Lydia Christopher Christopher

I like the Communicative Language Teaching-
It does not focus on grammatical fluency. Instead, it emphasizes communicating the meaning of the message; in other words, it focuses on how well a person (non-native speaker) can deliver in the English language.

Interaction in the English language results in a proper understanding of the language.
Students are taught strategies to understand English.
The experiences of the students are focused on making up the content of the lessons, so I use a combination of techniques to make a better understanding. Another method I use for teaching is the Task-Based Approach – This approach focuses on competencies the students want to develop and is based on the idea, why is English taught? Rather than what is shown. So here, the language is learned by doing certain activities and relating English to daily conversation.

Project-Based Approach – as a teacher, you need to ask yourself why your students have come to learn English. Now keeping their requirements in mind, you need to devise a project which the learner works on. The project might be a role-play or a presentation.

Teaching English to young learners or novices is always a challenge. Especially English as a foreign language is taught to groups who are either monolingual or may be multi-lingual but not native speakers. We need to be more careful and need to keep in mind a few things when teaching English to beginners.

Keep your instructions clear and straightforward – Always remember while giving instructions to your new batch of students, that it should be simple and broken down into short sentences, it need not be too formal or courteous. If you want to sound polite, simple words such as ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You will do, because the learners in the early stage will know only a few words of English and too formal language will be overwhelming.

Encourage the novices to listen and then speak. You should motivate the students to listen to the pronunciations, pay attention to the grammar, and develop a vocabulary before they start speaking English. However, you will find many of the learners try to begin speaking in the language as soon as the classes commence. But there will be few who would wait. You should smartly plan your lessons so that the beginners are equipped with sufficient English knowledge and can communicate soon.
Drilling and repetition – The students need a lot of repetition and drilling to learn sentences carefully. It may seem monotonous but is an efficient method of teaching. Say the sentence, break it down, go back and forth and repeat it till the new learner understands it and learns it.

Avoid metalanguage – Do not use terminologies as the new learners do not know how to use them while communicating. E.g., irregular verbs, the learners are not sure about these or their usage. So it is better to use visual cues for better comprehension. Try to find out how much they have understood by asking relevant questions or asking them to explain again. Do not ask the question, ‘Do you understand?’. The learners, when asked this question, may be reluctant to reply correctly or may even believe that they have understood everything.

Remember that the students are fluent in their language – Do not forget that your students, while speaking broken English, will try to think in their language and translate it into English while speaking. Point this out to them, try to teach them to maintain a flow and rhythm, and deal patiently.
Do your homework correctly – When I am starting a new class, I normally prepare well with the topic and keep many related activities ready. Plan out clearly how I will introduce the topic, break the ice, and make my students express themselves.
I think of the probable challenges I may face and keep a solution ready. This makes teaching effective and learning fun for new learners.

In Conclusion
As teachers, we are the torch bearers of a civilized society. For ages, we have used different methods, approaches, and styles to suit the child’s requirements. Teaching English as a second language is a challenge as we can see that for non-native speakers, various methods need to be devised. English teaching is an exciting task, as we are multi-lingual and have diverse socio-economic backgrounds Still, general thinking identifies the English language as a mark of being literate. So I put together all the methods to find the best one for my students. I liked the Silent way method whereby students try to learn by talking to each other.