The following text will mainly be about my own teaching approach, as well as my preferred teaching methods. In order to describe them, some major first language acquisition theories will be discussed. Finally, the future of the English language and the English teaching will also be touched upon through my own perspective.
First of all, to be able to understand how English should be taught, it is necessary to understand how languages are learnt. With that in mind, what a better way than diving right in with the language geniuses: BABIES! Throughout the years, there are numerous theorists trying to explain the first language acquisition. The most well-known ones are the Behaviourist Theory and the Innatist Theory. The mentioned two takes the polar opposite stand on how we as human acquire our first languages. The former believes that just like any other skills, languages are learnt purely through imitation and reinforcement through rewards from others, such as parents. Although it is undeniable that imitation does have a key role in language learning, the theory does not comment on how and why children have such a good grasp on grammar naturally, or why they also can form an infinite number of sentences without being taught such forms. To counter these points, the latter introduced a concept of Language Acquisition Device (LAD) that is believed to contain the innate understanding of languages. With the introduction of LAD, the overextension of grammar rules and the expressive speed of language acquisition of babies are explainable. However, the flaw of this theory is that it doesn’t consider interaction in language learning. As a supplement to LAD, the Social Interaction Theory established the concept of Language Acquisition Support System (LASS). LASS is a companion to LAD, containing the external supports for language acquiring from more knowledgeable others, environment or social routines. With the introduction of LASS, it puts the emphasis on the importance of interaction and further fortifies the Innatist Theory.
With all these theories in mind, whichever is the one to tickle your fancy, I firmly believe that it is crucial for teachers to understand your students, especially put their mother tongue into consideration. By having a general understanding of students’ native tongues, teachers can tailor the teaching style to their students and work around what the students might struggle with. As a result, the better the understanding between teachers and students, the lesser the frustration for both parties.
I firmly believe that the goal of languages is to communicate, which mean speaking and listening will be the skills I focus heavily on. As an English learner I have been, I do understand how unexciting and non-interactive a traditional classroom teaching can be: A teacher being the centre of the class, downloading all the information to quietly seated students; Students then later expected to regurgitate the absorbed information during tests and exams to see how well they can remember things like a robot. The problem with this way of teaching is that it can only generate the passive understanding of languages, which are by their nature rather an interactive matter. Due to this belief, I much prefer the direct method and the communicative approach to teaching.
By using the direct method in teaching, it encourages the students to think in the target languages. For example, if I were to teach a vocabulary class, having pictures, videos or even gifs of the words themselves and the description in the target languages would be ideal. The imagery helps with forming a mental link between the new vocabulary with the visual. Furthermore, it can motivate students to think in the target language, help them to attempt omitting the need of the translation step, hence quicken the thought process and further improve students’ responsiveness toward the learning language.
As for the communicative approach, it keeps the students stayed true to the goal of languages: Being communicative. It integrates all language skills into teaching, and the activities can be anything from a chat up about families, sport or a debate about more serious matters. Whatever the activities might be, it is vital to keep them practical and interesting. For instance, in order to practice such tenses like Past Perfect, teachers could touch on topics, depending on what might pique students’ interests and personal to them, such as their past jobs, their family or their country’s history. Moreover, this approach provides students with authentic languages in a real-life context. As teachers, it is also important to introduce a wide variety of potential responses in the same context, so students can learn how to use the target language more fluidly and creatively. As a prime example, most of my friends in Vietnam only know one way to greet someone, and it is as followed:
- Hello. How are you?
- I’m fine. Thank you. And you?
- I’m fine.
Due to how English is taught to them, it is rather stiff and robotic to do so. Instead of just letting students be content with one way of communicating, teachers need to switch things up accordingly to how it would be done in real-life situations. In this case, we can constantly change it up while talking to the students, such as:
- How has life been treating you?
- How are you doing?
- How has your day been?
- I’m doing well/lovely/…
In my opinion, a successful class should be a nice flowing conversation between both teachers and students and not just a never-ending speech from the teacher. In order to do so, teachers need to need to manoeuvre the conversation to grasp the students' interests. As for myself, what I usually rely on when I first talk to someone is constantly changing the topics to find out which one the students will respond the most positive to, which can be noticed easily through the tone of their voice or their body languages. If a teacher manages to do as such, it can build up the students’ confidence and hence help them speak up more willingly. I also strongly believe that teachers should be almost friends with their students and not taking a superior role. Language teachers are the one who in charge of something so “human”, so keeping it as fun yet interactive as possible is the proper way to go about it.
However, the style of teaching should also be tailored to the students’ needs. If the students want to focus on conversational English, I will focus on the listening (especially the pronunciation), speaking or even commonly used slangs. On the other hand, if the students want to improve their English for academic purposes, perhaps formal speaking/writing and reading would be the main focus. As teachers, it is all about being flexible and understanding with each and every student.
Lastly, I would like to bring up my point of view about the future of English, especially the future of English teaching. Just like any others languages, English is constantly evolving, maybe even more so than any other languages due to how widely used English is. Since the birth of the Internet and the exponential growth of technology in these recent years, English has been changing even faster. The Internet culture has introduced a whole new realm of slangs through memes, and it can be rather daunting if you are a bit out of the loop. Furthermore, the Internet brings with it an abundant amount of information, usually presented in an easily digestible format. So as teachers, we need to keep our teaching style just as fast pace, yet informative and fun, to keep up with the expected shorter concentration span. Since languages are designed for human communication still do believe that human interaction is still very much needed despite the growth of technology. Finally, as teachers, we need to be adaptive and keep up with all the newer technology at a moderate rate, just so we do not feel left behind.
