TEACHING ACROSS AGE LEVELS

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NIM                :

Class               :

Chapter          :

TEACHING ACROSS AGE LEVELS

A. TEACHING CHILDREN

Popular tradition would have you believe that children are effortless second language learners and far superior to adults in their eventual success. On both count, some qualifications are in order. First, children’s widespread success in acquiring second languages belies a tremendous subconscious effort devoted to the task. Second, adults are not necessarily less successful in their efforts. Third, the popular claim fails to differentiate very young children (say, four- to six-year-olds) from pre-pubescent children (twelve to thirteen) and the whole range of ages in between.

1.   Intellectual Development

An elementary school teacher once asked her students to take a piece of paper and pencil and write something. A little boy raised his hand and said, “Teacher, I ain’t got no pencil.” The teacher, somewhat perturbed by his grammar, embarked on a barrage of corrective patterns: “I don’t have a pencil. You don’t have a pencil. We don’t have pencils.” Confused and bewildered, the child responded, “Ain’t nobody got no pencils?”

Since children (up to the age of about eleven) are still in an intellectual stage of what Piaget (1972) called “concrete operations,” we need to remember their limitations. Rules, explanations, and other even slightly abstract talk about language must be approached with extreme caution. Children are centered on the here and now, on the functional purposes of language. They have little appreciation for our adult notions of “correctness,” and they certainly cannot grasp the metalanguage we use to describe and explain linguistic concepts. Some rules of thumb for the classroom:

Ø  Don’t explain grammar using terms like “present progressive” or “relative clause.”

Ø  Rules stated in abstract terms (“To make a statement into a question, you add a do or does”) should be avoided.

Ø  Some grammatical concepts, especially at the upper levels of childhood, can be called to learners’ attention by showing them certain patterns (“Notice the ing at the end of the word”) and examples (“This is the way we say it when it’s happening right now: “I’m walking to the door’).

Ø  Certain more difficult concepts or patterns require more repetition than adults need. For example, repeating certain patterns (without boring students) may be necessary to get the brain and the ear to cooperate. Unlike the scene with the little boy who had no pencil, children must understand the meaning and relevance of repetitions.

2.   Attention Span

One of the salient differences between adults and children is attention span. First, it is important to understand what attention span means. Since language lessons can at times be difficult for children, your job is to make them interesting, lively, and fun. How do you that?

Ø  Because children are focused on the immediate here and now, activities should be designed to capture their immediate interest.

Ø  A lesson needs a variety of activities to keep interest and attention alive.

Ø  A teacher needs to be animated, lively, and enthusiastic about the subject matter. Consider the classroom a stage on which you are the lead actor; your energy will be infections. While you may think that you’re overdoing it, children need this exaggeration to keep spirit buoyed and minds alert.

Ø  A sense of humor will go a long way to keep children laughing and learning. Since children’s humor is quite different from adults’, remember to put yourself in their shoes.

Ø  Children have a lot of natural curiosity. Make sure you tap into that curiosity whenever possible, and you will thereby help to maintain attention and focus.

3.   Sensory Input

Children need to have all five senses stimulated. Your activities should strive to go well beyond the visual and auditory modes that we feel are usually sufficient for a classroom.

Ø  Pepper your lessons with physical activity, such as having students act out things (role-play) play games, or do Total Physical Response activities.

Ø  Projects and other bands-on activities go a long way toward helping children, are excellent ways to get them to learn words and structures and to practice meaningful language.

Ø  Sensory aids here and there help children to internalize concepts. The smell of flowers, the touch of plants and fruits, the taste of foods, liberal doses of audiovisual aids like videos, pictures, tapes, music-all are important elements in children’s language teaching.

Ø  Remember that your own nonverbal language is important because children will indeed attend very sensitively to your facial features, gestures, and touching.

4.   Affective Factors

A common myth is that children are relatively unaffected by the inhibitions that adults find to be a block to learning. Teachers need to help them to overcome such potential barriers to learning.

Ø  Help your students to laugh with each other at various mistakes that they all make.

Ø  Be patient and supportive to build self-esteem, yet at the same time be firm in your expectations of students.

Ø  Elicit as much oral participation as possible from students, especially the quieter ones, to give them plenty of opportunities for trying things out.

