TESOL acronym is Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Through 10 clases of studying , we acknowledged that the diferente ages of children have different characteristics and different types of intelligence, and we learned some methods how to teach them accordingly. Also we studied how to manage the class and atmosphere, and Tesol told us which way is better for teaching the different ages pupils for listening , reading, writing and speaking.
How to teach second laguage to the younger learners?
TESOL age categories are age 1-17 years oldes, they are Early childhood development(age1-5),Elemetary(age6-9),Junior High age(10-13),High school age(14-17). Each of the language development stages have different characteristics, as well as different learners have different intelligence types, so that we need creative the class different accordingly. Otherwise all of our learners are youngers that the concentration and attention spans are short, varity is a must - varity of activity, variety of pace, varity of organisation, variety of voice.
Teaching the toddlers ,telegraphic speech is emerging at this point. We teach them use of short words and phrases that omit unnecessary modifiers and articles in order to convey general meanings, as far as this stage babies the best way of teaching language is prepared them some appropriate toys and paints for playing and drawing, listen story, musica.etc.
As to the elementary children at this age are developing skills, including Gross motor skills, fine motor skills, recognition skills, social skills, so we teach them not only speak words, but also most activities , we will need to have plenty of objects and pictures to work with, and to make full use of the school and our surroundings. Using the mothed of Total physical Response to teach the kids vocabulary and sentence forms to help them easer to learn. Guiding the learner use the words to make sentences o make contextual cut, also we can make scaffolding instraction to make sentences to come upto help kids comprehension. Make communicate lessons to practice.
Regarding the Junior children at this age start to communicate in a clear stream of consciousness that mean they worry about not being liked by their peers, they start to do things to get attention etc, we should let the pupils talk to themselves.Make up rhymes, sing songs, tell stories, reading aloud, silent reading , building up confidence. Play with the language let them talk nonsense. Guiding written activivties, such as fill-in exercises, Dictation. Free writing activities, Pre-writing activities.etc.
High school stages children they have math,science and social studies are emphasized, at this stage, they start to appreciate and celebrate cultural individul difference. Talking about your real life expriences for the kids. Make talk activities , such as give a topic to discuss in the class.
In addtion all aboves, we should concern the learners those who have different types of intelligence when we build the class, also we need to know which intelligences you have, so that we can use the great way to teach to the preferred learning styles and cultural differences in the classroom. Eight types of intelligence as following:
Linguistic intelligence type are good at telling stories. Teacher can have onestudent sitting in front of the class and tell stories. Also, he or she canmake up stories with students.
I would introduce the exercise called putting things in order to logical-mathematical intelligence. Students of this group are given an amount of pictures which illustrate a text. The pictures are put into disordered so that students need to put them in the right order as they listen to the text
“Spatial smart” students are suitable for playing Pictionary game. Teacher group students into two teams and show oneteam member a flashcard. That member then draws the flashcard picture on theboard. The student who calls first gets a point.
The student of“body smart” are good at talking with their hands, therefore we should like to have them play a game called Charades. The whole class is divided into two teams.Teacher shows a flashcard to both students from each team and they act it out.The first team to guess the correct word gets a point.
Musica lintelligence enjoys songs very well. Playing or singing songs make them feel happy. We will help them to pick different kinds of songs, including animal songs, event songs, counting songs, nap time songs and so on.
Students frominterpersonal intelligence enjoy conversation with others. Circle time is agood way of Group students into a number of 4-8. They also have a specifictopic like “Which story book do you like best? Which one do you like least?”
Intrapersonal intelligence students have their own word, and they are easily to get into abook. Therefore, silent reading is more suitable for them than otherintelligence groups. Teacher can build an English corner and ask students tobring their feverous storybooks from home, so there is a library open freely tothe class.
“Nature smart” students are more willing tolearn in a nature environment like parks, mountain and museum. So teacher canorganize more camping activities which help students to explore nature bythemselves.
Respect your pupils and be realistic about what they can manage at an indicidula level , then your expectations will be realistic too.
By Susan xie
13th of Jan. 2018
