no. An experienced teacher would think of possible strange situations that could happen during his lesson while writing his lesson plan, so he could choose activities that would keep order in the class or motivate learners to do some work. But children’s imagination is a world of its own, and a teacher never knows what a child’s next move is. The classroom full of seven years olds would never do any task if a teacher allows them to do what they want. They would run, jump, laugh and yell as if they were at the playground. So let’s make a playground in the classroom! Give them jumping, running, flying, swimming any activity they want to do, but be a teacher of English and make them do all these things while saying those action words. The state of a complete chaos would turn into a constructive chaos. Use it! Make it a routine, a physical exercise at the beginning of a lesson. Compose a song with the verbs you use and make it an anthem of your class. Give them a secret code that means the end or the change of the activity. It could be a phrase, a mime, anything they would accept...
to young learners?
Being a teacher of English is not an easy job these days. Hidden among the gadgets that offer fast and incredible success in learning English, an English teacher has to fight for his position. Although it looks quite easy to deal with a group of young learners, there are lots of teachers who would never dare to face a classroom full of four or nine-year-old children. Teachers who work with those children know how challenging and demanding the job it is.
The list of challenges that teachers meet while teaching young learners is very long and it seems that every new child brings a new challenge. However, some issues are always present. Indiscipline and lack of attention of young learners are things that can ruin a perfect, well-planned and organized lesson. Can it be prevented? The answer is both yes and no. An experienced teacher would think of possible strange situations that could happen during his lesson while writing his lesson plan, so he could choose activities that would keep order in the class or motivate learners to do some work. But children’s imagination is a world of its own, and a teacher never knows what a child’s next move is. The classroom full of seven years olds would never do any task if a teacher allows them to do what they want. They would run, jump, laugh and yell as if they were at the playground. So let’s make a playground in the classroom! Give them jumping, running, flying, swimming any activity they want to do, but be a teacher of English and make them do all these things while saying those action words. The state of a complete chaos would turn into a constructive chaos. Use it! Make it a routine, a physical exercise at the beginning of a lesson. Compose a song with the verbs you use and make it an anthem of your class. Give them a secret code that means the end or the change of the activity. It could be a phrase, a mime, anything they would accept...