Еnglish language tеасhing methodology

1.2.Distinctive features of teaching elementary level learners
While toddlers begin to explore beyond the home environment and casa students begin to explore the school environment in its entirety, it is the elementary children who take exploration, curiosity and drive to a whole new level in the Montessori going out program. Discover how the teachers in partnership with their students guide them on this journey. Intellectual choice and independence are goals for the children in the Elementary program. They are life skills; keys to the universe. The children need to explore beyond the classroom and to aid in this construction, we must provide opportunities for them to go out into society and experience it. The elementary child’s need to expand beyond the home environment translates as well to a need for expanding social relationships. Peers become extremely important to elementary aged children; they are constantly building relationships. There is a ‘herd instinct’ within them, they naturally form groups, they want to be with their friends and questions of how to build community become extremely meaningful. Their constant talking is really evidence of this focus on building relationships. These children want to be like their friends, fads come to the fore, and to be accepted by the group is extremely important. From their perspective, rejection by their peers is one of the worst things that can happen. In the classroom, materials and concepts are often introduced in group presentations. There is a cooperative, collaborative focus as opposed to a competitive one. This too is part of how the children are learning to build community, learning how to get along with diverse personality types and with those who do or do not always bring out the best in them.
At this level a child’s mastery of vocabulary increases so does his fluency. He becomes more aware of the proper use of expressions and understands grammatical usage through practice in his daily life. A child in this stage is to describe what he sees and to express his ideas. He likes to read much, especially about plants, animals, children of other nations, agricultural crops, boats, ships and means of transport (i.e. cars, trains and planes) He cherishes the tendency to read about travels, journeys, adventures and acts of heroism. A child is also able to recognize logical linguistic relations and distinguish between meanings. In this stage a child is more able to express his feelings in words rather than motion expressions. Since he enjoys personal freedom, his emotions are usually pleasurable and quiet. Sometimes he feels frustrated and could not achieve his needs or wishes because of his classmates’ jealousy, anger and competition. A child usually tends to play with his school fellows or with groups. This is usually an output for different hidden emotions. He likes to play games that need mental thinking such as assembling and disassembling toys. Flattery and encouragement positively affect him. He enjoys others’ love and affection and cherishes personal sense of success. 1- A child should be accustomed to discipline and good distribution of time on play and work in this early stage. He should have the ample chance to move freely and participate in free activities in a social atmosphere void of undue restrictions but not breaking rules and regulations. 2- Subjects of study in this stage should suit the pupils’ standard and learning capability. Proper methods of teaching should be applied to enhance the pupils’ ability to assimilate and understand what they study and foster in them the love for learning. 3- Education in this stage should be based on the method of learning by doing. Theoretical information should be acquired through practice. Pupils could be educated through collective projects in which they cooperate to attain common objectives. At the end of this stage, he tends to join small groups in which they enjoy playing together. They cooperate and participate in joint activities. However, these gatherings rarely last for a long time. Children tendency to group has its merits. Some behavioral characteristics become evident. We can notice different tendencies to leadership, subordination, cooperation, competition, jealousy or solitude. That is why primary schools take interest in forming school groups to practice different activities. Sportive teams and scouts are good examples. Through imitation, assimilation and personification a child usually acquires different methods of behavior.According to Vygotsky`s theory, children learn and develop their thoughts through collaboration and interaction with more knowledgeable members of their society. During the interaction language is used to express and exchange thoughts, as well as to influence one another`s thought and behavior. The cooperative dialogues between children and their more proficient partners, together with the partners’ guidance or assistance while doing the tasks, become internalized by the children and this enables them to guide their own actions and to accomplish skills themselves. Children are naturally curious and active, therefore they are eager to interact with other people and the surrounding environment through physical activity and to experience things at firsthand. Children learn language effectively because they tend to be more enthusiastic and willing to talk than older children, even though they have very limited communicative abilities . Young children will talk a lot and happily when they are engaged in an interesting activity and when they feel secure. This talk is useful for language learning in that it increases children`s opportunities to practice using the language. The process of children’s learning their first language, and the characteristics and abilities involved in language learning can be drawn on as a basis for the insights into how children learn a second or foreign language. Children are able to learn a second or foreign language effectively when they have specific purposes for learning the language, and when they are provided with supportive learning conditions, sufficient motivation, plentiful time for learning. However, in contexts where the target language is learned as a foreign language, language learning conditions are rarely found in the general surroundings. They have to be mostly provided in the language classroom. Moreover, the procedures of foreign language pedagogy draw on the procedures of second language pedagogy. There are a great variety of problems in teaching the English language that teachers face in elementary classes. At this level teaching English as a foreign language is really challenging, yet rewarding career choice. Being an English teacher means dealing with a number of problems in the classroom, many of which are all too common occurrences. Among them:
-behavior and classroom management;
-attention span;
-motivation of young pupils;
-size of the classroom;
-spelling problems;
-pronunciation difficulties;
-different learning styles;
-cognitive development of each child;
-communicative environment;
- lack of teaching resources (internet connection);
teaching fluency in English;
- language transfer(interference).
New methods and approaches are being used now and a lot of attention is paid especially to speaking and listening in contrast to the previous times. Teaching a foreign language is really difficult, especially, in large classrooms. When the class is too large the teacher has difficulties over controlling behavioral issues at the same time concentrating children`s attention on the teaching material. Another important issue is to keep the children motivated in class not using the learner`s mother tongue. It is well known that children have very little attention span and they get bored easily, that is why using modern methods of teaching is very significant. A good teacher must know that dealing with learners who are at different stages of learning, each of them has different individual needs. This is especially evident when we deal with the children with learning disabilities. When planning activities, it is important to look out examples that children are interested in, e.g. their favorite musical groups, or favorite football players or actors etc. Using these examples will capture the learners’ attention and interest. The teacher`s goal is to excite the children about learning, writing, reading, and comprehending English. Sometimes young children do not understand or appreciate the value of learning English and this attitude can be changed by their parents` efforts through inspiring their child learning the language. Sometimes it is very difficult to teach a child to speak a foreign language. Children very often feel unsecured and only want to communicate with their peers. It is a must to create such an atmosphere for the children which will inspire them and keep them motivated, help them communicate with their friends easily not feeling embarrassed. In order to make our lessons more effective we must use modern technologies. Nowadays technologies has emerged into nearly all spheres of our lives. Language teaching and learning is not an exception. For having new developments and for making changes to better there is always a need to investigate and to experiment some things. One of those technological tools is video, the effective use of which is assured by many scholars. As the systematic teaching of the basic knowledge and communicative skills of the English language starts from elementary classes of the basic school each pupil`s steady development of listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities is significantly conditioned by the efficiency of teaching and learning activities at elementary level.