5.   Authentic, Meaningful Language

Children are focused on what this new language can actually be used for here and now. Your classes can ill afford to have an overload of language that is neither authentic nor meaningful.

Ø  Children are good at sensing language that is not authentic; therefore “canned” or stilted language will likely be rejected.

Ø  Language needs to be firmly context embedded. Story lines, familiar situations and characters, real-life conversations, meaningful purposes in using language-these will establish a context within which language can be received and sent and thereby improve attention and retention. Context-reduced language in abstract, isolated, unconnected sentences will be much less readily tolerated by children’s minds.

Ø  A whole language approach is essential. If language is broken into too many bits and pieces, students won’t see the relationship to the whole. And stress the interrelationships among the various skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), or they won’t see important connections.

B.   TEACHING ADULTS

Although many of the “rules” for teaching can apply in some ways to teaching adults, the latter age group poses some different, special considerations for the classroom teacher. Adults have superior cognitive abilities that can render them more successful in certain classroom endeavors.

So, as you consider the five variables that apply to children, keep in mind some specific suggestions and caveats.

1.      Adults are more able to handle abstract rules and concepts.

2.      Adults have longer attention spans for material that may not be intrinsically interesting to them.

3.      Sensory input need not always be quite as varied with adults, but one of the secrets of lively adult classes in their appeal to multiple sense.

4.      Adults often bring a modicum of general self-confidence (global self-esteem) into a classroom; the fragility of egos may therefore not be quite as critical as those of children.

5.      Adults, with their more developed abstract thinking ability, are better able to understand a context-reduced segment of language.

C. TEACHING TEENS

Perhaps because of the enigma of teaching teenagers, little is specifically said in the language-teaching field about teaching at this level. Nevertheless, some thought are worth verbalizing, even if in the form of simple reminders.

1.          Intellectual capacity adds abstract operational thought around the age of twelve.

2.          Attention spans are lengthening as a result of intellectual maturation, but once again, with many diversions present in a teenager’s life, those potential attention spans can easily be shortened.

3.          Varieties of sensory input are still important, but, again, increasing capacities for abstraction lessen the essential nature of appealing to all five senses.

4.          Factors surrounding ego, self-image, and self-esteem are at their pinnacle.

5.          Secondary school students are of course becoming increasingly adult like in their ability to make those occasional diversions from the “here and now” nature of immediate communicative contexts to dwell on a grammar point or vocabulary item.

TEACHING ACROSS PROFICIENCY LEVELS

A.  Defining Proficiency Levels

Is there a standard set of guidelines by which these three mysterious terms may be uniformly understood. The answer is yes, and while textbooks and curricula do not by any means adhere to these guidelines universally, the guidelines nevertheless offer us a practical description of speaking, listening, reading, and writing proficiency at numerous gradations.

The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (1986) have come to be a widely recognized proficiency standard in language-teaching circles. The current version of the guidelines is historically related to what for many years was referred to as “FSI  levels” of speaking proficiency.

B.   Teaching Beginning Levels

Teaching beginners is considered by many to be the most challenging level of language instruction. Since students at this level little or no prior knowledge of the target language, the teacher (and accompanying techniques and materials) becomes a central determiner in whether students accomplish their goals. This can also be the most tangibly rewarding level for a teacher because the growth of students’ proficiency is apparent in a matter of a few weeks.

1.          Students’ cognitive learning processes

2.          The role of the teacher

3.          Teacher talk

4.          Authenticity of language

5.          Fluency and accuracy

6.          Student creativity

7.          Techniques

8.          Listening and speaking goals

9.          Reading and writing goals

10.      Grammar

C.   Teaching Intermediate Levels

Now turn your attention to that vague curricular territory that we call intermediate, where students have progressed beyond novice stages to an ability to sustain basic communicative tasks, to establish some minimal fluency, to deal with a few unrehearsed situations, to self-correct on occasion, to use a few compensatory strategies, and generally to “get along” in the language beyond mere survival. The picture changes somewhat. Your role and the students’ capacities change. Consider the same ten factors.

