Teaching second languages is an extremely
challenging job yet it is highly rewarding.
Apart from all of the preparation that is required to become a second
language teacher including educational studies, the art of mastering teaching
requires understanding and adjusting your style to differences that exist from
classroom to classroom. It can be a
struggle to teach a new language to students because typically a classroom will
have multiple students, all of which come with unique linguistic backgrounds,
potentially varying ethnic and geographical origins, ages, educational
backgrounds and motivations for language learning, as well as different
learning styles. Given all this variability
in students, it is absolutely vital that teachers of second languages
effectively understand who comprises their class and what the most efficient
method of teaching may be.
There are four main theoretical
orientations to second language learning and teaching in terms of approaches:
1) Cognitive which includes memorization and teaching generalized language
information; 2) Communicative which focuses on actual practical use of language
and learning to speak in what is often seen as the “natural” way; 3)
Interpersonal which is focused or targeted personalized teaching by the teacher
to the student given the learner’s background and reasons for studying; and 4)
Structural which is about learning the grammar and structure of a language in
order to better understand how the language works.
A strong teacher of a second language will
take the four approaches above and find an appropriate mix of them in order to effectively
teach their class. For example, for a
class full of small children learning Spanish whose first language is English
and all have relatively similar backgrounds and reasons for being in the class,
the most effective may be communicative teaching. This is because young children often get
bored with complicated memorization and they are not advanced enough in
academics for the structural approach, whereas their aptitude for learning due
to age is strong and children are known to learn languages well through
exposure from interaction alone.
However, if you are teaching Portuguese to a class of adults looking to
one day master Portuguese to English translation or Spanish to a student
aspiring to become a professional Spanish to English translator, the
methodology for teaching these students should change drastically to include
all four abovementioned approaches.
Ultimately, second language teaching can only be effectively
accomplished when the teaching approach is adapted to each individual student
or group of students to best suit their needs, learning styles and unique
backgrounds.
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