TEACHING BEGINNER LEARNERS 11th July, 2005 This meeting was in the form of a workshop brainstorming and ideas sharing session. We looked at challenges, needs and ideas and when teaching beginners. We all put our ideas together and came to the following conclusions. Challenges Many beginner Chinese students may feel afraid of speaking to a foreign teacher It can be difficult to make "Hello, how are you?" interesting Beginner students often have little idea why they are learning English or what they want to learn. Getting the students to actually use English in the classroom at all is a real challenge. Deciding what to teach them and in what order - should we teach vocabulary first or grammar? Pacing - how to keep the pace fast enough to keep them active and slow enough for the less able students to keep up. Needs As teachers we need a good text book - one with short, interesting texts and very colourful to keep our students motivated. The textbook also needs to have a good vocabulary input and Chinese and English texts. Learner training - beginner students need to be taught how to learn a language effectively. Pronunciation - teaching the students how to produce the individual sounds of English will give them confidence and help them speak up. Adult/young learners have different needs regarding pronunciation training - children can 'pick up' the pronunciation much easier than adults. Beginner students need functional language (asking for prices, saying 'thank you' etc) more than grammar structures. Ideas A very useful website which includes free downloadable lessons can be found at: http://esl.about.com/od/teachingbeginners/a/ab_beg_intro.htm Pictures or realia are essential for teaching vocabulary if you don't speak the L1. Being an OTT or actor-type teacher can help students focus on you and remember what you present them. Endless patience is a big asset when teaching beginners. Young learners can be encouraged to speak up and take risks by the use of stars and stickers. Sweets and other prizes can also provide external motivation. Discipline can be used by the teacher to make the teachers speak up. Keeping the lesson pace fast will keep the learners on their toes.Using task-based learning is a new area which is worth exploring: Show the class a video of native speakers doing something - ie buying bananas. After showing the students the video, ask them to do the same in pairs Monitor and then provide more structure and langauge and get them to do it again, Repeat this, each time providing the students with more language and asking them to do it again. At the end show them the video again - allowing the learners to see how much they have learnt during the lesson. Repetition - Repeating the same thing but in different ways will help beginner students to learn and grow in confidence. Repeat the same thing in within and over lessons. Make students who insist on using L1 when you want them to use English by getting them to sing a song whenever they use Chinese in the classroom.   Microsoft Word Document Teaching Beginners.doc