Нова українська школа: методика навчання англійської мови в 1-2 класах закладів заглобальної середньої освіти на засадах компетентнісного підходу - Карпюк О. Д. 2020
2. Enabling 6-7 Olds' Learning a Foreign Language
Part I. From Theory to Practice
As the teacher’s role is to provide a selection of enabling opportunities in which to acquire English, the atmosphere and teaching style in English lessons may be different from content-based lessons like Maths or Science. Some parents feel that since their children are now in compulsory education with a timetable divided into major subjects, instruction should now be more formal and should begin to resemble secondary school methods. Their reaction when their child refers to ’playing’ in the English lesson can be of annoyance and they may openly criticise the teacher for not ’teaching’, saying something like I did not send my child to primary school to play! Play is for break time. I expect my child to learn English.
In a child’s mind, the physical activity of play is like adults’ work — children are intrinsically motivated to physically try out things, to find out how they work. Play is the highest form of learning and helps children to apply what they learn in an integrated way.
Play is learning through doing: taking part in shared activities with a supportive adult or older child whose language the child can absorb unconsciously. A division between play and work only exists in the minds of adults who think in terms of formal teaching and instruction. For young children the two are blurred until the age of 6, when children begin to become aware of actually ’learning’. Any distinction made by children might arise from external symbols of a formal approach (such as sitting at a desk or using a textbook) but not from the content of an activity. Even if the content is more formal (such as a spelling test), playful use of voice and language by the teacher can make children feel that the experience is fun and they may even describe it to others as playing a game.
Language needs action as an accompaniment or the situation has no meaning for the children (Krashen, 1981). Motivation is vital for all learning, whether it involves new or familiar content. Through the playful approach teachers can motivate and remotivate — although remotivation should be monitored as it can have a negative effect if overused.
Once children know how to play a game well, they often act as home play tutors to their family when playing games in their own language or English. Much to the delight and amusement of parents, their children naturally insert the games at home.
Teachers need to continually observe, assess and record children’s type and level of play and be ready to add guidance and add further challenge where needed. Where play is repetitive and at a low level of cognition, the teacher needs to get involved by sensitively interacting with new language or a relevant new object. This will stimulate interest and also scaffold a child’s next level of cognition.
Where teachers are not sensitive to children’s low-level satisfaction and achievement in an activity or game, children can lose interest and can easily become bored or frustrated, saying I don’t want to play. I don’t like this. Interest should always be restimulated before the end of the lesson, since a lack of volition can easily spread to attitudes at home and carry on to the next lesson. Loss of interest can also foster parents’ belief that English lessons are nothing but play and that their child needs more formal instruction.
Young children need repetition. Children, without adult help or intervention, repeat games or activities until they gain ownership and control over them. This can most easily be seen in the playground during break time where — either by themselves, in pairs or in a small group — children play the same game with the same rules over and over again. Children need opportunities to experience repetition like this in the English classroom and also at home if they are to gain ownership and control. Frequent chances to repeat activities are needed so that children have the opportunity to repeat patterns — which is crucial for learning.
Let’s look at three important aspects of how children learn in order to show how to approach teaching children a foreign language. These are the following:
✵ Children need an enabling language learning environment.
✵ Children learn language through lots of meaningful exposure and practice.
✵ Children do not learn language through explicit grammatical explanations.
Children need an enabling language learning environment
Success in foreign language learning also depends on the characteristics of the classroom environment. Children may use similar processes to acquire a first or native language and a foreign language.
Children are highly motivated to learn and use the language because it enables them to meet immediate needs and respond to their surroundings. For example, when a child is hungry and wants milk, she/he will learn the word for milk in order to ask for it. In contrast, the foreign language classroom environment tends to have the opposite characteristics — that is, the language used and presented is artificial because it is not based in real life. Traditional foreign language classes tend to focus heavily on form and isolated structures rather than a meaningful context in which the message is more important than form. If the language used is not in context and not meaningful to young learners, then it will be difficult to motivate them to participate and learn. Children will be motivated if there is a real purpose or reason to use the language, just like the child learning to use the word «milk» because she/he is hungry. Therefore, teachers should engage learners in purposeful activities that are appropriate for them and that mirror first language acquisition, like storytelling, singing, chanting, talking with each other socially, letter writing, e-mailing, reading recipes, and watching plays, TV shows and films.
Children learn language through lots of meaningful exposure and practice
In their own language environment, children are surrounded by their native language. It is being spoken and used in various contexts all around the child. This constant source of meaningful exposure to language in authentic contexts helps children acquire language naturally and quickly. However, when learning English as a foreign language, usually the only place and time learners can hear or use English is the classroom. Most English classes in first and second years of primary school meet 2-3 hours per week for 35-45 minutes per class relatively. Because this is not much time per week of exposure to English, the challenge of the English primary teacher is to create an English-speaking classroom environment and use English as much as possible during the 35-45 minutes she/he has the students. To create an optimal environment for learning English, the input in the classroom needs to be comprehensible and just above the students’ current level of English (Krashen, 1981). Teachers can support comprehension of input by using lots of visuals, realia, gestures, and caregiver speech. Caregiver speech refers to the adjustment of language done by a child’s caregiver, which for first language acquisition is the parent or grandparent. Teachers can also use caregiver speech to help make language input in the classroom more comprehensible, such as a slower rate of speech, using shorter and simpler sentences, and repeating or rephrasing utterances.
In addition to giving lots of meaningful, comprehensible input, it is important to give students plenty of chances to practise using English in class. This means giving them the opportunity to produce meaningful and comprehensible output (Swain, 1985). Without enough opportunities to produce output, students will not be able to test their hypotheses about how English works.
Children do not learn language through explicit grammatical explanations!
Grammatical structures are the building blocks of language, but the approach to teaching grammar should match the way students learn. The approach to teaching grammar should be «learning-centred,» which Cameron (2003: 110) describes as «... meaningful and interesting, require active participation from learners, and will work with how children learn and what they are capable of learning». With language this means that learners need to experience the language through lots of exposure. They will not learn through grammatical explanations; rather, they will gain an understanding of the grammar implicitly through repetition and recycling of the language in different contexts. As Pinter (2006) and Cameron (2003) emphasise, this approach to teaching young learners encourages them to «notice» the grammar rather than being taught the structures explicitly. Pinter explains that teachers should give plenty of meaning-focused input that will help young learners notice grammar.
When the teacher focuses students’ attention on a different way to express how they are and feel, she/he is getting students to notice the grammatical constructions and use them correctly.
As Cameron (2003: 107)) wrote, «children see the foreign language ’from the inside’ and try to find meaning in how the language is used in action, in interaction, and with intention, rather than ’from the outside’ as a system and form». «In action» means learning by doing; «in interaction» means learning through social activities; and «with intention» means the activities have a real purpose to use the language. Therefore, teachers should expose children to language in authentic and meaningful contexts and use repetition and recycling in order to improve young learners’ ability to understand the new language structures and use them correctly.