TEFL
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Minggu, 07 Juni 2009
Senin, 13 April 2009
testing grammar and vocabulary
TESTING GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY
Why test Grammar ?
A. Testing Grammar
- Control of grammatical structures was seen as the very core of language ability.
- The backwash effect of test which measure mastery of the skills directly may be thought preferable to that of test which encourages the learning of grammatical structures in isolation.
- The testing of grammar is one of the mainstays of language testing. While such tests test the ability to either recognize or produce correct grammar and usage, they do not test the ability to use the language to express meaning (Kenji, 2007).
However, it can be argued that a basic knowledge of grammar underlies the ability to use language to express meaning, and so grammar tests do have an important part to play in language programs. According to Alderson (1991) “English grammar is chiefly a system of syntax that decides the order and patterns in which words are arranged in sentences”
Proficiency test which are administered on a large scale still retain a grammar section because it must the ease with large numbers of items can administered and scored within a short period of time. Related to that is the question of content validity. for example, if we decide to test writing ability directly we are limited in the number of topics, styles of writing, etc. the sample chosen is not truly representatives of all possibilities. Of course, grammar test includes a good sample of all possible grammatical elements.
Achievement test, placement and diagnostics test of teaching institution is good to include a grammar component.
There have been other suggestions for how to test communicative grammar but none that have gained wide acceptance. This may be because it is impossible to measure communicative grammar directly. Thraser (2000) says that in order for a test to measure communicative grammar it must have five characteristics.
1. The test must provide more context than only a single sentence.
2. The test taker should understand what the communicative purpose of the task is.
3. He or she should also know who the intended audience is.
4. He or she must have to focus on meaning and not only form to answer correctly.
5. Recognition is not sufficient. The test taker must be able “to produce grammatical
responses.”
Writing Specifications
For achievement test, specification of content should be quite straightforward. Specification for a placement test will normally include all of being structures identified in this way. Those structures the command of which is taken for granted in even the lowest classes.
Sampling
This will reflect an attempt to give the test content validity by selecting widely from the structures specified.
Writing Items
The techniques of writing items:
(1) Paraphrase
These require the students to write a sentence equivalent in meaning to one that is given. it is helpful to give part of the paraphrase in order to restrict the students to the grammatical structure being tested.
For example:
(a) Testing passive
- When we arrived, a policeman was questioning the bank clerk.
When we arrived, the bank clerk ……………………………..
(b) Testing Present Perfect with for
It is six since I last saw him
I ………… six years
(2) Completion
This technique can be used to test a variety of structure
For example:
Mr Gilbert : Good morning. Mr.Cole. Please come in and sit down. Now let me see. (1) Which School …………..?
Mr Cole :
(3) Modified Cloze
For example:
(a) Testing
- John looked round the room. The book was still ….. the table.
(b) Testing Articles
- In
(c) Testing a Variety of grammatical Structures
- When the old man died,….was probably no great joy ….. heaven
(d) Testing sentence linking (a one-word answer is required)
- The council must do something to improve transport in the city. ……., they will lose the next election.
For valid and reliable scoring of grammar items of the kind advocated here, careful of the scoring key is necessary.
For example:
(a) Paraphrase
- Must have was being ….. ed- à 1 point
(b) Completion
à Whole mark for each question formed correctly with auxiliary and inversion and with tense suitable to context.
(c) Modified Cloze
Preposition Articles
on NA
under/beneath the
Varius Structures
There
in
Sentence linking
otherwise
B. TESTING VOCABULARY
Why Test Vocabulary?
1) Knowledge of vocabulary is essential to the development and demonstration of linguistic skills.
2) Testing vocabulary in proficiency tests used to support the inclusion the inclusion of grammar section.
3) Vocabulary achievement tests are appreciated for their backwash effect.
Writing Specifications
How do we specify the vocabulary for an achievement test?
à To add all the new items that the students have met in other activities (reading, listening, etc)
à To group the items in terms of their relative importance
Sampling
Words can be grouped according to their frequency and usefulness
Item Writing
we can test vocabulary by using synonyms, having the test taker select or supply the appropriate word to fill a blank, or by examining what test takers write or speak to decide if their word choice is acceptable or not (Thraser, 2000).
Recognition
Items may involve a number of different operations (multiple Choices):
a) Synonym
A good vocabulary test should present the words to be tested in as similar way as possible to the way they will be encountered in the real world. And the test taker shouldn’t have to guess which meaning of a word the test writer had in mind.
For example, An item testing ‘record’ in isolation might confuse students who first thought of a different meaning than the test writer is using.
To record a. to listen to b. to complete c. to understand d. to write down
b) Definitions
The ‘definitions’ would be the answer choices. That is, I would like to test ‘loathe’ in this way.
For example, Bill is someone I loathe.
a. like very much b. dislike intensely c. respect d. fear
c) Gap Filling
For example,
The strong wind _____ the man’s efforts to put up the tent.
a. disabled b. hampered c. deranged d. regaled
Production
It is intended only for possible use in achievement test.
a) Pictures
b) Definitions
this may work for a range of lexical items:
For example: A …… is a person who looks after our teeth
c) Gap filling
This can take the form of one or more sentences with single word missing
For example: Because of snow, the football match was ….. until the following weeks
Sentence Items
Another option is to test the vocabulary item by putting it in a sentence and having the testees choose the alternative that has the same meaning as a word in the sentence that is underlined, in italics, in bold type, etc. This is a preferred type of multiple choice vocabulary item, since the problem item appears in context and the context helps give the vocabulary word a specific meaning. However, in this case, the testee should not be able to surmise the meaning of the word from the context, unless the intention of the item is to test that skill (Kitao and Kitao, 2008).
REFERENCES
Alderson, Charles. & Brian. North (eds.) (1991) Language Testing in the 1990s: The
Communicative Legacy Modern English Publications in association with The British Council
Hughes, Arthur. 2000. Testing for Language Teachers.
Kitao, S. Kathleen and Kitao, Kenji. 2008. Testing Vocabulary. On-line
(http://www1.doshisha.ac.jp/~kkitao/library/article/test/vocab.htm, accessed on
Kitao, Kenji. 2007. Testing Grammar. On-Line (
http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kitao-TestingGrammar.html, accessed on
Thrasher, Randy. 2000. Test Theory and Test Design. On-line
(http://subsite.icu.ac.jp/people/randy/Test%20text%20grammar%20mcw.pdf. Accessed on
Senin, 09 Februari 2009
TEFL AT HOMESCHOOLING FOR YOUNG LEARNERS AT THE ELEMENTARY LEVEL: PROS AND CONS
TEFL AT HOMESCHOOLING FOR YOUNG LEARNERS AT THE ELEMENTARY LEVEL: PROS AND CONS
A. Introduction
English as a foreign language refers to teaching English to the people for whom it is not their mother language. EFL refers to the learning of English by the students in a country where English is not the native language. In most cases, the children are learning at kindergarten, elementary school, high school, university, or a language school in their own country. Some schools use kinds of method depending on their level of students. Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL) has become its own field of study as the age of compulsory English education has become lower and lower in countries around the world. It is widely believed that starting the study of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) before the critical period––12 or 13 years old––will build more proficient speakers of English. according to Slatterly and Willis (2001, 4): “Young Learners” (YL) were 7–12 years old; “Very Young Learners” (VYL) were defined as under 7 years of age. However, there is no empirical evidence supporting the idea that an early start in English language learning in foreign language contexts produces better English speakers (Nunan 1999). Therefore, the ideas given below can be applied to learners ranging from approximately 5 to 12 years old and can be used for various proficiency levels.
Levels of proficiency seem to be dependent on other factors––type of program and curriculum, number of hours spent in English class, and techniques and activities used (Rixon 2000). If an early start alone is not the solution, then what can EFL teachers of young learners do to take advantage of the flexibility of young minds and the malleability of young tongues to grow better speakers of English? As the age for English education lowers in classrooms across the globe, EFL teachers of young learners struggle to keep up with this trend and seek effective ways of teaching
Parents and local education authorities take themdecision that a child should learn
English. By contrast, adults usually have very clear instrumental reasons for learning a language e.g. to use the internet, for their job and so do most teenagers e.g. to pass an exam, to listen to pop music. So for the young learner teacher, the most important task will be to motivate and create interest in the new language so children are willing to try
and use the new language.
There are few universally correct methods because the teaching techniques designed for different situations have often been imported and assumed to be appropriate. However, teaching English to the children requires a special teaching action and teaching methods completely different from adults. Usual teaching techniques for the children are also valid for English lessons. It is important to provide every opportunity to expand and enhance the range of learning experiences available for the children by including them in a wide range of activities. One of these activities is foreign language learning. Good teaching strategies and techniques include the planning and stating of carefully balanced, varied learning sequences with clear achievable objectives, so children know what is expected from them. Using plenty of mime, signs, gestures, expressions to convey and support meaning; involving children actively in the learning process as much as possible through the use of action rhymes and songs, stories, colouring, making things, dancing, drawing, total physical response activities and games; stimulating childrens' senses as much as possible through multi-sensory aids. The teaching of English to young children has become especially important in recent years.
