The teaching of English as a foreign language is now, in many places, expanding into primary (elementary) school settings


Teaching children versus teaching adults



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PLANNING FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

Teaching children versus teaching adults

The first key thing that all children’s teachers should remember is that the teaching of children and the teaching of adults, both in technique and attitude, are entirely different propositions.


First of all, since all teachers are adults themselves, it is in the world of the adult they tend to teach while it is in the world of the child that the youngsters are learning. Moreover, the last time the teachers were in classrooms as children themselves was in college. And this is important to remember, because it is the feature of teachers to teach as they have been taught. Since young children are so different from teenagers and adults in developmental terms, to take the same approach to the teaching of such dissimilar learning groups would be and is a huge mistake.
Even teachers who are experienced and have strong theoretical background can forget or be blinded to some of the most basic tenets of the classroom when teaching children, because the ideal learning environment for the child is not what it is for the adult. Veteran teachers might have a tendency to elevate a method or lesson plan to primacy, but in doing so have a hard time actually communicating with young chargers.
So as we can see, that when we want to teach children to speak English we should think at first about their interests, their inner world, which is too different from inner world of adults. Also as we know that children love everything new, colourful, bright, they are fond of different games, toys and etc. we should use such things in our teaching methods to motivate children, make the lessons for them more real. If it is interesting for a child he will take part in a lesson and will speak.



      1. Differences between children and adults in language learning

1. Young children learn languages better
This is a commonly held view, based on many people's experience seeing (or being) children transplanted to a foreign environment and picking up the local language with apparent ease. The obvious conclusion from this experience would seem to be that children are intrinsically better learners; but this has not been confirmed by research. On the contrary: given the same amount of exposure to a foreign language, there is some evidence that the older the child the more effectively he or she learns; probably teenagers are overall the best learners. (The only apparent exception to this is pronunciation, which is learned more easily by younger children.) The reason for children's apparently speedy learning when immersed in the foreign environment may be the sheer amount of time they are usually exposed to the language, the number of 'teachers' surrounding them, and the dependence on (foreign-language-speaking) people around to supply their needs ('survival' motive).
The truth of the assumption that young children learn better is even more dubious if applied to formal classroom learning: here there is only one teacher to a number of children, exposure time is very limited, and the 'survival' motive does not usually apply. Moreover, young children have not as yet developed the cognitive skills and self-discipline that enable them to make the most of limited teacher-mediated information; they rely more on intuitive acquisition, which in its turn relies on a larger volume of comprehensible input than there is time for in lessons.

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