Нова українська школа: методика навчання англійської мови в 1-2 класах закладів заглобальної середньої освіти на засадах компетентнісного підходу - Карпюк О. Д. 2020
3. Teacher-Child Relationships
Part I. From Theory to Practice
Without understanding the whole child it can be difficult to tune in to his or her needs. The English teacher needs to know something of the use of languages and the type of English-language interest in the child’s home.
By primary school a child’s relationship with the English teacher has developed from that of a protective aunty-like figure in the preschool years to one of a caring teacher built on mutual respect. As primary school pupils, children feel more grown-up and more in control of themselves, ready to take responsibility. They now want to be independent and show they can make things happen, although they still need support and guidance from adults. Getting the balance right in the period between preschool and upper primary is essential. The lower-primary years are an important bridge between the two, in which children need adult help to confidently develop over time their own self-learning strategies as they mature holistically. In helping the children, the teacher is not just thinking of teaching English, but also of adapting English input to the holistically- maturing children’s needs.
The teacher’s main roles are the following:
Motivator: using the playful approach to stimulate and restimulate positive interest in activities and formal literacy.
Modeller: using teacher-talk to aid understanding of emotional, social and classroom behaviour as well as modelling new activities.
Mediator: introducing new challenges including tutor-talks to explain formal literacy.
Manager: planning lessons, guided by the hidden syllabus and assessment but also following children’s interests; indicating revision needs.
Monitor: assessing children within lessons and weekly to check progress and the need to revisit learning (this includes the summing-up sessions at the end of each lesson in which achievements and future plans are discussed).
Children need to be motivated if they are to continue to self-educate at their own pace and find meaning through self-discovery. They now understand new concepts, with adults mediating less and less, but need to be stimulated to use their self-language-learning strategies to acquire, understand and eventually use a wider range of spoken English.
To motivate we need to arouse curiosity in children. Curiosity is aroused by seeing something new, or something different from what they expected. This arouses their interest to find out more about it. Children have an internal need for consistency, and they look for things to fit into their cognitive map of understanding. When something does not fit in, it causes tension or ’cognitive dissonance’, which innately drives them to find out more so they can resolve the inconsistency and fit the new information into their thinking. During this process children are focusing, exploring and learning at a deep level. Highly curious people show openness to new ideas, as well as an innate drive to examine and learn, and therefore expand their own cognitive map. I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious (Einstein).
Motivation and ’emotional literacy’ are closely linked, and together help to create the ’feel-good’ factor which is vital for self-learning. Goleman (2009) talks about emotional literacy as being the ability to experience and manage emotions positively, as well as recognise emotions in others and show empathy. If children of this age are not yet emotionally literate, it can be difficult to motivate them — and if they are not motivated, little or no self-acquisition of English can occur.
A child with little emotional literacy still finds the activities involving working in pairs, groups, leading difficult. Young children want and need to feel liked by other children in the class if they are to feel good.
Motivation can be thought of as ’intrinsic’, where children motivate themselves, and ’extrinsic’ where motivation comes from the outside (with the teacher igniting it by setting the scene for an enabling activity).
To start to manage their emotions, children need to:
✵ feel physically secure and safe within the classroom
✵ feel the teacher understands and recognises their emotions
✵ know the classroom routine so they can predict the next activity
✵ know some basic English to talk about their emotions
✵ know how to read emotions in others (children and adults)
Children need to be able to describe their emotions and thoughts in English if they are to develop a sense of well-being. If they have no simple vocabulary of English to express their emotions and thoughts, they may hide them or resort to talking about them in their own language. Words for feelings and thoughts can be picked up from teacher-talk — this can be in the form of teacher modelling, or from a planned game that introduces basic feelings in a context which children understand.
Children are constantly watching behaviour and learning how to show and handle their emotions through modelling and mirroring the teacher and other adults as well as other children close to them. Consider this example:
Discussing feelings
✵ The teacher introduces words for describing emotions by cutting out cardboard face shapes and sticking them onto short sticks. Each cardboard face shape has a different facial expression drawn on it: a sad face, a happy face, a surprised face, an angry face, etc.