B. Children in TEFL
One child may be more intelligent in one way, and another child may be more intelligent in another. One form of intelligence should not be considered superior to another kind.
The strengths of each child and encourage and build on these strength should be found. For example, one child may learn best through drawing or playing with pictures, others through listening or singing songs.
The basic principles have had significant influence on the way children are taught. The teacher should know the characteristics of the young learner. There is a big difference between what children of five to seven years old and the eight to ten years old can do. Teaching children is different because they are still developing
cognitively, linguistically, physically and emotionally. So to teach
English to children successfully, we need to take account of
these and other characteristics in order to provide some of the
conditions which will lead to successful outcomes (Moon, 2005) .According to Scott and Lisbeth (2005: 1-3), there are certain characteristics of the children of five to seven years old:
a) They can talk about what they are doing
b) They can tell what they have done or heard
c) They can plan activities
d) They can argue for something and tell why they think and what they think
e) They can use logical reasoning
f) They can use their vivid imaginations
g) They can use a wide range of intonation patterns in their mother tongue
h) They can understand direct human interactions
i) They know that the world in governed by rules, they know that they are there to be obeyed, and the rules help to nurture a feeling of security.
j) They understand situations more quickly than they understand the language used
k) They use language skills long before they are aware of them
l) Their own understanding comes through hands and eyes and ears. The physical world is dominant at all times.
m) They are very logical
n) They have a very short attention and concentration span.
Young children sometimes have difficulty in knowing what is fact and what is fiction. Young children are often happy playing and working alone but in the company of others. They can be very reluctant to share. it is often said that children are very self-centered p to the age of six or seven and they cannot see things from someone else’s point of view. This may well be true, but do remember that sometimes pupils don’t see point. They don’t want to work together because they don’t see point. They don’t always understand what we went them to do.
The children do not always understand what children are talking about. The children do not ask. They either pretend to understand, or they understand in their own terms.
The child had answered cheerfully and confidently that she knew the way to her school very well
young children cannot decide for themselves what to learn
Young children love to play, and learn best when they are enjoying themselves. but they also take themselves seriously and like to think that what they are doing is ‘real’ work.
Young children are enthusiastic and positive about learning. it is important to praise them if they are to keep their enthusiasm and fell successful from the beginning.
Children of ten are relatively mature children with an adult side and childish side. There are general characteristics (Scott and Lisbeth, 2005: 3-5):
Their basic concepts are formed. they have very decided views of the world
They can tell the difference between fact and fiction
They ask questions all the time
They rely on the spoken word as well as the physical world to convey and understand meaning
They are able to make some decisions about their own learning
They have definite views about what they like and don’t like doing
They have a developed sense of fairness about what happens in the classroom and begin to question the teachers’ decision
They are able to work with others and learn from others.
By the age of ten children can understand the abstract, symbols and generalize and systematise
Learning contexts
Learning foreign languages at an early (or very early) age can occur in three possible
conditions: bilingual families, immersion situation and formal schooling. We should be fully
aware of the essential differences among the three processes: the first two enable language
acquisition (a natural subconscious process similar to first language acquisition) and only the
last is based on formal learning and teaching (cf. Lojová 2004). The processes of acquisition
are not the focus of our attention. Bilingual education is a matter of psycholinguistics rather
than ELT Methodology. Immersion programs (e.g. in immersion kindergartens), are
undoubtedly beneficial for the learners involved and inspiring for ELT methodologists.
However, in our socio-cultural context they will always be available to a limited number of
children and teachers only. The situation we have decided to explore is the formal teaching
and learning situation in mainstream schools and kindergartens in the Czech Republic.
Conditions specific to the Czech environment will be taken into account, such as the large
number of unqualified English teachers at primary (at times even secondary) schools and the
fact that university graduates are often unwilling to get involved in primary teaching.
3 Arguments for an early start
According to popular belief, children should start learning foreign languages as early as
possible. The reasons usually stated to support this assertion are a good memory, a good
ability to imitate, and the longer time available for language learning in their lifetime.
C. Development Language
Usually children in the primary grades easily understand capital letters, punctuation, and different kinds of sentences, but when it comes to some abstract ideas such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives, they may stumble a little (Clark, ).
By second grade, young students have to develop critical thinking skills, attention to detail, an understanding of sentence structure, and more precise vocabulary. It is important to start early because not all students are ready for this.
The theory of multiple intelligences claims that children can be intelligent in different ways.
They are such active learners, processing new experiences, asking questions, trying things out, experimenting, practising over and over until they master new skills (just watch them learning to ride a bicycle) (Mcllavain, 2006)
there are some additional perspective in developing the language:
(1) Brain
Brain research is likely to prove the most important element in the future development to help the children learn language more effectively. According to Paul (2007) argues that there some of the basic points that have emerged from brain research:
a. The people only use a small percentage of their brains
In the classroom, it means all children are capable of wonderful things. They may learn much more than is often thought possible.
b. The brains are divided into a left side and a right side
The theory is that the left side operates in a more logical and linear fashion, and the right side operates in a more effective and intuitive fashion. In the classroom, some children will do better than others when rationally engaged, and some when emotional engaged, all with learn most effectively if they are both rationally and emotionally immersed in what they are learning.
c. The Brain Organizes the information it receives
the brain constructs a kind of framework to organize the information it receives. this implies that focusing on the connections between one item of language and another is essential if the children are to retain and recall English. getting the children to memorize independent words or dialog, or repeat patterns like parrots is unlikely to help the brain absorb English in an efficient way (Paul, 179:)
d. The Brain Thrives on Rich and Varied Experiences
To function well, brains need a rich learning environment with many different kinds of stimulation. the children need interesting activities, methods and get them excited about what they are learning. they need constant challenge of new puzzles to solve, a variety of situations and contexts in which to practice new patterns, and to be totally immersed in the world of English.
(2) Positive and Negative Emotions have an Effect on Learning
When a positive emotion is connected with a learning experience, the brain seems to send a message that the information is important and that the memory should retain it. on the other hand, when negative emotion are came, the efficiency of the rational thinking area of the brain seems to decrease and so learning and retention also decrease. This lends support to the idea that children should have a lot of fun while learning. it also implies that stress and anxiety have a negative effect on learning.
Methods and Approaches: Pro and Con
1. Total physical response - TPR
• It is based upon the way that children learn their mother tongue.
Parents have 'language-body conversations' with their children, the parent instructs
and the child physically responds to this.
• It allows the students to move and react meaningful to language
one problem is that these modifications tend to turn the English lesson into a
teacher-driven ritual where the children are very active but where there are
insufficient opportunities for children to think for themselves and develop as
autonomous learners. The children are active, having fun, and jumping around, so it
all appears child-centered. In fact, the “learning” is being driven by the energy of
the teacher.
Influential Approaches TEFL at the Elementary School
Many approaches have had an influence on the way EFL is taught. Sometimes this influence has been clear and specific, and sometimes it permeates almost every aspect of a lesson.
(a) Behaviousrist Approaches
The behaviorist view focus on the reinforcement of behavior through repetition and rewards. In the classroom, this has tended to imply that children should be regarded as balnk slates until they are taught by more knowledgeable adults.
(b) Input Approaches
Input approaches focus on the input of language from the teacher, from tapes, or from redaing material.
(c) Constructivist Approach
Constructivist approaches focus on the child as an individual trying to make sense of the world in which
(d) Using A TBL Approach
What about those cases in which children have a first language other than English?. Lynch (2007) suggested that one of many possible scenarios is home schooling using a TBL (Tasked-Based Learning) approach. In this approach, learners are taught useable, marketable skills using English as the language of instruction. In-demand skills such as speaking, writing, listening and reading.
Using a TBL approach, several problems would be addressed at the same time.
• The teacher would learn English
• Parents/the teacher could set a valuable example for their children
• Children could more easily acquire useable English language skills
Certainly English taught as a second or foreign language is practical for home schooling. Teachers and tutors must make classes interesting, lively and on occasion even fun if they are to maintain the interest and attendance of these LEP (Limited English Proficiency) learners.
C.Tefl At The Elementary Level: Pros And Cons
The decision to begin English early is often based on enthusiasm rather than evidence that an early start does provide the expected benefits. Here are three of the main reasons that people give to justify an early start:
(a) Younger is better
This refers to the hypothesis that there is a special period for learning languages during childhood and that after that period is over, it is difficult to learn a language. This is controversial, especially with regard to foreign language learning. There is also evidence that adolescents and adults are much quicker and more efficient learners than children, especially when it comes to learning grammar (McLaughlin 1992). However, it is generally accepted that children have special sensitivity to pronunciation though they will not be able to make use of this particular instinct if their teachers lack fluency in the foreign language.
(b) Younger is better in the long term
longer is better. By starting in primary school increase the overall time for English and in the long term achieve a higher level of proficiency than those starting later. There is some evidence to support this position but it comes from second language situations where children are learning languages naturalistically. In foreign language school learning situations, exposure may not be sufficient for the benefits to really emerge.