Students have developed some of their abilities of learning the target language, so the teacher has to apply different teaching methods in the class. Teacher has to dare students ask questions; make comments during the class to their own learning. The teacher is able to use more advanced word according to the level.

1.          Students’ cognitive learning processes

2.          The role of the teacher

3.          Teacher talk

4.          Authenticity of language

5.          Fluency and accuracy

6.          Student creativity

7.          Techniques

8.          Listening and speaking goals

9.          Reading and writing goals

10.      Grammar

D.   Teaching Advanced Levels

As students move up the developmental ladder, getting closer and closer to their goals, developing fluency along with a greater degree of accuracy, able to handle virtually any situation in which target language use is demanded, they become “advanced” students. At the very top of this ladder is what the ACTEFL Proficiency Guidelines describe as the “superior” level, comparable in most aspect to an educated, so in order to be more in keeping with reality, we will simply focus on what the Guidelines describe as the “advanced” level.

Students have developed not only their reading and listening comprehension but also their fluency in speaking. Techniques can be like group debates and argumentation, complex role-plays, scanning and skimming reading material.

1.          Students’ cognitive learning processes

2.          The role of the teacher

3.          Teacher talk

4.          Authenticity of language

5.          Fluency and accuracy

6.          Student creativity

7.          Techniques

8.          Listening and speaking goals

9.          Reading and writing goals

10.      Grammar

REFERENCES

Brown, H. Douglas. 2000. Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (Second Edition)

Ros fisher, Teaching children. Retriefed October 26,2018. https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10036/47180/Teacher%20Child%20Interaction.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y

Anne Mishkind (2016). Adult Education: What Makes Teaching Effective?.Retreved October 26,2018. https://www.calpro-online.org/documents/CALPRO_BRIEF_13_508.pdf

Vaske, Joann ( 1998). Teaching, and Evaluating Critical Thinking Skills in Adult Education. Retrieved October 26,2018. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED420794.pdf

Gentile and Leiguarda ,(2012). Getting Teens to Really Work in Class.Retrieved October 26,2018. https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/50_4_5_lauria_and_leiguarda.pdf

Neil A. Bradbury,(2016). Attention span during lectures. Retrieved October 26,2018. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/62cc/95ee94955d127788dd76ea56d1c7a4b08be7.pdf

Richard M. The Intellectual Development Of Science And Engineering Students. Retrieved October 26,2018. http://www.dphu.org/uploads/attachements/books/books_2612_0.pdf

 Rizki. TEACHING ACROSS PROFICIENCY LEVELS. retrieved October 29,2018. http://blogrizkirmd.blogspot.com/2014/01/teaching-across-proficiency-levels.html

TEACHING ACROSS AGE LEVELS

Name              :

NIM                :

Semester         :

Lecturer         :

CHAPTER 6

TEACHING ACROSS AGE LEVELS

A.    Teaching Children

First, children’s widespread success in acquiring second languages belief a tremendous subconscious effort devoted to the task. The difference between children and adults lies primary in the contrast between the child’s spontaneous, peripheral attention to language forms and adult’s overt, focal awareness of and attention to those forms. Seconds, adults are not necessarily less successful in their efforts. Studies have shown that adults, in fact, can be superior in a number of aspects of acquisition. They can learn and retain a larger vocabulary. They can utilize various deductive and abstract processes to shortcut the learning of grammatical and other linguistics concepts. Third, the popular claim fails to differentiate very young children (4 to 6 year-olds) from pubescent children (12 to 13) and the whole range of ages in between. There are actually many instances of 6 to 12 year-olds children manifesting significant difficulty in acquiring a second language for a multitude of reasons.

Teaching ESP to school-age children, therefore, is not merely a matter of setting them loose on a plethora of authentic language tasks in the classroom. In fact, for some TOSEL professionals (Cameron, 2003) the challenges of teaching children warrant a separate acronym: TEYL (Teaching English for Young Learners). Teacher reference books are devoted solely to the issues, principles, and methodology surrounding the teaching of children (Linse, 2005; Moon, 2000; Pinter, 2006; Reilly & Ward, 1997). To successfully teach children a second language requires specific skills and intuitions that differ from appropriate for adult teaching.