✵ The teacher shows the faces and asks the children to say how each face feels. The children learn to say, «He’s happy. »or «She’s angry.» etc. They also learn to answer the question «Are you happy?» with «Yes, I’m happy.» or «No, I’m sad.»
✵ The teacher then plays a game with the children, calling out words to do with feelings and children have to choose the cardboard face that matches the word.
Good relationships with teachers and peers contribute to enjoyment. The teacher needs to include enabling activities in which children can work together. Children learn more from other children than from adults, since they are similar to themselves and easier to copy. However, they are constantly watching adults’ behaviour and learning from it how to manage their emotions.
Children have to be reassured that talking about feelings is normal and acceptable in the English classroom. When thinking about the emotional development of children, teachers need to include activities that help them begin to balance their emotions, such as using co-reading picture books that can be discussed together as a class. Children need a rich language environment if they are to acquire language to their full potential and feel motivated. Motivation depends on the teacher’s choice of structured enabling activities, appropriate to the interests and maturity of the children.
Teachers are children’s role models; they are the main source of the children’s input, guiding and tutoring them whilst sharing with them spoken and written language to meet their self-learning strategies, needs and levels.
Young children still want to please their teacher and their parents, too. They look for their approval as it gives them confidence and assurance that they are doing the right thing. Young children want to feel successful, and can now measure their own ability, contrasting it quite accurately with others in their class. They generally know the ’ranking’ of children in their class and teachers may hear comments like «Mariika is the best at English. Andriiko knows a lot of English words about food». Teachers often try to disguise group levels by calling them different animal names or colours, but children usually work out which is the top group! Children talk about who is the best openly amongst themselves and often explain it to their parents, too.
The teacher’s main role is to enable the child to use and develop his or her self-acquisition language-learning strategies whilst also allowing autonomy to grow. The teacher’s role r*'/ expands as the use of English becomes more advanced; they become involved in delegating responsibilities, organising more complex activities and in the introduction of formal literacy.
Children may need short periods of silence for self-reflection, but long periods of silence when there is no opportunity to listen and learn any English from the teacher (their main source of English input in the classroom) are a waste of children’s learning time. The use of different voices, intonation and language styles (descriptive, reported speech, etc.) is important as a teacher responds to changes within the classroom, or sees a need to remotivate. A sudden, whispered «Listen, children. Let’s think about...» can surprise and interest the class and quickly get their attention!
Once children have got used to picking up English, they appear to have refined how to use their self-language-learning strategies. Teachers should not underestimate children’s ability to pick up English, and shouldn’t let learning preconceptions limit the amount of input they’ve given the children. Children are innate language learners and always understand much more than they can say. If they feel overloaded, they know how to switch off and wait to be remotivated. The art of a skilled teacher is getting the right balance by providing structure whilst supporting autonomy.
A young child expects a teacher to be:
✵ friendly
✵ reliable
✵ caring
✵ full of enthusiasm and positive energy
✵ a source of knowledge (or to know where to obtain information)
✵ an example of fair play in games (not accepting any form of cheating)
✵ just and fair in all personal comments and assessments
✵ respectful of any work in which effort and improvement have been made
✵ ready to со-share when a child or pair cannot manage alone
The teacher-child relationship continues to evolve as the child develops and as the teacher gradually changes from leader to sharer or co-partner, using language and management routines in cooperation with the child until he or she is ready to lead alone. The degree of teacher support changes to match the child’s progress, well-being (physical and emotional) and desire to do things autonomously. Within a single lesson language support can range from teacher- initiated and teacher-led to shared support, to child-led and child-initiated.
Children have their own views on teachers and they openly tell parents who is their favourite teacher and why. A supportive relationship shows that the teacher values the children’s ideas. It also encourages children to initiate sometimes, using phrases like «I have an idea. Can I tell you?» Children need to be confident that initiating is allowed in the English classroom.
It’s also important to remember that children learn more from each other than from the teacher as, from a child’s point of view, peers are easier to copy than an adult. Children learn strategies from watching each other, and are more likely to imitate what someone quite like them does rather than an adult.