(c) Children’s ability to self regulate
Because children are still developing, they are also still learning how to regulate and manage their behaviour and feelings. When children get angry or very excited, they often lose control of their behaviour. Children tend to lose interest in things they are doing in unpredictable ways and it is this unpredictability which make them different from teenagers and adults (Clark 1990). Children will quickly let the teacher know
they are bored through their actions: they become restless, they distract other children, and so on. Adults may also feel bored or frustrated with aspects of their language learning
class but because they have chosen to learn English, they will usually persist and hide their feelings. When engaged in pair or group work, older learners can co-operate and manage themselves because they understand that this mode may be helpful for language learning. Children will not understand why they are working in this way and will need careful supervision and training to do so effectively. So this characteristic of children has big implications for classroom management as teachers new to teaching children often find out to their cost! Children give more attention to meaning rather than form
Children’s natural instinct in any situation is to understand and make sense of it. If you observe children watching a foreign cartoon or film or observe them listening to a story in English, they are trying to work out what is going on, using physical or visual clues in the situation e.g. expression on people's faces, the place, people's gestures; they also use their knowledge of the world - what happened in a similar situation previously. They do not pay attention to the words which are being used in the situation as their main concern is to know what is happening. This is very different from adults and teenagers who are generally more interested in the language itself, in the form of the language and can use their greater cognitive maturity to be analytical about the language. Children’s instinct to go for meaning needs to be encouraged as it is very useful for language learning.
Learning through experience and activity
Children have a strong instinct from birth to explore their
environment. We can see this in the way young children like to
touch and play with things e.g. pressing buttons, switches.
Some researchers suggest that this exploration through activity
provides the basis for cognitive development. In language
learning, this means that children are more likely to pick up
language e.g. vocabulary, grammatical patterns, functions, from
participating in activities which require their use than being
taught them formally and deliberately. For example, if children
follow instructions to make a mask and then use the mask to
take part in a role play or drama, we can say that the activities
they have been involved in support their understanding of the
language used and, though they may not be consciously aware
that they have been listening to language or using it in the role
play, they may gradually start to acquire some of the language
they are exposed to incidentally. In this respect, children are
different from adults who can learn both analytically and also
experientially. Most children tend to rely more heavily on
experiential forms of learning up to around 9 or so.
Language maybe evaluated with variables of knowledge of syntax, vocabulary and pronunciation.
Development of a Second Language
Young children pass through four common stages:
1. they are silent
2. communication through gesture, begin to comprehend
3. produce abbreviated utterances without function words
4. produce grammatical utterances in appropriate situations
Pros
(a) Universal Grammar
A child has a universal grammar, some inborn feeling about how language can work (Edmondson, 1999:25). Children are born with a special unique human talent that can extrapolate the grammar of a language without overt instruction or correction (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:38). When children begin to acquire grammatical markers, most of them do so in basically the same order within that language (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:368).
(b) Pronunciation
Good pronunciation is clearly an important part of learning foreign language (Steinberg et al, 2001). Kids seem to be better able or to imitate than adults and are more likely to develop good pronunciation and suprasegmental skills (Edmondson, 1999:122). The age of kids oral in reproductive skills in terms of phonology, stress, timing and intonation are superior (Edmondson, 1999:124). Children have the sensory motor abilities to produce and comprehend speech (Fromkin and Rodman, 1998:320).
The ability to acquire new motor skills begin to decline around the age of 12 years (Steinberg et al, 2001).
Representational Systems in Word Identification
(1) Learning Systems
Children become invested with various linguistic properties from corresponding linguistic codes which are the abstract mental representations of the different subsystems of language.
(2) Phonological Coding
Children must be able to code information phonologically to identify printed words. It aids the process of attaching the appropriate sounds to common segments.
(3) Semantic Coding
A child relies heavily on likely word meanings in learning to identify words initially encountered.
(4) Syntactic/Grammatical Coding
Competence in the grammar and syntax of language facilitates word identification in at least three different ways:
(a) it helps the child comprehend sentences and use the sentence context for anticipation.
(b) the process of assigning to printed words what might be called function codes (representation that mark a word’s unique role in sentences).
(c) knowledge of morphophonemic production rules aids printed word identification.
(5) The Visual System
If children have adequate ability in phonological coding, they begin to develop strategies that can reduce the load on visual memory.
(6) Motor Systems
It is more important for the child to grasp the concept that letters have sounds, as a perquisite to success in alphabetic mapping, than to articulate those sounds physically.
Teaching simple and complex rules
A learner can learn relevant usable rules, though they may need practice.
‘Implicit instruction’ (induction) was best for complex rules.
Contras
(1) Metalinguistic Capacity
Children cannot appreciate the arbitrary nature of language and also have difficulty understanding that words are decomposable into sounds (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:351). They are able to define the meanings of words but lack of using them appropriately to communicate (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:373).
(2) Relative and Abstract Concepts
It took children until age 7 or older to fully understand the meanings of kinship terms such as niece and uncle. Children are often are 8 to 10 years of age before they appreciate that language includes ambiguous words (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:362).
(3) Speed of Retrieval
Children seem to take a longer time to recognize and retrieve words because of inefficiency of storage and access strategies (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:363).
(4) Morpho-syntax and Vocabulary
Kids learn more slowly than adults, but there is a sensitive period up to the age of 15 or so for syntax (Edmondson, 1999:122). This refers to children’s general language development. When it comes to learning a foreign language,. There are many similarities between learning one’s mother tongue and learning a foreign language in spite of the differences in age and the time available. So far nobody has a found a universal pattern of language learning which everyone agrees with. Much seems to depend on which mother tongue the pupils speak and on social and emotional factors in the child’s background.
Explication is rarely applicable to young children
Children have learned language by self-analysis, induction. It is only with a high degree of intellectual maturity that a person can understand such explicit explanations.
Usually children like activity, so give child a noun activity by going around the house, touching things, and call its name a noun. Later, adjectives can be explained as words which describe nouns, so young one can say “the noun is chair, the adjective is green.” In a diagram, once child sees where the subject noun and object noun is placed, he can see the logic for an adjective to be placed under the noun it describes.
Consider making flashcards of nouns and asking your child to identify whether the word represents a person, place, or thing. Mix up flashcards with nouns, adjectives, and verbs and ask your child to identify the part of speech. You can have oral drills, such as identifying parts of speech, and later, giving sentences and identifying words in the sentences.
()
Reading
Basically it should be the language that is used in the community and in school and the child will have learned all of the basic principles of reading in L1 before learning to read in L2.
. THE DEVELOPMENT OF READING
4.1. The Protoliteracy Period
It is the early period when the precursors of written language are laid down.
Some of the earliest reading experiences occur in Linguistic guesswork from listening to others to making attempts of their own to read the pictured texts.
Invented spelling is children’s earliest spelling that often reflects what they hear or do not hear in the speech stream.
(1) Phonological Skills
It emerges as a varied set of skills. The steps of acquisition are Syllables segmentation, onset and rime learning, followed by a final ability to segment individual phonemes. It is bidirectional towards the reading practice.
(2) Vocabulary Knowledge
It represents a continuum in which individual words move from unfamiliar, to acquainted, to established categories that pushes and is pushed forward by reading acquisition.
(3) Letter Recognition and Naming Speed Abilities
The child brings to the reading acquisition process a vast number of phonological, semantic, and orthographic skills.
pros
BASIC PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS AFFECTING SECOND-LANGUAGE LEARNING
2.1. Intellectual Processing: Explication and Induction
(a) Explication
Someone can explain them to you about the rules and structures of a second language in the first language of the learner.
Why a language cannot be learned completely by explication
It is impossible for it to be learned entirely by explication because not all of the rules of any one language have been discovered and written down.
(b) Induction
The child who is exposed to second-language speech and remembers what he or she has heard will be able to analyze and discover the generalization of rule that underlies that speech so long as the structures involved are not far beyond the learner’s level of syntactic understanding through observations, wonder, hypotheses and testing the hypotheses.
x
2.2.
Vocabulary learning and Rote Memory
Memory is crucial to learning. A connection between the sound and the object is arbitrary. Usually more than one occurrence of the sound and meaning is necessary for learning.
Syntax learning and episodic memory
Episodic memory :
Memory through a learner can accumulate the vast amount of speech and relevant situational data which serves as the basis for analyzing structures and formulating rules which involves situations.
Related items may not occur in a block for analysis
In real life, related data may not be received for minutes, hours or even days.
Children’s memory ability
In terms of memory ability, children’s ages can be usefully divided into at least two categories, under 7 years and 7 to 12 years.
Older children began to apply their cognitive abilities in analyzing the syntactic rules of the second language.
Adult and children in short-term memory tasks
Adults are better at understanding how to go about remembering. However, whether this would suffice for the learning of an entire language is doubtful.
Sharp decline of memory
Memory seems to begin its sharpest decline around the age of puberty. It is in the acquisition of new learning, particularly language learning, where problems occur.
2.3. Motor Skills
Articulators of Speech
Good pronunciation is clearly an important part of learning a foreign language. The articulators of speech which is the motor skill are mouth, lips, tongue, vocal cords, etc.
Decline in general motor skills
Around the age of 12 years or so, there is a general change throughout our body that affects all of our motor skills where the ability to acquire new motor skills begins to decline.
Decline in ability for new articulations
Children will do much better in the pronunciation of a second language than adults because children have the flexibility in motor skills which adults generally have lost.