1.         Intellectual Development

Since children are still in an intellectual stage of what Piaget (1972) called concrete operations, we need to remember their limitations. Rules, explanations, and other slightly abstract talk about language must be approached with extreme caution. Here are some rules:

a.         Don’t explain grammar using terms like present progressive or relative clause.

b.        Rules stated in abstract terms should be avoided.

c.         Some grammatical concepts, especially at the upper levels of childhood, can be called to learners’ attention by showing them certain patterns and examples.

d.        Certain more difficult concepts or pattern require more repetition than adults need.

2.         Attention Span

Differences between adults and children are attention span. First, it is important to understand what attention span means.

a.         Because children are focused on there here and now, activities should be designed to capture their immediate interest.

b.        A lesson needs a variety of activities to keep interest and attention alive.

c.         A teacher m\needs to be animated, lively, and enthusiastic about the subject matter.

d.        A sense of humor will go a long way in keeping children laughing and learning.

e.         Children have a lot of natural curiosity.

3.         Sensory Input

Children need to have all five senses stimulated.

a.         Peeper your lessons with physical activity.

b.        Projects and other bands-on activities go a long way toward helping children to internalize language.

c.         Sensory aids help children to internalize concepts.

d.        Remember that your own nonverbal language is important because children will indeed attend very sensitively to your facial features, gestures, and body language.

4.         Affective Factors

Teachers need to help them to overcome such potential barriers to learning.

a.         Help your students to laugh with each other at various mistakes that they all make.

b.        Be patient and supportive to build self-esteem, yet at the same time be firm in your expectations of students.

c.         Elicit as much oral participation as possible from students, especially the quieter ones, to give them plenty of opportunities for trying things put.

5.         Authentic, Meaningful Language

Children are focused on what this new language can actually be used for here and now.

a.         Children are good at sensing language that is not authentic; therefore, canned or stilted language will likely be rejected.

b.        Language needs to be firmly context embedded.

c.         A whole language approach is essential.

B.     Teaching Adults

Adults have superior cognitive abilities that can render them more successful in certain classroom endeavors. Their level of shyness can be equal to or greater than that of children, but adults usually have acquired a self-confidence not found in children. And, because of adults’ cognitive abilities, they can at least occasionally deal with language that isn’t embedded in a here and now context. Five variables that apply to children keep in mind some specific suggestions and caveats.

a.         Adults are more able to handle abstract rules and concepts.

b.         Adults have longer attention spans for material that may not be intrinsically interesting to them.

c.         Sensory input need not always be as varied with adult, but one of the secrets of lively adult classes is their appeal to multiple senses.

d.        Adults often bring a modicum of general self-confidence into a classroom.

e.         Adults, with their more developed abstract thinking ability, are better able to understand a contact-reduced segment of language.

Some implications for general classroom management do’s and don’t.

a.         Do remember that even though adults cannot express complex thinking in the new language, they are nevertheless intelligent grown-ups with mature cognition and fully develop emotions.

b.         Don’t treat adult in your class like children by: (1) calling them kids, (2) using caretaker talk, or (3) talking down to them.

c.         Do give your students as many opportunities as possible to make choices about what they will do in and out of the classroom.

d.        Don’t discipline adults in the same way you would children.

C.    Teaching Teens

Therefore appropriate to consider briefly the sort of variables that apply in the teaching of young adults, teens and high school-age children whose ages range between 12 and 18 or so. Perhaps because of the enigma of teaching teenagers, little is specifically said in the language teaching field about teaching at this level. Nevertheless, some thoughts are worth verbalizing, even if in the form of simple reminders.

1.         Intellectual capacity adds abstract operational though around the age of 12. Therefore, some sophisticated intellectual processing is increasingly possible. Complex problems can be solved with logical thinking.

2.         Attention spans are lengthening as a result of intellectual maturation, but once again, with many diversions present in a teenager’s life, those potential attention spans can easily be shortened.

3.         Varieties of sensory input are still important, but again increasing capacities for abstraction lesson the essential nature of appealing to all five senses.

4.         Factors surrounding ego, self-image, and self-esteem are at their pinnacle. Teens are ultrasensitive to how others perceive their changing physical and emotional selves along with their mental capabilities.

