English Language not subjects

<b> Forum for elementary education ESL/EFL teachers </b>

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Pamlc
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English Language not subjects

Post by Pamlc » Mon Feb 17, 2003 2:35 pm

I am a 30 yr old living in Portugal giving English lessons in my home to 2 groups of children (4-6yr olds and 7-10yr olds). As my lessons are an after school activity for the children I am concerned with teaching them the English Language not necessarily information about the subjects I am covering with them. For example, I am at present teaching a food theme, yet I am finding it very difficult to find resources on the internet that dont involve teaching nutrition or food chains! Does anyone know of any sites that provide lesson plans/activities to teach basic English language and words around this subject? I dont want to teach them the nutritional value of what they are eating but merely to be able to talk about it in English!

Thanks
Pamela

Roger
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Post by Roger » Tue Feb 18, 2003 3:29 am

You are right - at this tender age kids need to learn to form concepts rather than understanding instructions, rules and so on. Use VISUALS, for instance FLASHCARDS.
You can download some from www.eslkidsstuff.com
(H hope I have got the right spelling).

Another one that I have not used myself but heard a lot about is www.bogglesworld.com

However, I don't really think you need a lot of materials! you can create things ad hoc! Why not instruct your learners to draw objects, colour them and name them after the process? Thus, you could cover the whole ranges of VEGETABLES, FRUITS, FLOWERS, TREES, ANIMALS (always a great draw!), not to mention other things close to the hearts of your kids!

In China, McDONALD'S MENUES are VERY POPULAR (but probably less so in Portugal, who knows?).

Good luck
Roger

john martin
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Concepts

Post by john martin » Thu Feb 20, 2003 11:28 am

How do kids learn concepts? What is a concept? If a kids can understand an instructions are they somehow not using concepts? How can you help kids understand concepts? I am not sure what you are suggesting. The kids the poster was talking about are 4 to 10 year olds. Are they too young to learn instructions or rules?

john martin
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Post by john martin » Thu Feb 20, 2003 11:30 am

Appologies...My last post was very badly edited, but I think the message is the same either way.!!

dduck
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Re: Concepts

Post by dduck » Thu Feb 20, 2003 12:22 pm

john martin wrote:How do kids learn concepts? What is a concept? If a kids can understand an instructions are they somehow not using concepts?
Just thinking about the words themselves is revealing:

Instructions are usually given down, often to be followed without questioning. Communication is one way and it's difficult to check to understanding.
Concepts are ideas, images of how the world works, in reality and in abstract.

Working with concepts opens up a dialogue, an exchange of knowledge. Often as adults we're surprised and amazed by the thoughts and images that children produce.! We learn from them as they learn from us.

The one question most often asked by children is "Why?". A concept question :) Whereas adults ask "Where is the remote?" ;)

Iain

john martin
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Post by john martin » Thu Feb 20, 2003 1:55 pm

Interesting point .This is to assume that kids never give instuctions to the teacher or other kids. If I misspell a word on the board the kids tell me to spell it a different way. They do not use request structures..they give instructions.."Put a T" Put an S". Strange that you think that instructions only come from the top down. That is also to assume that the teacher is at the top and the student is at the bottom.

How much use to a kid is having a concept and then not being able to communicate it? I am hungry. I am uncomfortable. Isn't that why babies cry?
Kids learn concepts by growing up. They want things. They want other people to do things for them. They want the teacher to do things for them.

Just what is an abstract concept? Can it be taught within a language teaching construct, or is it developed naturally?

How can working with concepts open up a dialogue? Granted dialogue in its loosest terms can mean a mutual understanding. But the English teacher is not there to promote non language communication.

I can understand what most people are feeling by looking at their faces or body language. This does not mean I can speak/write their language however.

There are certainly many things to be said about learning concepts and how kids learn within this respect, but they are not a substitute for the learning of language. They are a means of teaching/passing on/aquiring the language.