Foreign accent might appear in a second language because sounds were heard solely through the filter of the first language.
3. Social Situations Affecting Second-Language Learning
3.1. The Natural Situation
Characteristics of the natural situation
It is experienced similar to that in which native language is learned in everyday life.
Decline of beneficial social interaction with age
As one gets older there is a decline in the kind of social interaction which promotes language learning which will typically have significantly fewer good language-learning opportunities in a new language community.
With age, language is more essential for social interaction
For adults, social interaction mainly occurs through the medium of language whereas few native speaker adults are willing to devote time to interacting with someone who does not speak the language.
Older children can have problems
The greater the role that language plays in social interaction, the more the person experience difficulty in being accepted.
Cultural adaptation
The fact is friendship for adults are easier to form in the old language. Children are more likely than adults to interact with speakers of new community.
Foreigner talk: simplified speech
It consists of well-formed utterances with fewer subordinate clauses and more ordinary vocabulary which aids the learner with more simplification for children.
3.2. The Classroom Situation
(a) The classroom is isolated from other social life
(b) Everything is planned, little is spontaneous
(c) Learning language as part of a group and not as an individual
The ability to learn in a classroom setting improves with age because older children and adults can better to the classroom regimen and are more receptive to materials taught through explication.
3.3. Who is better? Children or Adults?
(a) For the natural situation
(1) Prediction
Younger children will do best and older children better than adults
(b) For the classroom situation
Adults will do better than younger children where concentration, attention play roles in learning, but older children will do better in terms of memory and motor skills.
4. SOME OTHER INFLUENCES:
ESL OR EFL COMMUNITY CONTEXT, MOTIVATION AND ATTITUDE
4.1. Language Community Context: ESL or EFL
ESL context provides more language-learning opportunities through exposure to natural situations outside the classroom. However, adults can do better in the EFL context where they can apply their superior cognitive skills.
4.2. Motivation and Attitude
(a) Motivation
It is not likely to arise in a natural type of setting. There is an element of choice involved in attending class with two kinds of motivation:
(1) Integrative motivation : purpose of integrating with the people and culture.
(2) Instrumental motivation : using the language for some end, like getting a job
(b) Attitude
Attitude towards the target language or speaker may affect one’s determination and persistence.
5. Is there a Critical Age for Second-Language Learning?
(a) Adults can learn a second language so well on the basis of the grammar alone
(b) There is no demonstrated critical age for learning syntax
(c)There is no absolute critical age for pronunciation
CONTEMPORARY METHODS
Total Physical Response
(a) Rationale of the Method
Only the target language is used in the classroom and meaning is derived from actual objects and situations. It goes best with small number of students.
The idea is that memory will be enhanced by motor activity with the result that language will be more easily remembered and accessed.
(b) Classroom Materials and Activities
Initially in a classroom of beginners, commands are given. After the proper groundwork has been laid, students are presented with more complex sentences. From the beginning students are introduced to whole sentences in context.
(c) A demonstration project: Japanese students learn German
TPR would predict that doing the action would solidify memory.
(d) Advancing with TPR
Nowadays a great deal of curriculum material has been developed and published for TPR instruction.
Once out of the classroom, there is nothing a student can do to review. In this regard, adopting the Grammar Translation Method along with TPR would be a good solution.
(e) Children vs. Adults
Required actions can be modified to lessen the embarrassment of marching around a room for adults.
TPR can be applied in beginning to intermediate classes.
There is a superiority for TPR for beginning students.
Communicative Language Teaching
Communicative speech is divided into two aspects:
(a) Function
They are expressed in whole sentences for requests, denials, complaints, excuses, etc.
(b) Notions
They are typically words or phrases within a sentence for expressing frequency, quantity,
location, etc. It starts with a simultaneous reading and hearing a dialogue based on a real life
everyday situation. It allows anything into the classroom to promote students’
communicative ability, such as translation and grammatical explanation or audiolingual
technique like a structure drill for substitution in a sentence which is only employed to assist
the students to communicate their ideas. It permits reading and writing almost immediately as
long as it serves the cause of communication.
Every human language may be analyzed in terms of its:
1. phonology
2. morphology
3. lexicon
4. syntax
5. semantics
6. pragmatics
Some specific abilities that underlie competent use of language are:
1. Phonology
The process of acquiring meaningful phonemic contrasts and learning to ignore non meaningful contrasts are essential to the successful use of a language.
2. Sequences of Sounds: Phonotactics
Knowing the rules for combining sounds is important in a language. The phonological system of a language also includes rules for the interpretation of prosody, or intonation and stress patterns.
3. The Lexicon and Semantics
A capable speaker-hearer of a language possesses a vast and complicated mental lexicon.
The distinction between content words and function words is psychologically meaningful.
Words also have more than one meaning. Other properties of words appear to be psychologically meaningful.
Performance errors provide some evidence for possible models of the way we use our mental lexicon in constructing messages.
4. Morphology : the study of word formation
Evidence exists that the language comprehension process must include this level of analysis to permit successful understanding of a word.
5. Syntax : Combining Words to Form Sentences
It is crucial that we know how to combine words into acceptable sequences to convey propositional meaning. Knowing how sentences can be broken down into constituent structures play a role in how sentences are actually understood and produced and they are important building blocks in sentence comprehension and production processes. It also allows us to creatively understand or produce completely novel utterances.
a. Syntactic Theory in the 1960s : Transformational Grammars
Transformational Generative (TG) Grammar model by Chomsky (1965) posited that the grammar consists of two types of rules that allow us to generate various sentence types in a given language –phrase structure and transformational rules. The concept of underlying representations such as deep structures was also useful in explaining the relationship between active-passive pairs.
Some transformations were quite complicated.
b. Syntactic Theory in the 1970s and 1980s
Principle and Parameters Theory (PPT) specifies:
1. a noun phrase must contain a noun, a verb phrase a verb, etc.
2. limits on heads or phrases that can be moved and where they can be moved to
3. wh-words can only move to “landing sites” in the sentence that are “local”
4. the form of d-structure is partially determined by the information in the lexical entries of words
PPT attempts to solve the problem by reducing the number of rules that the learner has to learn and replacing them with a few powerful and universal innate principles called Universal grammar or UG.
6. Pragmatics and Discourse
Knowledge of pragmatics also includes awareness of how we modify conversation when addressing different types of listeners.
Much of our language use involves discourse, in which the situational setting or context of spoken messages is often crucial to their successful interpretation.
7. Metalinguistic capacity : The Ability to Analyze Our Own Language
It is our ability to reflect upon our language, which is of how we do these things. Most people have no trouble producing all the phonemes of their language, but cannot produce a simple list of those phonemes.
Language principles must be innate because the environment does not provide sufficient evidence for the child to permit competent language development.
Cons
the observations contradict earlier claims that the language children hear contains numerous ungrammatical forms, hesitations, changes of construction, and mistakes (Clark and Clark. 2002:320).
3. Social Situations Affecting Second-Language Learning
3.1. The Natural Situation
Characteristics of the natural situation
It is experienced similar to that in which native language is learned in everyday life.
Decline of beneficial social interaction with age
As one gets older there is a decline in the kind of social interaction which promotes language learning which will typically have significantly fewer good language-learning opportunities in a new language community.
With age, language is more essential for social interaction
For adults, social interaction mainly occurs through the medium of language whereas few native speaker adults are willing to devote time to interacting with someone who does not speak the language.
Older children can have problems
The greater the role that language plays in social interaction, the more the person experience difficulty in being accepted.
Cultural adaptation
The fact is friendship for adults are easier to form in the old language. Children are more likely than adults to interact with speakers of new community.
Foreigner talk: simplified speech
It consists of well-formed utterances with fewer subordinate clauses and more ordinary vocabulary which aids the learner with more simplification for children.
5.2. The Classroom Situation
(a) The classroom is isolated from other social life
(b) Everything is planned, little is spontaneous
(c) Learning language as part of a group and not as an individual
The ability to learn in a classroom setting improves with age because older children and adults can better to the classroom regimen and are more receptive to materials taught through explication.
5.3. Who is better? Children or Adults?
(a) For the natural situation
(1) Prediction
Younger children will do best and older children better than adults
(b) For the classroom situation
Adults will do better than younger children where concentration, attention play roles in learning, but older children will do better in terms of memory and motor skills.
Contras
(1) Metalinguistic Capacity
Children cannot appreciate the arbitrary nature of language and also have difficulty understanding that words are decomposable into sounds (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:351). They are able to define the meanings of words but lack of using them appropriately to communicate (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:373).
(2) Relative and Abstract Concepts
It took children until age 7 or older to fully understand the meanings of kinship terms such as niece and uncle. Children are often are 8 to 10 years of age before they appreciate that language includes ambiguous words (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:362).
(3) Speed of Retrieval
Children seem to take a longer time to recognize and retrieve words because of inefficiency of storage and access strategies (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:363).
(4) Morpho-syntax and Vocabulary
Kids learn more slowly than adults, but there is a sensitive period up to the age of 15 or so for syntax (Edmondson, 1999:122).