5.         Secondary school students are of course becoming increasingly adult like in their ability to make those occasional diversions from the here and now nature of immediate communicative contexts to well on grammar point or vocabulary item.

CHAPTER 7

TEACHING ACROSS PROFICIENCY LEVELS

A.    Defining Proficiency Levels

The Guidelines, produced by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL), are a recognize proficiency standard in many language teaching circles. The current version of the Guidelines is historically related to what for many years referred to as “FSI levels” of speaking proficiency.

The Guidelines have one other important difference. They are not connected with any one proficiency test, as the FSI /ILR levels are. Instead, they were created to guide any test-maker in the process of assessment.

B.     Teaching Beginning Levels

Many teachers consider the beginning level of language instruction to be the most challenging. Since students at this level have little or no prior knowledge of the target language, the teacher becomes a central determiner in whether students accomplish their goals. The following 10 factors will help you to formulate an approach to teaching beginners.

1.      Students’ cognitive learning processes

In those first few days and even weeks of language learning, virtually all of the students processing with respect to the second language itself is in a focal, controlled mode. Therefore, you can expect to engage in plenty of repetition of a limited number of words, phrases and sentences. Even in the first few days of class, however, you can coax your students into some peripheral processing by getting them to use practiced language for genuinely meaningful purposes.

2.      The role of the teacher

Beginning students are highly dependent on the teacher for models of language and so a teacher-centered or teacher-fronted classroom is appropriate for some of your classroom time. In a second language context where instruction is carried out in the target language, virtually all of your class time will be teacher-controlled. Since students have no means, in the second language anyway, of controlling the class period, the ones are on you to plan topics, activity types, time-on-task, etc.

3.      Teacher talk

It is appropriate to slow your speech somewhat for easier comprehension, but don’t slow it so much that it loses its naturalness. Use simple vocabulary and structures that are at or just slightly beyond their level.

4.      Authenticity of language

Be authentic language, this is just as important at the beginning levels. Simple greetings and instructions, for example, are authentic and yet manageable.

5.      Fluency and accuracy

Fluency is a goal at this level but only within limited utterance lengths. Fluency does not have to apply only to long utterances. The flow of language is important to establish, from the beginning, in reasonably short segments. Attention to accuracy should center on the particular grammatical, phonological or discourse elements that are being practiced.

6.      Student creativity

At the beginning level, students can be creative only within the confines of a highly controlled repertoire of language. Innovation will come later when students get more language under their control.

7.      Techniques (activities, procedures, tasks)

Some mechanical techniques are appropriate –choral repetition and other drilling. Group and pair activities are excellent techniques. A variety of techniques is important because of limited language capacity.

8.      Listening and speaking goals

The listening and speaking functions for beginners are meaningful and authentic communication tasks. They are limited more by grammar, vocabulary, and length of utterance than by communicative function.

9.      Reading and writing goals

The goals for a beginning level course reading and writing topics are confined to brief but nevertheless real-life written material. Advertisements, forms, and recipes are grist for the beginner’s reading mill, while written work may involve forms, lists and simple notes and letters.

10.  Grammar

A beginning level will deal at the outset with very simple verb forms, personal pronouns, definite and indefinite articles, singular and plural nouns and simple sentences, in a progression of grammatical topics from simple to complex.

C.    Teaching Intermediate Levels

1.      Students’ cognitive learning processes

At the intermediate stage some automatic processing has taken hold. Phrases, sentences, structures, and conversational rules have been practiced and are increasing in number, forcing the mental processes to automatize. One of your principal goals at this level is to get students to continue to automatize, to continue to allow the bits and pieces of language that might clutter the mind to be relegated to automaticity.

2.      The role of the teacher

Learner-centered work is now possible for more sustained lengths of time as students are able to maintain topics of discussion and focus. The intermediate level is richly diverse, that diversity can work to your advantage with carefully designed cooperative activities that capitalize on differences among students.

3.      Teacher talk

Teacher talk should not occupy the major proportion of a class hour; otherwise, you are probably not giving students enough opportunity to talk. You should be using less of the native language of the learners at this level, but some situation may still demand it.

4.      Authenticity of language

At this level students sometimes become overly concerned about grammatical correctness and may want to wander into esoteric discussions of grammatical language.

