Additionally, the in-service primary school teachers (further – participants) are requested to reflect and comment on PDWs, and explain the reasons why they think they are phonetically difficult. These findings may, reflect current government policies, which have introduced a focus on, communicative approaches as a way of addressing the perceived need, for an English-proficient workforce in the global economy. For the children of migrants, learning the language of instruction and assessment so that they can enter school or carry on their education is paramount. of influences on teachers’ activities communicative. The purpose of this book is to examine the claims that have been made for the importance of English in development, to point out where these claims do not appear to be justified, to consider whether the pursuit of English in the name of development carries with it any dangers, to identify those areas where English really does appear to have a useful role to play, and to formulate recommendations. Cameron (2001) notes that some children benefit from “skilful gram-, mar teaching” (p. 121). Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A, doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00986.x/full. In terms of practical implications, a model for sustaining the benefits of AR is proposed that balances top-down manager support with bottom-up teacher motivation. She is interested in feedback talk in post observation conferences and in, teaching English to young learners. filtered for each individual country to produce five separate accounts. A learner acquires the target language from his surroundings, media, from the people he interacts but top of all classroom lear… For, example, one teacher commented, “Discipline, as I am teaching in a, boys school,” and another stated, “Unruly children who lack discipline, from home is a major challenge.” The teachers we observed also raised. ments), followed by lack of resources (15) and large classes (13). cies and achievements. (2009). Although many teachers identified “grammar” as a challenge without, further explanation, comments such as the following were not uncom-, mon: “To explain difficult grammar categories (e.g., the difference, between the present perfect and the past simple)”; “In my personal, opinion is grammar aspect because children become bored when, teachers try to teach in this way.” The fact that young learners between, 7 and 11 are being taught grammar is of particular interest. Moreover, many children are learning to write both in Eng-, lish and in their first language, which means they are developing, literacy in two languages simultaneously. may be that when the policy to introduce English was introduced, many Italian teachers had limited English skills but were required to. © 2008-2020 ResearchGate GmbH. endobj The Unique Challenges of Teaching English-Language Learners. In J. Enever, J. Responding to this call, this book introduces a state-of-the-art model for developing prospective and practicing teachers into strategic thinkers, exploratory researchers, and transformative teachers. Pillar, I., & Cho, J. Young learner English language policy and implementation: Inter-. Handbook of research methods in social and personal-, Dreams and realities: Developing countries and English language. Students who are learning English at school tend to be diagnosed with learning disabilities two to three years later than their native English-speaking peers, and they’re underrepresented in special education before the third grade — likely because their teachers assume their reading challenges are rooted in developing language … The model includes five modules: Knowing, Analyzing, Recognizing, Doing, and Seeing (KARDS). (2011). Research into the potential of collaborative writing is relatively new. Ghatage, M. M. (2009). Traditional teacher preparation programs tend to lack a curriculum that focuses on second language teaching and learning… In countries where English has been compulsory for a number of years, the question arises as to what extent the numerous and well-documented challenges faced by the initial implementation of early language learning, In 2004, the Ministry of Education of China disseminated a communicative language teaching (CLT) oriented new English curriculum for secondary schools across the entire country. For teachers in these four countries, bet-, ter access to resources such as textbooks and materials was similarly, ranked to the global response. Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, and, Turner (2007) argue that mixed-methods research “combines, elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches (e.g., use. Questionnaires in second language research: Construction, Investigating global practices in teaching, Focus on form in the classroom second language. Drawing on data from a recent research international research project, this article focuses on the challenges faced by teachers of English to young learners against the backdrop of the global rise of English. Taking risks in task-based teaching and learning. ), ing in east Asia today: Changing policies and practices, Pandian, A. Moon, & U. Raman (Eds. For the purposes of this article, we regard these as localised exemplifi-. Teachers may therefore, find themselves teaching English either without adequate training in, teaching young learners in general or in teaching English to young, learners in particular. For example, she changed activities frequently and used, technology, such as a smartboard, and teaching aids such as mini, whiteboards for the children to draw on. The class, only one a week, so they have very few chance.” The reasons were that, the school operated a morning and afternoon shift, English staffing, was restricted, and the school could not afford more teachers. 120). Some of the fifteen chapters take a broad geographical sweep; others focus on particular developing countries in Asia and Africa. pedagogy wholesale, but perhaps without much success. Hu 2002). Its goal is to help teachers understand: Questionnaires in Second Language Research: Construction, Administration, and Processing is the first guide in the second language field devoted to the question of how to produce and use questionnaires as reliable and valid research instruments. management. To do this I have reflected on my experience as a former Saudi student, who went through the "old traditional" curriculums, an elementary level English teacher for a short period of time, and now as an early childhood teacher's educator. EFL educational policies and educational cultures: Approval. Based on findings of a 15-month ethnographic study, this paper aims to answer these questions. ... For English-language students, the … Edge (2006) and Kumaravadivelu (2011) in, particular are also highly critical of wholesale adoption of Western, approaches to language teaching which support the spread of English, while ensuring Western countries continue to benefit from it. Of the 89 open-question responses from Tanzania, sometimes she can understand what you say, but, Of the 43 responses by UAE teachers to the open, only classrooms (Butzkamm, 2003; Creese &, (Abax