CONTEMPORARY METHODS
Total Physical Response
(a) Rationale of the Method
Only the target language is used in the classroom and meaning is derived from actual objects and situations. It goes best with small number of students.
The idea is that memory will be enhanced by motor activity with the result that language will be more easily remembered and accessed.
(b) Classroom Materials and Activities
Initially in a classroom of beginners, commands are given. After the proper groundwork has been laid, students are presented with more complex sentences. From the beginning students are introduced to whole sentences in context.
(c) A demonstration project: Japanese students learn German
TPR would predict that doing the action would solidify memory.
(d) Advancing with TPR
Nowadays a great deal of curriculum material has been developed and published for TPR instruction.
Once out of the classroom, there is nothing a student can do to review. In this regard, adopting the Grammar Translation Method along with TPR would be a good solution.
(e) Children vs. Adults
Required actions can be modified to lessen the embarrassment of marching around a room for adults.
TPR can be applied in beginning to intermediate classes.
CONCLUSIONS
Benefits for Children
1. Most importantly, if the experience is positive, it can create children's confidence in language learning and positive attitudes/motivation towards the language for the future and so help to sustain children's language learning through secondary school and beyond.
2. Language learning can help to widen children's cultural horizons and develop intercultural understanding.
3. It can make children more aware of language as a phenomenon in its own right (i.e. that language and the objects it refers to are independent of each other) which helps children to understand their own language better and aids the study of other languages.
4. Learning a foreign language requires the acquisition of new learning strategies. The exposure to ‘foreigness’, something new and different is a kind of cognitive conflict in Piaget's terms and can be the catalyst for cognitive development
There are no educational or cognitive reasons why children cannot learn a foreign language: they are quite capable of doing so. However, there are many other important factors to consider when deciding whether to begin English early.
REFERENCES
Burr, J. Vincent. 2008. The Psychological Effects of Homeschooling.
(http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vincent J-Burr. Accessed on 13 Dec 2008
Clark, Mary Kay. 2007. Teaching English in Primary Grades. (http://www.setonhome.org/newsletter/englishprimary.shtml accessed on 21 Sep, 2008)
Clark, Mary Kay. 2008. Teaching English in Primary Grades.
http://www.setonhome.org/newsletter/englishprimary.shtml. Accessed on 13 Dec 2008
Gleason, J.B and Ratner, N.B. 1998. Psycholinguistics. Second Edition. Harcourt Brace College Publishers. New York.
Johnson, Heidi. 2007. How to Homeschool using the Best Resources. (http://www.homeschool-how-to.com. Accessed on 22 Sep 2008.
McIlvain, Audrey. 2006. Teaching English To Very Young Learners.
(http://www.english- adventure.net/pdfs/Teaching_English_to_Very_Young_Learners.pdf. Accessed on 13 Dec 2008)
Paul, David. 2007. Teaching English to Children in Asia. Pearson Longman Asia ELT: Hongkong
Sanders, Charletta. 2007. Homeschooling. (http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carletta_Sanders Accessed on 22 Sep
Scott, A Wendy and Lisbeth H. Ytrebergh.2005. Teaching English to Children. Longman: New York
Steinbergh, Danny D, Hiroshi Nagata and David P. Aline. 2001. Psycholinguistics: Language, Mind and World. 2nd Ed. Pearson Education: Malaysia
2008)
Yonkers, Kim. 2008. Home Schooling. (http://www.homeschoolingplus.com.
Accessed on 13 Dec 2008.
A. Introduction
English as a foreign language refers to teaching English to the people for whom it is not their mother language. EFL refers to the learning of English by the students in a country where English is not the native language. In most cases, the children are learning at kindergarten, elementary school, high school, university, or a language school in their own country. Some schools use kinds of method depending on their level of students. Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL) has become its own field of study as the age of compulsory English education has become lower and lower in countries around the world. It is widely believed that starting the study of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) before the critical period––12 or 13 years old––will build more proficient speakers of English. according to Slatterly and Willis (2001, 4): “Young Learners” (YL) were 7–12 years old; “Very Young Learners” (VYL) were defined as under 7 years of age. However, there is no empirical evidence supporting the idea that an early start in English language learning in foreign language contexts produces better English speakers (Nunan 1999). Therefore, the ideas given below can be applied to learners ranging from approximately 5 to 12 years old and can be used for various proficiency levels.
Levels of proficiency seem to be dependent on other factors––type of program and curriculum, number of hours spent in English class, and techniques and activities used (Rixon 2000). If an early start alone is not the solution, then what can EFL teachers of young learners do to take advantage of the flexibility of young minds and the malleability of young tongues to grow better speakers of English? As the age for English education lowers in classrooms across the globe, EFL teachers of young learners struggle to keep up with this trend and seek effective ways of teaching
Parents and local education authorities take themdecision that a child should learn
English. By contrast, adults usually have very clear instrumental reasons for learning a language e.g. to use the internet, for their job and so do most teenagers e.g. to pass an exam, to listen to pop music. So for the young learner teacher, the most important task will be to motivate and create interest in the new language so children are willing to try
and use the new language.
There are few universally correct methods because the teaching techniques designed for different situations have often been imported and assumed to be appropriate. However, teaching English to the children requires a special teaching action and teaching methods completely different from adults. Usual teaching techniques for the children are also valid for English lessons. It is important to provide every opportunity to expand and enhance the range of learning experiences available for the children by including them in a wide range of activities. One of these activities is foreign language learning. Good teaching strategies and techniques include the planning and stating of carefully balanced, varied learning sequences with clear achievable objectives, so children know what is expected from them. Using plenty of mime, signs, gestures, expressions to convey and support meaning; involving children actively in the learning process as much as possible through the use of action rhymes and songs, stories, colouring, making things, dancing, drawing, total physical response activities and games; stimulating childrens' senses as much as possible through multi-sensory aids. The teaching of English to young children has become especially important in recent years.
B. Children in TEFL
One child may be more intelligent in one way, and another child may be more intelligent in another. One form of intelligence should not be considered superior to another kind.
The strengths of each child and encourage and build on these strength should be found. For example, one child may learn best through drawing or playing with pictures, others through listening or singing songs.
The basic principles have had significant influence on the way children are taught. The teacher should know the characteristics of the young learner. There is a big difference between what children of five to seven years old and the eight to ten years old can do. Teaching children is different because they are still developing
cognitively, linguistically, physically and emotionally. So to teach
English to children successfully, we need to take account of
these and other characteristics in order to provide some of the
conditions which will lead to successful outcomes (Moon, 2005) .According to Scott and Lisbeth (2005: 1-3), there are certain characteristics of the children of five to seven years old:
a) They can talk about what they are doing
b) They can tell what they have done or heard
c) They can plan activities
d) They can argue for something and tell why they think and what they think
e) They can use logical reasoning
f) They can use their vivid imaginations
g) They can use a wide range of intonation patterns in their mother tongue
h) They can understand direct human interactions
i) They know that the world in governed by rules, they know that they are there to be obeyed, and the rules help to nurture a feeling of security.
j) They understand situations more quickly than they understand the language used
k) They use language skills long before they are aware of them
l) Their own understanding comes through hands and eyes and ears. The physical world is dominant at all times.
m) They are very logical
n) They have a very short attention and concentration span.
Young children sometimes have difficulty in knowing what is fact and what is fiction. Young children are often happy playing and working alone but in the company of others. They can be very reluctant to share. it is often said that children are very self-centered p to the age of six or seven and they cannot see things from someone else’s point of view. This may well be true, but do remember that sometimes pupils don’t see point. They don’t want to work together because they don’t see point. They don’t always understand what we went them to do.
The children do not always understand what children are talking about. The children do not ask. They either pretend to understand, or they understand in their own terms.
The child had answered cheerfully and confidently that she knew the way to her school very well
young children cannot decide for themselves what to learn
Young children love to play, and learn best when they are enjoying themselves. but they also take themselves seriously and like to think that what they are doing is ‘real’ work.
Young children are enthusiastic and positive about learning. it is important to praise them if they are to keep their enthusiasm and fell successful from the beginning.
Children of ten are relatively mature children with an adult side and childish side. There are general characteristics (Scott and Lisbeth, 2005: 3-5):
Their basic concepts are formed. they have very decided views of the world
They can tell the difference between fact and fiction
They ask questions all the time
They rely on the spoken word as well as the physical world to convey and understand meaning
They are able to make some decisions about their own learning
They have definite views about what they like and don’t like doing
They have a developed sense of fairness about what happens in the classroom and begin to question the teachers’ decision
They are able to work with others and learn from others.
By the age of ten children can understand the abstract, symbols and generalize and systematise
Learning contexts
Learning foreign languages at an early (or very early) age can occur in three possible
conditions: bilingual families, immersion situation and formal schooling. We should be fully
aware of the essential differences among the three processes: the first two enable language
acquisition (a natural subconscious process similar to first language acquisition) and only the
last is based on formal learning and teaching (cf. Lojová 2004). The processes of acquisition
are not the focus of our attention. Bilingual education is a matter of psycholinguistics rather
than ELT Methodology. Immersion programs (e.g. in immersion kindergartens), are
undoubtedly beneficial for the learners involved and inspiring for ELT methodologists.