5.      Fluency and accuracy

The dichotomy between fluency and accuracy is a crucial concerns her, more so than at either of the other ends of the proficiency spectrum. Some of students are likely to become overly concerned about accuracy, possibly berating themselves for the mistakes they made and demanding constant corrections for every slip-up.

6.      Student creativity

The fact that some of this new language is now under control gives rise to more opportunities for the student to be creative. In EFL setting those situations may be more difficult to find, but through the various forms of media and the written word, applications to the real world, heretofore unrehearsed in the classroom, are available and should be encouraged.

7.      Techniques

Common interactive techniques for intermediate include chain stories, surveys and polls, paired interviews, group problem solving, role plays, storytelling, and many others.

8.      Listening and speaking goals

The linguistic complexity of communicative listening-speaking goals increases steadily. Along with the creation of novel utterances, students can participate in short conversations, ask and answer questions, find alternative ways to convey meaning, solicit information from others, and more.

9.      Reading and writing goals

Increasing complexity in terms of length, grammar, and discourse now characteristizes reading material as students read paragraphs and short, simple stories and begin to use skimming and scanning skills.

10.  Grammar

Grammar topics such as progressive verb tenses and clauses typify intermediate level teaching.

D.    Teaching Advanced Levels

1.      Students’ cognitive learning processes

As competence in language continues to build, students can realize the full spectrum of processing, assigning larger and larger chunks to automatic modes and gaining the confidence to put the formal structures of language on the periphery so that focal attention may be given to the interpretation and negotiation of meaning and the conveying of thoughts and feelings in interactive communication.

2.      The role of the teacher

While you want to take advantage of the self-starting personalities in your class, orderly plans are still important. A directive role on your part can create effective learning opportunities even within a predominantly learner-centered classroom.

3.      Teacher talk

Natural language at natural speed is a must at this level. Make sure your students are challenged by your choice of vocabulary, structures, idioms and other language features.

4.      Authenticity of language

Everything from academic prose to literature to idiomatic conversation becomes a legitimate resource for the classroom. Virtually no authentic language material should be summarily disqualified at this stage.

5.      Fluency and accuracy

Your students are fluent in that they passed beyond the breakthrough stage and are no longer thinking about every word or structure they are producing or comprehending.

6.      Students creativity

The joy of teaching at this level is in those moments of student performance. Be ever wary of classroom activity that simply ends right there in the classroom.

7.      Techniques

Techniques can now tap into a full range of sociolinguistics and pragmatic competencies. Typical activities include group debates and argumentation and complex role plays.

8.      Listening and speaking goals

At this level students can focus more carefully on the sociolinguistic and pragmatic nuances of language.

9.      Reading and writing goals

Reading and writing skills similarly progress closer and closer to native-speaker competence as students learn more about such things as critical reading, the role of schemata in interpreting writing texts and how to write a document related to one’s profession.

10.  Grammar

The concern at the intermediate level of basic grammatical patterns to functional forms, to sociolinguistic and pragmatic phenomena and to strategic competence.

REFERENCES

Pinter, A. (2017). Teaching young language learners. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

From: http://sutlib2.sut.ac.th/sut_contents/H104336.pdf (accessed on October 27, 2018)

Brown, H Douglas. (2007). Teaching by Principle and Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (3^rd Edition). Pearson Longman: San Francisco.

Linse, C. (2006). Practical English language teaching: PELT young learners (1 edition). New York: McGraw-Hill

From: http://lib1.org/_ads/404950A184EA8043703760E97AAD1DE1 (accessed on October 27, 2018)

Moon, J. (2000). Children learning English. Oxford, UK: Macmillan Education.

From:http://lib1.org/_ads/7EABE5C7D707B2AF3C1BA0DBDBB88F97 (accessed on October 27, 2018)

Reilly, V & Ward, S. (1997). Very young learners. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

From: http://lib1.org/_ads/0A0D75525C263F4E7DCE6C26BF67574D (accessed on October 27, 2018)

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. (1999). ACTFL proficiency guidelines—speaking. Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. Author available online at http://www.actfl.org

From: http://titan.iwu.edu/~cisabell/courses/spanish410/actfl.pdf (accessed on October 27, 2018)