Publishing), and is Chair of the Linguistic, . Our data also drew attention to some teachers’ concerns about their, own levels of English. China’s foreign language policy on primary English education: Inal, D. (2009). young learners (TEYL): A case study of two states in India. Her classes contained a number of children with learning difficulties, or special educational needs. The role of focus-on-form tasks in promoting child L2 acquisition. The study investigates how the teachers experienced the AR program, how they negotiated action-researcher identities as a result, and the impact the program has had on ELICOS colleges and the ELICOS sector, from teachers and managers’ perspectives. on state school classrooms and the challenges it poses to teachers. This article draws, on further data from the study to identify the challenges faced by, teachers of primary English both globally, across the total number of, countries involved in the study, and more locally in five of these coun-, tries located in different continents. In the UAE, where most class-, Colombia, where classes are generally large (30, important as many other factors. However, English language writing has always been a challenge for second language students to master. <>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/MediaBox[ 0 0 595.32 841.92] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> Similarly, Pinter (2011), reviewing a study by, Harley (1998), which examined focus-on-form in a Grade 2 immersion, class of L2 French in Canada, concluded that “children were able to, focus on form and derive benefits from an approach that focuses on, the second most important factor in improving teaching and learn-, ing in schools. I, believe in multisensory activities.” While challenges in the UAE mirror, the global picture to some extent, motivation and differentiation are, particular local challenges which require teachers to be skilled in, that the challenges teachers face in teaching English to young learners, are both myriad and common. Jin and Cortazzi (2003, p. 132) call “cultures of learning” (see, e.g., Linked to policies about pedagogy is the issue of resources. While Colombia, South Korea, and the UAE show, similar results to the global survey, in Italy and Tanzania more hours, is less important. Given, their age, the amount of English teaching they are receiving each, week (usually less than two hours), and that they are often in large, mixed-level classes, the value of explicit grammar teaching might be, questioned; yet as several comments show, it is clearly an aspect of. ����`J3/�l�rH-G����LTri��s��ӵF. portrayals of respondents’ viewpoints (Reis & Judd, 2000). This is a critical aspect especially in cases when global pandemics situations allow only the online schooling opportunity. that 45 teachers felt that the way they teach English is a challenge, with 30 comments on pedagogy and 15 on being creative. who funded the research, and the researchers’ professional contacts. ing cultures: Interpretations of communicative pedagogy in the UK and Korea. Kumaravadivelu, (2001) argues that teachers should be helped to “develop the knowl-, edge and skill, attitude, and autonomy necessary to construct their, own context-sensitive pedagogic knowledge” (p. 541) and this must. Care needs to be taken to ensure that responses to, local challenges are mediated by local educational conditions (Matsu-, da, 2006) and strategies and that solutions are found that build upon, local teachers’ “sense of plausibility” (Prabhu, 1990). This comment expressed common concerns: “How to motivate stu-, dents and make them love English.” In line with previous research, (Ho, 2003; Li, 1998) some teachers believe that young learners do not, understand the purpose of learning English, an attitude which may be, exacerbated by their parents (“Parents’ motivation, respect and impor-, tance given to learning English”). Class size is clearly more salient, in state schools than in private schools, where numbers are gener-, ally lower; and as suggested in this comment, class size might be, indicative of other issues: “Big size class, poor teaching and learning, conditions.” As mentioned above, class size is often linked to behav-, iour problems and also exacerbates issues arising from heteroge-. Also attracting six comments was teachers’ level of English, which did, not emerge in the global data but was also a problem in Italy. One is that English is often, introduced as a compulsory subject at primary school without due, CHALLENGES IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS, consideration of who will teach it. Challenges faced by students ... in the academic classroom … %���� Winning over reluctant learners. In A. Burns & J. C. Richards (Eds. Transcripts were made of, In order to analyse the data, we first filtered the results from the, closed question and from the open question by country to identify the, local challenges. However, I try connecting, with them and challenge myself to help them improve their results.”, This was followed by inadequate resources (14) and teaching writing, (10). However, teachers may find it challenging to intro-, duce these new approaches for several reasons. The spread of English as a lin-, gua franca has given rise to the belief that learners need to acquire, communication skills rather than knowledge about English. He lamented that students’ expo-, sure to English was very limited: “Grade 4, have two sessions. The survey provides, global results across 142 countries and uncovers the major challenges, in teaching young learners as reported by the 4,459 teachers who, responded. Second, it, uncovers a number of areas that have either not been previously iden-. The survey reflects reported practices, only and cannot claim to be representative because of the unevenness, of responses across countries. More obvious variation can be seen in teachers’ attitudes to more, hours of English. These, include class size, teachers’ own skills and confidence in English, and, time pressures. Perhaps linked to this area of concern is a, third potentially significant finding that teaching speaking is consid-, ered extremely challenging by many teachers. The only way of acquiring a language is through learning. This qualitative case study explores the impact of an Action Research (AR) program on the participating English Language Intensive Cours, It has now been 20 years since the CLT was introduced in Bangladesh. Regarding the teachers’ ages, approximately a third were in their 30s. It has been shown that teachers are challenged, partly by lack of training, partly by lack of knowledge, and partly by, lack of resources. The qualitative and quantitative results were then triangulated to form a complete whole. ferent educational contexts, namely, teaching speaking, motivation, differentiating learning, teaching large classes, discipline, teaching, writing, and teaching grammar. The model suggests strategies for celebrating existing teacher AR while also encouraging continuous teacher research engagement to support practice. Potential cultural resistance to pedagogical imports: The case of. 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