However, in our socio-cultural context they will always be available to a limited number of
children and teachers only. The situation we have decided to explore is the formal teaching
and learning situation in mainstream schools and kindergartens in the Czech Republic.
Conditions specific to the Czech environment will be taken into account, such as the large
number of unqualified English teachers at primary (at times even secondary) schools and the
fact that university graduates are often unwilling to get involved in primary teaching.
3 Arguments for an early start
According to popular belief, children should start learning foreign languages as early as
possible. The reasons usually stated to support this assertion are a good memory, a good
ability to imitate, and the longer time available for language learning in their lifetime.
C. Development Language
Usually children in the primary grades easily understand capital letters, punctuation, and different kinds of sentences, but when it comes to some abstract ideas such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives, they may stumble a little (Clark, ).
By second grade, young students have to develop critical thinking skills, attention to detail, an understanding of sentence structure, and more precise vocabulary. It is important to start early because not all students are ready for this.
The theory of multiple intelligences claims that children can be intelligent in different ways.
They are such active learners, processing new experiences, asking questions, trying things out, experimenting, practising over and over until they master new skills (just watch them learning to ride a bicycle) (Mcllavain, 2006)
there are some additional perspective in developing the language:
(1) Brain
Brain research is likely to prove the most important element in the future development to help the children learn language more effectively. According to Paul (2007) argues that there some of the basic points that have emerged from brain research:
a. The people only use a small percentage of their brains
In the classroom, it means all children are capable of wonderful things. They may learn much more than is often thought possible.
b. The brains are divided into a left side and a right side
The theory is that the left side operates in a more logical and linear fashion, and the right side operates in a more effective and intuitive fashion. In the classroom, some children will do better than others when rationally engaged, and some when emotional engaged, all with learn most effectively if they are both rationally and emotionally immersed in what they are learning.
c. The Brain Organizes the information it receives
the brain constructs a kind of framework to organize the information it receives. this implies that focusing on the connections between one item of language and another is essential if the children are to retain and recall English. getting the children to memorize independent words or dialog, or repeat patterns like parrots is unlikely to help the brain absorb English in an efficient way (Paul, 179:)
d. The Brain Thrives on Rich and Varied Experiences
To function well, brains need a rich learning environment with many different kinds of stimulation. the children need interesting activities, methods and get them excited about what they are learning. they need constant challenge of new puzzles to solve, a variety of situations and contexts in which to practice new patterns, and to be totally immersed in the world of English.
(2) Positive and Negative Emotions have an Effect on Learning
When a positive emotion is connected with a learning experience, the brain seems to send a message that the information is important and that the memory should retain it. on the other hand, when negative emotion are came, the efficiency of the rational thinking area of the brain seems to decrease and so learning and retention also decrease. This lends support to the idea that children should have a lot of fun while learning. it also implies that stress and anxiety have a negative effect on learning.
Methods and Approaches: Pro and Con
1. Total physical response - TPR
• It is based upon the way that children learn their mother tongue.
Parents have 'language-body conversations' with their children, the parent instructs
and the child physically responds to this.
• It allows the students to move and react meaningful to language
one problem is that these modifications tend to turn the English lesson into a
teacher-driven ritual where the children are very active but where there are
insufficient opportunities for children to think for themselves and develop as
autonomous learners. The children are active, having fun, and jumping around, so it
all appears child-centered. In fact, the “learning” is being driven by the energy of
the teacher.
Influential Approaches TEFL at the Elementary School
Many approaches have had an influence on the way EFL is taught. Sometimes this influence has been clear and specific, and sometimes it permeates almost every aspect of a lesson.
(a) Behaviousrist Approaches
The behaviorist view focus on the reinforcement of behavior through repetition and rewards. In the classroom, this has tended to imply that children should be regarded as balnk slates until they are taught by more knowledgeable adults.
(b) Input Approaches
Input approaches focus on the input of language from the teacher, from tapes, or from redaing material.
(c) Constructivist Approach
Constructivist approaches focus on the child as an individual trying to make sense of the world in which
(d) Using A TBL Approach
What about those cases in which children have a first language other than English?. Lynch (2007) suggested that one of many possible scenarios is home schooling using a TBL (Tasked-Based Learning) approach. In this approach, learners are taught useable, marketable skills using English as the language of instruction. In-demand skills such as speaking, writing, listening and reading.
Using a TBL approach, several problems would be addressed at the same time.
• The teacher would learn English
• Parents/the teacher could set a valuable example for their children
• Children could more easily acquire useable English language skills
Certainly English taught as a second or foreign language is practical for home schooling. Teachers and tutors must make classes interesting, lively and on occasion even fun if they are to maintain the interest and attendance of these LEP (Limited English Proficiency) learners.
C.Tefl At The Elementary Level: Pros And Cons
The decision to begin English early is often based on enthusiasm rather than evidence that an early start does provide the expected benefits. Here are three of the main reasons that people give to justify an early start:
(a) Younger is better
This refers to the hypothesis that there is a special period for learning languages during childhood and that after that period is over, it is difficult to learn a language. This is controversial, especially with regard to foreign language learning. There is also evidence that adolescents and adults are much quicker and more efficient learners than children, especially when it comes to learning grammar (McLaughlin 1992). However, it is generally accepted that children have special sensitivity to pronunciation though they will not be able to make use of this particular instinct if their teachers lack fluency in the foreign language.
(b) Younger is better in the long term
longer is better. By starting in primary school increase the overall time for English and in the long term achieve a higher level of proficiency than those starting later. There is some evidence to support this position but it comes from second language situations where children are learning languages naturalistically. In foreign language school learning situations, exposure may not be sufficient for the benefits to really emerge.
(c) Children’s ability to self regulate
Because children are still developing, they are also still learning how to regulate and manage their behaviour and feelings. When children get angry or very excited, they often lose control of their behaviour. Children tend to lose interest in things they are doing in unpredictable ways and it is this unpredictability which make them different from teenagers and adults (Clark 1990). Children will quickly let the teacher know
they are bored through their actions: they become restless, they distract other children, and so on. Adults may also feel bored or frustrated with aspects of their language learning
class but because they have chosen to learn English, they will usually persist and hide their feelings. When engaged in pair or group work, older learners can co-operate and manage themselves because they understand that this mode may be helpful for language learning. Children will not understand why they are working in this way and will need careful supervision and training to do so effectively. So this characteristic of children has big implications for classroom management as teachers new to teaching children often find out to their cost! Children give more attention to meaning rather than form
Children’s natural instinct in any situation is to understand and make sense of it. If you observe children watching a foreign cartoon or film or observe them listening to a story in English, they are trying to work out what is going on, using physical or visual clues in the situation e.g. expression on people's faces, the place, people's gestures; they also use their knowledge of the world - what happened in a similar situation previously. They do not pay attention to the words which are being used in the situation as their main concern is to know what is happening. This is very different from adults and teenagers who are generally more interested in the language itself, in the form of the language and can use their greater cognitive maturity to be analytical about the language. Children’s instinct to go for meaning needs to be encouraged as it is very useful for language learning.
Learning through experience and activity
Children have a strong instinct from birth to explore their
environment. We can see this in the way young children like to
touch and play with things e.g. pressing buttons, switches.
Some researchers suggest that this exploration through activity
provides the basis for cognitive development. In language
learning, this means that children are more likely to pick up
language e.g. vocabulary, grammatical patterns, functions, from
participating in activities which require their use than being
taught them formally and deliberately. For example, if children
follow instructions to make a mask and then use the mask to
take part in a role play or drama, we can say that the activities
they have been involved in support their understanding of the
language used and, though they may not be consciously aware
that they have been listening to language or using it in the role
play, they may gradually start to acquire some of the language
they are exposed to incidentally. In this respect, children are
different from adults who can learn both analytically and also
experientially. Most children tend to rely more heavily on
experiential forms of learning up to around 9 or so.
Language maybe evaluated with variables of knowledge of syntax, vocabulary and pronunciation.
Development of a Second Language
Young children pass through four common stages:
1. they are silent
2. communication through gesture, begin to comprehend
3. produce abbreviated utterances without function words
4. produce grammatical utterances in appropriate situations
Pros
(a) Universal Grammar
A child has a universal grammar, some inborn feeling about how language can work (Edmondson, 1999:25). Children are born with a special unique human talent that can extrapolate the grammar of a language without overt instruction or correction (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:38). When children begin to acquire grammatical markers, most of them do so in basically the same order within that language (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:368).
(b) Pronunciation
Good pronunciation is clearly an important part of learning foreign language (Steinberg et al, 2001). Kids seem to be better able or to imitate than adults and are more likely to develop good pronunciation and suprasegmental skills (Edmondson, 1999:122). The age of kids oral in reproductive skills in terms of phonology, stress, timing and intonation are superior (Edmondson, 1999:124). Children have the sensory motor abilities to produce and comprehend speech (Fromkin and Rodman, 1998:320).
The ability to acquire new motor skills begin to decline around the age of 12 years (Steinberg et al, 2001).
Representational Systems in Word Identification
(1) Learning Systems
Children become invested with various linguistic properties from corresponding linguistic codes which are the abstract mental representations of the different subsystems of language.
