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AJ’s Young Learners’ English teaching

                           By Peng Xuehong

                             2005-3-27

１．Introduction:

Mr Arthur John Steward，who is the principal of Canadian International English Kid’s School and one of the major writer of GZ primary school English oral English teaching text books, was invited to give a demonstration lesson and sharing his beliefs in young learners English teaching to the English teachers from Tianhe district in the afternoon on 25^th. March. Three teaching sharing tasks were provided by AJ in that afternoon: A 30 minutes demonstration lesson, brief introduction to his EFL teaching belief and answering to the teachers’ questions about how to teach English to the Year 1-2 primary students in GZ.

2.My learning from the seminar:

2.1. What I appreciate most in his lesson was:

²       His good at laying stepping-stones or scaffolding the students to learn. (教师在帮助学生理解新知识时的铺垫技巧和巧妙利用循序渐进的教学原则。)

²       His belief of teaching English to young learners： Meaning goes first, children needs fun and confidence and making real life into language teaching. (他的一些教学理念：理解语言意义的重要性，小孩英语学习兴趣和信心的培养以及语言实际运用能力。)

2.2The following is some of my understanding from learning:

²       Teacher’s passion (职业热情/敬业精神)：From the first impression of AJ’s greetings to the students and the attitude that he had showed to the students in his lesson, what I had seen was his smiling face, humorous actions, patient attitude, highly motivated students (nearly all the little eyes were staring at the teacher.) and what I had heard was his funny changing voices and lots of the students happily laughter. Doesn’t all these improve what he had told us “I love the children. ”

²       teaching techniques( 课堂教学技巧):　We didn’t seen CAI, ohp,or even any simple pictures were used in his lesson. What he used to teach the language to be understood was his body languages: lovely changeable voices, lots of humorous actions, full of funny facial expressions, and what’s more, he had make good use of his native language. What he had done all these just to help his belief that language should be understood by the children at the very beginning of their learning . Does it mean that “ Meaning goes first?” principle was used in his teaching？

²       His sharing ideas of how to make effective learning happen: （关于有效教学）

·        Make the students to talk to each other is very important. Make sure that everybody is doing (learning: speaking, listening, watching, thinking etc.) something all the time.

·        Be able to understand what you are saying and make sure to help the children to understand it.

·        Break the language up if necessary: e.g. To teach “Where are you going ?”, it’s better to teach where , then are you, then the whole sentence.

·        How to deal with the higher level students and low level students learning at the same time? One way is to let the strong ones to help the weak ones to learn.

·        Group work is a good way to keep the students confidence, to let them to help each other to learn without the pressure of feeling making mistakes in the public.

·        How to check the individual’s learning in the big class? To check the students’ learning randomly instead of checking every individual one by one. If you check them randomly, they have to prepared in mind so that to get ready to be checked.

·        Keep the students’ attention : make it fun and interesting to draw their attention in learning.

²       About how to use the course book. (关于用教材教与教教材的问题)

·        To bring real life into the classroom teaching. Not just teach the language in the course book but use the text book to teach real life language. To make it real. Then the students can say some English in their life not just to recite or read the language on the book.

·        When you are teaching songs/ chants/stories/etc., the first thing you need to do is to take the language in them. Then you can use the actions or create some others things to help the students to understand the language.

3.AJ’s personal EFL(English as First Language):

  There is a need to learn English but more importantly there is more importantly there is a need to think and feel in English. This is the only way that natural learning can take place. There are four keys that will start to open the students mind to English as a natural language.

PERSONAL:　Many teachers make the mistake of teaching the material in such away that makes it irrelevant to the students. Children believe that the world revolves around them. To children everything is about ME, ME, ME. As a teacher you need to present your lesson in a personal manner. Children absorb everything that is about ME, ME, ME.

FLEXIBLE: Natural learning needs to have flexibility that promotes growth. Many teachers teach one way to respond to a question. Almost every time I ask a student how are you? They quickly respond I’m fine , thank you and you ? This isn’t true to thinking or feeling. It’s only a memorized response that has no meaning.

USE ENGLISH: Many teachers make the mistake and translate to achieve understanding. This goes against every thing that is natural . When my mother taught me to speak she never translated (and I’m, guessing that neither did yours). Understanding comes not from translating but from feeling and sounds. Students (and everybody) understand (thinking in a natural way ) by associating the sounds they hear to the feeling or meaning being expressed. This calls for the teacher to be more active by using body language and expressions.

FUN: If students are having fun learning becomes easier . Student need to enjoy English by using English to promote the personal , flexible , and fun aspects of English . English will no longer be just a classroom subject. It will be a very real way to express themselves.

AJ的教育心得
　　孩子要通过用英文来学习英文！许多教师误以为翻译可以达到理解的目的，其实理解不是来自于翻译，而是来自声音的感知。要用英文来教英文及用生动活泼的表情来教孩子英文，如果你引导的方法正确，英文就不再是一门课程，而是一种表达他们自己思想的方式。那么英文就是中国孩子的第二母语了！
Children need to lean English y using English. Translating is not the right way to teach. Teachers that translate cannot allow the student to think independently in English. Children at this age like babies can pick up language at a native speak level. English will no longer be just a classroom subject. It will become a very real way to express themselves.