Нова українська школа: методика навчання англійської мови в 1-2 класах закладів заглобальної середньої освіти на засадах компетентнісного підходу - Карпюк О. Д. 2020
4. Cooperating with Parents
Part I. From Theory to Practice
Teachers have to be aware of how parents describe their children, particularly parents’ perceptions of their children’s qualities and faults. Sometimes parents may say, in front of their children, «She’s very shy. He’s not good at studying.» Even though some children ’perform’ in front of their parents to please them, the teacher should not automatically accept the parents’ description or the child’s behaviour in this situation. Instead, teachers should find out for themselves — it could be that the child may want to act quite differently in the environment of the English lesson.
Although the lower-primary child is now more independent, the same basic triangle of influence and support (parent, teacher, child) remains important in English learning. New discoveries innately motivate children to try and express their thoughts, imagination and feelings with others in English. Discovering the world at this age is exciting, and both parents and teachers need to arouse curiosity and enable, as well as inspire, the desire to explore.
The importance of the parents’ role in shepherding a child’s acquisition of English, especially in the initial stages of a more formal approach, is often overlooked by teachers. Parents are usually children’s native language teachers and obviously have a special bond with them, and children in turn want to please their parents and need their love. Parents know their children best and intuitively decode their feelings and needs, as well as their ’winding- up’ tricks.
Many parents need help to tune in to their child’s English learning as they are not always aware of how well children are capable of absorbing English or of a new educational research relevant to learning English as a foreign language. Teachers could consider preparing a presentation or written document explaining to parents:
✵ how their children will be taught
✵ how their children will be prepared for presentation of their work
✵ how they can best support their children
Teachers often forget that most parents lack confidence as they feel they are treading a new path that they may not understand. Many parents need encouragement and some may not even realise that any positive interest they show can help motivate their child.
Cooperation between teacher and parents is vital since any criticism of the teacher or teaching methods can quickly spread. Children talk amongst themselves, saying things like «My mother says that the English teacher is...», which is then repeated to other parents. Young children are still very influenced by what their parents say. Even if criticism is not verbalised, children can still feel it from their parents’ body language and attitudes.
The balance of the triangle of child, parent and teacher still remains important if the English learning environment is to be right for the child. By now English learning has spread beyond the teacher and classroom to other children and teachers at school. It may also have spread to the extended family and influenced wider aspects, like the family occasionally eating British food!
Regular assessment with photos, texts or even recordings can help children to feel that they have a role to play in the triangle. Parents can have a lot of influence (sometimes called ’parent power’). Most parents are very interested in their child’s success, and a positive attitude from parents is important for achieving it. Parents want to help and can do so even if they have only basic English themselves — but they often lack confidence. They may say things like «My pronunciation is not good. I can’t get my ’r’s’ and Ts’ right.»
Teachers can guide parents, harnessing their ’power’ to undertake supportive activities at home. This helps parents to tune in to their children. There can be joy in learning together as a family and surprises too when parents hear their 7-year-old son or daughter correct their pronunciation! Parents often relay their experience to the teacher who needs to remind parents that young children already have skills to critically compare the difference in English sounds... a remarkable linguistic achievement at the age of 7!
To attain a positive balance, the teacher needs to keep parents regularly informed of how and what he or she is teaching. The teacher also needs to be ready for regular feedback — good and bad — and any criticism needs to be dealt with immediately. Parents who are tuned in to their child have intimate current knowledge of him or her, not least because they see homework taking place and often participate in it. However, teachers need to decode whether a parent is interpreting their child through their own ideas or reporting the child’s reactions accurately.
Parents are more knowledgeable about their own children than anyone else can ever be; they have a deeper emotional commitment to them and wider background of experience shared with them than can ever be achieved in institutions, which have the children for a comparatively few hours.
The confusion over the playful approach in English lessons is one of the many things that need explaining to parents if they are to understand how their child acquires formal literacy skills. Parents need to understand that their child needs space and time in order to find out that effort and perseverance get results. Even playing the same game over and over again with a parent until they win contributes to children’s self-discovery and selfmanagement!
The fact that parents keenly follow their child’s progress is clearly good for the child. It is up to the teacher to harness this interest by explaining to parents how children are acquiring English in the classroom. Teachers also need to give parents confidence through useful suggestions for follow-up at home.
Parents need to be able to experience their child’s progress. To do this, teachers need to include ’show-off’ pieces, like rhymes, songs or jokes that can be enjoyed by the entire family. These quick, oral experiences convince parents of some progress.
Parents are also often involved in more formal spelling quizzes that show weekly progress. Where possible, picture books can be taken home for shared reading, or suggestions can be made for suitable English-speaking YouTube video clips to be watched and enjoyed together at home.
Parents have to develop an enabling attitude to using English by creating a ’talking English relationship’. In this relationship, the child wants to and enjoys talking in English to family members, often at a regularly scheduled time. The ’feel-good’ factor is very important for all learning, and especially for learning a language since it involves dialoguing with someone older who is sensitive to you and what you say.
Learning and sharing English experiences in a family can be bonding. English phrases sometimes become private ’in-family’ language over several generations, recalling experiences with deeper meaning.
Talking to their child face to face about English or in English can encourage and motivate both the parent and the child. This requires patience. Too often adults are rushed and do not give children time to reply, smothering a child’s English by finishing off sentences, talking for them and giving answers. This can demotivate. For example, when playing a game a parent might say, «You’ve got a blue card. Put it there...» rather than «What have you got? Shall we put it here or there?»
How parents can bring English into the home? You can help them introducing new items.
✵ Make sure there is paper, pencils and coloured pens always available in a known place for writing, drawing or copying.
✵ Cut out photos from newspapers or download them from the internet. Add English headings to them.
✵ Have a special time when you sing songs or say rhymes children already know in English.
✵ Download songs in English so children can play them on a tablet or smartphone.
✵ Collect words written in English within the environment.
✵ Cook or buy some English food. Have an ’English-speaking meal’ with dishes from the English-speaking world.
✵ Reuse and adopt English phrases from stories, songs or rhymes, making them into in-family language, such as No, not now. In a few minutes. No problem. You can do it. Go ahead.
✵ Watch selected YouTube videos in English together, making a commentary.
✵ Play board games together. Make up your own games inserting your in-family words, for example names of wild animals.
✵ Play games to decide who does something.
✵ Read stories, picture books, and information books together.
✵ Create a non-stress haven at home where children can freely play, browse, reflect and consolidate.
Parents need to see and hear progress as well as receive formal assessments. Formal assessments should, however, be regular— if possible, once a week or once every two weeks. They can be:
✵ visual (photos or samples of written work or handiwork)
✵ recorded (on tablets or smartphones)
✵ textual plus visual (such as email newsletters)
Special ’wow’ moments when a child does something outstanding or, through effort, makes a significant leap forward need to be recorded in a special way within the classroom and reported to the parents on that same day.
End-of-term or end-of-year performances are expected by many schools as well as parents. These can be a form of assessment, although for the teacher the preparation activities are often more important than the final productions. Associated activities include making tickets, programmes and posters and giving children opportunities to play different roles. A production or show can be an opportunity for children to learn a whole script by heart and even prompt each other effectively where necessary. For children a performance is also an opportunity to have their parent’s total attention and interest, and this is stimulating and motivating for future learning.
Above all, care should be taken that assessing does not become too timeconsuming and therefore take away from interactive sharing activities with the teacher or other children.