(2) Phonological Coding
Children must be able to code information phonologically to identify printed words. It aids the process of attaching the appropriate sounds to common segments.
(3) Semantic Coding
A child relies heavily on likely word meanings in learning to identify words initially encountered.
(4) Syntactic/Grammatical Coding
Competence in the grammar and syntax of language facilitates word identification in at least three different ways:
(a) it helps the child comprehend sentences and use the sentence context for anticipation.
(b) the process of assigning to printed words what might be called function codes (representation that mark a word’s unique role in sentences).
(c) knowledge of morphophonemic production rules aids printed word identification.
(5) The Visual System
If children have adequate ability in phonological coding, they begin to develop strategies that can reduce the load on visual memory.
(6) Motor Systems
It is more important for the child to grasp the concept that letters have sounds, as a perquisite to success in alphabetic mapping, than to articulate those sounds physically.
Teaching simple and complex rules
A learner can learn relevant usable rules, though they may need practice.
‘Implicit instruction’ (induction) was best for complex rules.
Contras
(1) Metalinguistic Capacity
Children cannot appreciate the arbitrary nature of language and also have difficulty understanding that words are decomposable into sounds (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:351). They are able to define the meanings of words but lack of using them appropriately to communicate (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:373).
(2) Relative and Abstract Concepts
It took children until age 7 or older to fully understand the meanings of kinship terms such as niece and uncle. Children are often are 8 to 10 years of age before they appreciate that language includes ambiguous words (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:362).
(3) Speed of Retrieval
Children seem to take a longer time to recognize and retrieve words because of inefficiency of storage and access strategies (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:363).
(4) Morpho-syntax and Vocabulary
Kids learn more slowly than adults, but there is a sensitive period up to the age of 15 or so for syntax (Edmondson, 1999:122). This refers to children’s general language development. When it comes to learning a foreign language,. There are many similarities between learning one’s mother tongue and learning a foreign language in spite of the differences in age and the time available. So far nobody has a found a universal pattern of language learning which everyone agrees with. Much seems to depend on which mother tongue the pupils speak and on social and emotional factors in the child’s background.
Explication is rarely applicable to young children
Children have learned language by self-analysis, induction. It is only with a high degree of intellectual maturity that a person can understand such explicit explanations.
Usually children like activity, so give child a noun activity by going around the house, touching things, and call its name a noun. Later, adjectives can be explained as words which describe nouns, so young one can say “the noun is chair, the adjective is green.” In a diagram, once child sees where the subject noun and object noun is placed, he can see the logic for an adjective to be placed under the noun it describes.
Consider making flashcards of nouns and asking your child to identify whether the word represents a person, place, or thing. Mix up flashcards with nouns, adjectives, and verbs and ask your child to identify the part of speech. You can have oral drills, such as identifying parts of speech, and later, giving sentences and identifying words in the sentences.
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Reading
Basically it should be the language that is used in the community and in school and the child will have learned all of the basic principles of reading in L1 before learning to read in L2.
. THE DEVELOPMENT OF READING
4.1. The Protoliteracy Period
It is the early period when the precursors of written language are laid down.
Some of the earliest reading experiences occur in Linguistic guesswork from listening to others to making attempts of their own to read the pictured texts.
Invented spelling is children’s earliest spelling that often reflects what they hear or do not hear in the speech stream.
(1) Phonological Skills
It emerges as a varied set of skills. The steps of acquisition are Syllables segmentation, onset and rime learning, followed by a final ability to segment individual phonemes. It is bidirectional towards the reading practice.
(2) Vocabulary Knowledge
It represents a continuum in which individual words move from unfamiliar, to acquainted, to established categories that pushes and is pushed forward by reading acquisition.
(3) Letter Recognition and Naming Speed Abilities
The child brings to the reading acquisition process a vast number of phonological, semantic, and orthographic skills.
pros
BASIC PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS AFFECTING SECOND-LANGUAGE LEARNING
2.1. Intellectual Processing: Explication and Induction
(a) Explication
Someone can explain them to you about the rules and structures of a second language in the first language of the learner.
Why a language cannot be learned completely by explication
It is impossible for it to be learned entirely by explication because not all of the rules of any one language have been discovered and written down.
(b) Induction
The child who is exposed to second-language speech and remembers what he or she has heard will be able to analyze and discover the generalization of rule that underlies that speech so long as the structures involved are not far beyond the learner’s level of syntactic understanding through observations, wonder, hypotheses and testing the hypotheses.
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2.2.
Vocabulary learning and Rote Memory
Memory is crucial to learning. A connection between the sound and the object is arbitrary. Usually more than one occurrence of the sound and meaning is necessary for learning.
Syntax learning and episodic memory
Episodic memory :
Memory through a learner can accumulate the vast amount of speech and relevant situational data which serves as the basis for analyzing structures and formulating rules which involves situations.
Related items may not occur in a block for analysis
In real life, related data may not be received for minutes, hours or even days.
Children’s memory ability
In terms of memory ability, children’s ages can be usefully divided into at least two categories, under 7 years and 7 to 12 years.
Older children began to apply their cognitive abilities in analyzing the syntactic rules of the second language.
Adult and children in short-term memory tasks
Adults are better at understanding how to go about remembering. However, whether this would suffice for the learning of an entire language is doubtful.
Sharp decline of memory
Memory seems to begin its sharpest decline around the age of puberty. It is in the acquisition of new learning, particularly language learning, where problems occur.
2.3. Motor Skills
Articulators of Speech
Good pronunciation is clearly an important part of learning a foreign language. The articulators of speech which is the motor skill are mouth, lips, tongue, vocal cords, etc.
Decline in general motor skills
Around the age of 12 years or so, there is a general change throughout our body that affects all of our motor skills where the ability to acquire new motor skills begins to decline.
Decline in ability for new articulations
Children will do much better in the pronunciation of a second language than adults because children have the flexibility in motor skills which adults generally have lost.
Foreign accent might appear in a second language because sounds were heard solely through the filter of the first language.
3. Social Situations Affecting Second-Language Learning
3.1. The Natural Situation
Characteristics of the natural situation
It is experienced similar to that in which native language is learned in everyday life.
Decline of beneficial social interaction with age
As one gets older there is a decline in the kind of social interaction which promotes language learning which will typically have significantly fewer good language-learning opportunities in a new language community.
With age, language is more essential for social interaction
For adults, social interaction mainly occurs through the medium of language whereas few native speaker adults are willing to devote time to interacting with someone who does not speak the language.
Older children can have problems
The greater the role that language plays in social interaction, the more the person experience difficulty in being accepted.
Cultural adaptation
The fact is friendship for adults are easier to form in the old language. Children are more likely than adults to interact with speakers of new community.
Foreigner talk: simplified speech
It consists of well-formed utterances with fewer subordinate clauses and more ordinary vocabulary which aids the learner with more simplification for children.
3.2. The Classroom Situation
(a) The classroom is isolated from other social life
(b) Everything is planned, little is spontaneous
(c) Learning language as part of a group and not as an individual
The ability to learn in a classroom setting improves with age because older children and adults can better to the classroom regimen and are more receptive to materials taught through explication.
3.3. Who is better? Children or Adults?
(a) For the natural situation
(1) Prediction
Younger children will do best and older children better than adults
(b) For the classroom situation
Adults will do better than younger children where concentration, attention play roles in learning, but older children will do better in terms of memory and motor skills.
4. SOME OTHER INFLUENCES:
ESL OR EFL COMMUNITY CONTEXT, MOTIVATION AND ATTITUDE
4.1. Language Community Context: ESL or EFL
ESL context provides more language-learning opportunities through exposure to natural situations outside the classroom. However, adults can do better in the EFL context where they can apply their superior cognitive skills.
4.2. Motivation and Attitude
(a) Motivation
It is not likely to arise in a natural type of setting. There is an element of choice involved in attending class with two kinds of motivation:
(1) Integrative motivation : purpose of integrating with the people and culture.
(2) Instrumental motivation : using the language for some end, like getting a job
(b) Attitude
Attitude towards the target language or speaker may affect one’s determination and persistence.
5. Is there a Critical Age for Second-Language Learning?
(a) Adults can learn a second language so well on the basis of the grammar alone
(b) There is no demonstrated critical age for learning syntax
(c)There is no absolute critical age for pronunciation
CONTEMPORARY METHODS
Total Physical Response
(a) Rationale of the Method
Only the target language is used in the classroom and meaning is derived from actual objects and situations. It goes best with small number of students.
The idea is that memory will be enhanced by motor activity with the result that language will be more easily remembered and accessed.
(b) Classroom Materials and Activities
Initially in a classroom of beginners, commands are given. After the proper groundwork has been laid, students are presented with more complex sentences. From the beginning students are introduced to whole sentences in context.
(c) A demonstration project: Japanese students learn German
TPR would predict that doing the action would solidify memory.
(d) Advancing with TPR
Nowadays a great deal of curriculum material has been developed and published for TPR instruction.
Once out of the classroom, there is nothing a student can do to review. In this regard, adopting the Grammar Translation Method along with TPR would be a good solution.
(e) Children vs. Adults
Required actions can be modified to lessen the embarrassment of marching around a room for adults.