Otherwise we would both now be screaming and crying our displeasure at our difference of oppinion and not formulating it in to words.. How much difference there is between the two is a matter open to question however..LOL

LarryLatham
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Post by LarryLatham » Thu Feb 20, 2003 5:38 pm

This has the potential to be a huge discussion, and perhaps very valuable for everybody who follows it. But posters who get into this will need their thick skins on--it's time to be adult, everyone.

John, you're my kinda guy!! I have great troubles with "concepts" and, as administrators in my part of the world call them, "competencies." It seems to me that our responsibilities as English teachers ought to be limited to teaching language. Throwing other ideas into the pot seems to defocus our efforts, and maybe deminishes our effectiveness.

Larry Latham

Leo
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www.eslkidstuff.com

Post by Leo » Fri Feb 21, 2003 12:12 am

The website Roger suggested should only contain one 's': www.eslkidstuff.com

sita
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concepts...

Post by sita » Fri Feb 21, 2003 5:19 am

I only teach adults
I rarely have a course for kids.

However I always make a point at the beginning .
WE are a team it is YOUR seminar lets make the most of it!

I despise the teacher centred lessons
During my lessons one member is always "The teacher" for 10 minutes!
giving the group a task.

It is very interesting how imaginative and strict they can be!

Siân

strider
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Location: France

Post by strider » Fri Feb 21, 2003 10:51 am

Just an aside...

Larry, I noticed something in your recent post.

Do people really say 'competencies'? In my dictionary, 'competence' is listed as an uncountable noun. The funny thing is, in French the word 'compétence' (same meaning) is countable, so until now I have been correcting my students if they say 'competencies' !

LarryLatham
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Competencies

Post by LarryLatham » Fri Feb 21, 2003 6:03 pm

Strider,

Indeed they do say "competencies" in the school districts here in Southern California. 8)

Actually, that doesn't bother me. The concept bothers me, but not the word. Your dictionary ignores what I think is a striking feature of language (at least of English). Certain aspects we attribute to words don't really inure in the word itself, but rather in the way they're used. A context is required before we can say whether a particular word is a noun or a verb ("book", for example), or whether a noun is countable. Most would say, off the top of their heads, that "English" is a non-count noun. But Norm, from Canberra, Australia, in a wonderful recent post to this forum somewhere, made an excellent point that there are many "Englishes", referring to those from his country, from New Zealand, from England, from Canada, from America, from Scotland, and so on. :D

Larry Latham

strider
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Location: France

Post by strider » Mon Feb 24, 2003 7:28 am

At the risk of going off at a tangent...

Larry, thanks for your reply. I agree with you completely! English is a language which is evolving, changing and mutating in front of our eyes on a daily basis!

However, many students are working on syllabuses which are validated by an exam. Any question regarding the student's use of a particular word is resolved by either looking in a dictionary (let's hope they use a recent one) or the examiners relying on their own knowledge of the language. In turn, if the examiner is not a native speaker, his or her knowledge may be based on the education he or she received some 30 or 40 years ago.

What I'm trying to say is that, in some situations, the dictionary has (and has to have) the last word.

LarryLatham
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Location: Aguanga, California (near San Diego)

Post by LarryLatham » Tue Feb 25, 2003 4:56 am

Strider,

Alas, I concede your point! :cry:

But don't you think we teachers (at least those of us who care about this) owe it to our students and to our profession to, at the very least, bring up this issue in places and at times where it matters? Otherwise we run the risk of perpetuating a fossilized procedure when we know (or think we know) better. :evil: ...:wink:

Roger
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Post by Roger » Wed Feb 26, 2003 2:20 am

Sorr for my late reply to John's query, and Larry's support to him! I do not read this forum every day!

The question John asked was: IS it necessary for kids to learn "concepts"? How important are 'concepts' to young learners?

John, have you any experience with preschoolers? If so, with kids whose first language is a foreign tongue?

I must say that learning to think precedes learning the language with which we want to communicate our thought-out ideas to each other. Thus, learning a language is a highly-socialising effort. This presupposes that we all know what the other person is talking about.