TPR can be applied in beginning to intermediate classes.
There is a superiority for TPR for beginning students.
Communicative Language Teaching
Communicative speech is divided into two aspects:
(a) Function
They are expressed in whole sentences for requests, denials, complaints, excuses, etc.
(b) Notions
They are typically words or phrases within a sentence for expressing frequency, quantity,
location, etc. It starts with a simultaneous reading and hearing a dialogue based on a real life
everyday situation. It allows anything into the classroom to promote students’
communicative ability, such as translation and grammatical explanation or audiolingual
technique like a structure drill for substitution in a sentence which is only employed to assist
the students to communicate their ideas. It permits reading and writing almost immediately as
long as it serves the cause of communication.
Every human language may be analyzed in terms of its:
1. phonology
2. morphology
3. lexicon
4. syntax
5. semantics
6. pragmatics
Some specific abilities that underlie competent use of language are:
1. Phonology
The process of acquiring meaningful phonemic contrasts and learning to ignore non meaningful contrasts are essential to the successful use of a language.
2. Sequences of Sounds: Phonotactics
Knowing the rules for combining sounds is important in a language. The phonological system of a language also includes rules for the interpretation of prosody, or intonation and stress patterns.
3. The Lexicon and Semantics
A capable speaker-hearer of a language possesses a vast and complicated mental lexicon.
The distinction between content words and function words is psychologically meaningful.
Words also have more than one meaning. Other properties of words appear to be psychologically meaningful.
Performance errors provide some evidence for possible models of the way we use our mental lexicon in constructing messages.
4. Morphology : the study of word formation
Evidence exists that the language comprehension process must include this level of analysis to permit successful understanding of a word.
5. Syntax : Combining Words to Form Sentences
It is crucial that we know how to combine words into acceptable sequences to convey propositional meaning. Knowing how sentences can be broken down into constituent structures play a role in how sentences are actually understood and produced and they are important building blocks in sentence comprehension and production processes. It also allows us to creatively understand or produce completely novel utterances.
a. Syntactic Theory in the 1960s : Transformational Grammars
Transformational Generative (TG) Grammar model by Chomsky (1965) posited that the grammar consists of two types of rules that allow us to generate various sentence types in a given language –phrase structure and transformational rules. The concept of underlying representations such as deep structures was also useful in explaining the relationship between active-passive pairs.
Some transformations were quite complicated.
b. Syntactic Theory in the 1970s and 1980s
Principle and Parameters Theory (PPT) specifies:
1. a noun phrase must contain a noun, a verb phrase a verb, etc.
2. limits on heads or phrases that can be moved and where they can be moved to
3. wh-words can only move to “landing sites” in the sentence that are “local”
4. the form of d-structure is partially determined by the information in the lexical entries of words
PPT attempts to solve the problem by reducing the number of rules that the learner has to learn and replacing them with a few powerful and universal innate principles called Universal grammar or UG.
6. Pragmatics and Discourse
Knowledge of pragmatics also includes awareness of how we modify conversation when addressing different types of listeners.
Much of our language use involves discourse, in which the situational setting or context of spoken messages is often crucial to their successful interpretation.
7. Metalinguistic capacity : The Ability to Analyze Our Own Language
It is our ability to reflect upon our language, which is of how we do these things. Most people have no trouble producing all the phonemes of their language, but cannot produce a simple list of those phonemes.
Language principles must be innate because the environment does not provide sufficient evidence for the child to permit competent language development.
Cons
the observations contradict earlier claims that the language children hear contains numerous ungrammatical forms, hesitations, changes of construction, and mistakes (Clark and Clark. 2002:320).
3. Social Situations Affecting Second-Language Learning
3.1. The Natural Situation
Characteristics of the natural situation
It is experienced similar to that in which native language is learned in everyday life.
Decline of beneficial social interaction with age
As one gets older there is a decline in the kind of social interaction which promotes language learning which will typically have significantly fewer good language-learning opportunities in a new language community.
With age, language is more essential for social interaction
For adults, social interaction mainly occurs through the medium of language whereas few native speaker adults are willing to devote time to interacting with someone who does not speak the language.
Older children can have problems
The greater the role that language plays in social interaction, the more the person experience difficulty in being accepted.
Cultural adaptation
The fact is friendship for adults are easier to form in the old language. Children are more likely than adults to interact with speakers of new community.
Foreigner talk: simplified speech
It consists of well-formed utterances with fewer subordinate clauses and more ordinary vocabulary which aids the learner with more simplification for children.
5.2. The Classroom Situation
(a) The classroom is isolated from other social life
(b) Everything is planned, little is spontaneous
(c) Learning language as part of a group and not as an individual
The ability to learn in a classroom setting improves with age because older children and adults can better to the classroom regimen and are more receptive to materials taught through explication.
5.3. Who is better? Children or Adults?
(a) For the natural situation
(1) Prediction
Younger children will do best and older children better than adults
(b) For the classroom situation
Adults will do better than younger children where concentration, attention play roles in learning, but older children will do better in terms of memory and motor skills.
Contras
(1) Metalinguistic Capacity
Children cannot appreciate the arbitrary nature of language and also have difficulty understanding that words are decomposable into sounds (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:351). They are able to define the meanings of words but lack of using them appropriately to communicate (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:373).
(2) Relative and Abstract Concepts
It took children until age 7 or older to fully understand the meanings of kinship terms such as niece and uncle. Children are often are 8 to 10 years of age before they appreciate that language includes ambiguous words (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:362).
(3) Speed of Retrieval
Children seem to take a longer time to recognize and retrieve words because of inefficiency of storage and access strategies (Gleason and Ratner, 1998:363).
(4) Morpho-syntax and Vocabulary
Kids learn more slowly than adults, but there is a sensitive period up to the age of 15 or so for syntax (Edmondson, 1999:122).
CONTEMPORARY METHODS
Total Physical Response
(a) Rationale of the Method
Only the target language is used in the classroom and meaning is derived from actual objects and situations. It goes best with small number of students.
The idea is that memory will be enhanced by motor activity with the result that language will be more easily remembered and accessed.
(b) Classroom Materials and Activities
Initially in a classroom of beginners, commands are given. After the proper groundwork has been laid, students are presented with more complex sentences. From the beginning students are introduced to whole sentences in context.
(c) A demonstration project: Japanese students learn German
TPR would predict that doing the action would solidify memory.
(d) Advancing with TPR
Nowadays a great deal of curriculum material has been developed and published for TPR instruction.
Once out of the classroom, there is nothing a student can do to review. In this regard, adopting the Grammar Translation Method along with TPR would be a good solution.
(e) Children vs. Adults
Required actions can be modified to lessen the embarrassment of marching around a room for adults.
TPR can be applied in beginning to intermediate classes.
CONCLUSIONS
Benefits for Children
1. Most importantly, if the experience is positive, it can create children's confidence in language learning and positive attitudes/motivation towards the language for the future and so help to sustain children's language learning through secondary school and beyond.
2. Language learning can help to widen children's cultural horizons and develop intercultural understanding.
3. It can make children more aware of language as a phenomenon in its own right (i.e. that language and the objects it refers to are independent of each other) which helps children to understand their own language better and aids the study of other languages.
4. Learning a foreign language requires the acquisition of new learning strategies. The exposure to ‘foreigness’, something new and different is a kind of cognitive conflict in Piaget's terms and can be the catalyst for cognitive development
There are no educational or cognitive reasons why children cannot learn a foreign language: they are quite capable of doing so. However, there are many other important factors to consider when deciding whether to begin English early.
REFERENCES
Burr, J. Vincent. 2008. The Psychological Effects of Homeschooling.
(http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vincent J-Burr. Accessed on 13 Dec 2008
Clark, Mary Kay. 2007. Teaching English in Primary Grades. (http://www.setonhome.org/newsletter/englishprimary.shtml accessed on 21 Sep, 2008)
Clark, Mary Kay. 2008. Teaching English in Primary Grades.
http://www.setonhome.org/newsletter/englishprimary.shtml. Accessed on 13 Dec 2008
Gleason, J.B and Ratner, N.B. 1998. Psycholinguistics. Second Edition. Harcourt Brace College Publishers. New York.
Johnson, Heidi. 2007. How to Homeschool using the Best Resources. (http://www.homeschool-how-to.com. Accessed on 22 Sep 2008.
McIlvain, Audrey. 2006. Teaching English To Very Young Learners.
(http://www.english- adventure.net/pdfs/Teaching_English_to_Very_Young_Learners.pdf. Accessed on 13 Dec 2008)
Paul, David. 2007. Teaching English to Children in Asia. Pearson Longman Asia ELT: Hongkong
Sanders, Charletta. 2007. Homeschooling. (http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carletta_Sanders Accessed on 22 Sep
Scott, A Wendy and Lisbeth H. Ytrebergh.2005. Teaching English to Children. Longman: New York
Steinbergh, Danny D, Hiroshi Nagata and David P. Aline. 2001. Psycholinguistics: Language, Mind and World. 2nd Ed. Pearson Education: Malaysia
2008)
Yonkers, Kim. 2008. Home Schooling. (http://www.homeschoolingplus.com.
Accessed on 13 Dec 2008.
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