Do kids give teachers instructions?
A rhetorical question! My kids give me feedback. They ask me questions. Sometimes, they relate to me the problem they have in understanding adultspeak! Is that giving me 'instructions'? No, they are moving the goalposts so that I hit the football again and direct it into their area better!
But the CONCEPTS they are acquiring are those I share with other adults, and now with them. To them, these concepts are new, not formed in their own minds!
What kinds of concepts?

The first thing 4 year olds and around that age may be:
- the differences between people: I, you, he, she.
The "I' and 'you' differentiation happens a long time before, but the differentiation between 'we' and 'you, 'they' has to be trained (not 'studied') in classroom settings where the number of participants exceeds the number of family members (ok, there you might apply "we" too, but hardly 'they'; and if it is a L2, then the kid has to start from scratch anyway, and that is what I am talking about - I am teaching English in a foreign culture!).
The differentiation between 'he', 'she' has to be learnt in a culturally-adequate way. For instance here in China, most adult English speakers routinely confuse 'he' with 'she' simply because of bad learning habits (memorising and translating). That is why you should focus on this from an early age on, and in the case of preschoolers, in a non-academic way.

Other concepts: Right, left, right, wrong.
These are very intellectual concepts, yet they can be 'trained' by acting rather than merely by rote-learning!

Body parts:
You can, of course, "teach" names to relatively advanced learners, but these students will 'translate' rather than accept English concepts for things they already know in their mother tongue.
I hold that they should learn to think in their target language. Thus, I teach body parts in kindergartens. It is easy, and the kids sometimes know them in English before they learn their names in Chinese.

Colours, qualities, objects:
The young learner wants to explore the world, experience sensations. He or she does not wish for a teacher to "teach' them and drone on.I also feel the use of the blackboard should be restricted! I often draw on it rather than writing. This helps form ideas and concepts. It stimulates a child's imagination.

That is my general philosophy! Of course, these cogitations apply to PRESCHOOLERS (up to age 6, which means the range you had in mind includes students that I would deal with differently!).

I don't think so highly about talking sessions with small children in the controlled and somewhat alienating enviornment of a classroom!
Let children gain experience before they verbalise their impressions!

john martin
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Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2003 11:12 am

concepts and kids

Post by john martin » Wed Feb 26, 2003 10:54 am

Thanks for the reply Roger. But I feel you have misinterpreted my post. Nowhere did I ask whether it was a good idea for kids to learn concepts.
Depending on who you follow, conceptual development either comes about as a natural course of aging or through contact with social constructs and society in general. If ther latter is true, then as people that act on the kids as part of society we cannot but help them learn/aquire concepts. If the former is true, then we make no difference at all. Concepts such as right and wrong, I believe need to be taught, but this teaching is provided by society as a whole and differs between cultures.

My point is that we should not be mistaking the concept debate from what our primary duty as language teachers is..and that is to teach/help students acquire language. We should be using the concepts they have to help them with their language development.

I have taught all ages. Preschoolers at both playgroups and kindergartens, and then on to primary and secondary teaching and adults.

We should be aware that a very important part of a kid's development is in the concept arena, and be aware of how concepts differ between younger and older. But we are language teachers who should take these in to account, and not become concept teachers who take language into account.

Having said that Roger, I believe that at preschool level, concepts and language teaching tend to go hand in hand because kids are learning both at the same time.

I understand your frustrations at dealing with a culture that appears not to develop lines of independent initiative, and it can be very frustating when even the simplest of things seem not to be understood. I am not talking about language here, but more of looking at a demonstration of an activity and then being able to understand what should happen. Through my teaching I try to encourage students to take their own initiative and develop deductive reasoning. But from all the research I have read, there are very culturaly specific forms of deductive reasoning, and not all of them follow the commonly understand forms of Western deduction!!!

On the point of Chinese people mixing up he and she, I would suggest that this is not a conceptual problem. I am sure that Chinese people are aware of the differences between men and women. To my understanding, neither Putonghua nor Cantonese has a different pronunciation for he/she in spoken langauge. I think this is why the problem occurs.

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