Karmen Feher, karmen.feher@guest.arnes.si
First published in Voices 187, October/November 2005.

Karmen Feher teaches at a language school in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She is a Young Learners Sig Page Editor of the IATEFL Slovenia Newsletter ‘In-Iatefl’, and an ESOL Examiner. She is also a member of IATEFL Slovenia, IATEFL UK, their Young Learners SIGs and the Cultural and Literature SIG.

We have entered a period of swift changes. That is a fact. The modern technologies which have flooded the market and our lives have had their consequences: physical borders are narrower, communication and information exchange more effective, language and intercultural awareness growing. And yet, in spite of a number of articles written on the topic, conferences conducted to make teachers aware of these changes and an immense effort shown on the part of language teachers to adapt to these changes in mainstream schools, little has been said about language schools and their experiences.

Language schools have always had a unique role and position. They mainly choose their own materials and their own teaching methods. Quite an advantage, especially for those offering courses for children because they need to meet not only their learners’ but especially their parents’ expectations. Being restricted to using a certain set of materials would definitely make their job more difficult. Furthermore, the primary goal of language schools is to offer more than the school can, so freedom in selecting their materials does not only contribute to the quality of language learning but also enables them to make it possible for their learners to reach a higher level of knowledge at a considerably earlier age.

However, the advances in language teaching have triggered off a rise in the quality of language teaching and learning in regular schools as well. This has led to higher expectations and new challenges. Basically, the market has changed and language schools have to adapt to it. Therefore, having a certain flexibility in teaching is no longer enough and more work needs to be put into conducting adequate programmes, motivating potential and/or existing learners to tackle or continue their extra-curricular study of a language, and finally into offering a certain external valuation and recognition of their effort.

Programmes

The publishing industry is flourishing and the market packed with teaching materials. It would be hard not to find at least one thing for every taste. And yet, what is the best choice?
Undoubtedly, the modern language learner can no longer follow the path of the traditional learning of grammatical structures and rigidly selected vocabulary and learn them perfectly well and by heart, thinking that would do the trick. We are now in an age marked with words like the Internet, globalisation, the Digital Age, so effective communication has become the key word. There is no place for perfection here: a language is too complex to master completely and the amount of information too great to consume in one go. Learning is a never-ending story. What we are striving for now, therefore, is to supply the language learner with certain strategies of how to read, write, listen and speak well enough to successfully function in a given everyday situation. Teaching programmes and materials should be selected according to the four basic language skills, i.e. reading, writing, listening and speaking, and also according to the ways in which the strategies of how to use language in communication activities are presented.

Motivation

‘Earlier means better’ seems to be another modern and widely-accepted notion in the teaching world. Its fairly successful implantation in state schools has already had and will definitely continue to have knock-on effects in the teaching of courses for children. Motivation has always played an important role, but what we will have to face now is how to motivate children to continue learning for more than ten years. No doubt, this means a heavy burden for language schools especially those that start teaching children at the age of four and five and whose policy is in any case long-term language learning.
The following might be worth considering:

The first time

The first experience is usually the most important one in everything we do. When it is a pleasant one, our enthusiasm normally grows, and when it is not, we might even consider not doing it at all. With young children, the first encounter with a foreign language is crucial. Children are sensitive, not used to processing their experiences in
the same way as adults, and they need a lot of guidance in order to get through the first years of their learning successfully. Children should have a positive and a successful learning experience.

Why?

Children should be able to find or have explained the reasons for their learning a foreign language. They need to know the purpose and what they will gain from learning or they might lose interest. With very young children parents also play an important role here, so teachers should co-operate with them, inform the parents about the child’s progress and then together try to find appropriate solutions for each individual child.

Can I do it?

Some children who already think they cannot succeed in language learning need to be re-motivated. This is particularly the case with children who have already had a negative experience with it. They will need even more positive feedback and reassurance from the teacher. This means a lot of work, but a positive result will make the teacher’s and the child’s effort worthwhile.

What if …?

Every teacher gets a ‘shy’ pupil at some point in time. Some children are simply just not language geniuses as much as we would like them to be (or at least not yet!). What a nightmare, if you get a pupil who is extremely talented but poorly motivated or a pupil who is extremely motivated and always achieves bad results! In either case motivation should be maintained. Sometimes it just takes more time.

Do’s and don’ts

Children should know that what is valued in language learning is what they can do with the language and not what they cannot do. Teachers should not focus on mistakes only and overcorrect. They should teach the learners how to self-assess and correct their own mistakes without undermining the pupil’s confidence needed so much for further successful learning. Mistakes can sometimes be mere slips, and, if not, they are an integral part of the learning process.

How?

Learning a foreign language is never really over. It also continues after one’s formal education is over and after the classroom door has been closed. In order to keep the motivation for further learning, pupils will need to become more autonomous, and therefore, be shown the strategies to learn.

Differences and similarities

Children need to realize that what they already know about their mother tongue or any other language can help them learn English better. (This is in fact applicable to any language combination.) Teachers should also make good use of occasional interferences from other languages and compare and contrast the languages rather than block the situation entirely.

Easy-peasy

A lot of room should be left for language creativity. Children should be encouraged to play with the language. They generally like making their own lines of poems, songs, expressions, and so on. This will also make them feel they are good at it and that learning a language is not so hard as they might think.

Fun

Classroom activities should be full of role-plays, games, puzzles, drama. Children still have imagination—allow them to use it!

Look what I can do

Children have the need to show what they have done, what they have learnt. It gives them a sense of self-achievement needed to keep the motivation for further learning. Therefore, they should be given enough opportunity to ‘show-off’ what they know. This can be done by creating situations in the classroom or out of it, where they can put things they have learnt into practice or simply by giving a performance to their parents, teachers, peers and friends.

Assessment

Children generally do not like being tested and marked. This is mainly due to their negative experiences with it. Firstly, nobody likes to be tested, especially when one thinks that what is being tested is not the knowledge but rather the lack of it. And secondly, grades can occasionally still prove to be a handy tool for keeping discipline. Fortunately, language schools seem to stand on more solid ground here. Courses are paid for, groups smaller, interest in learning greater, discipline problems fewer. Yet assessment is part of the learning process and cannot be avoided in any way. But what can be done about it, is to make it a pleasant experience. This is one reason more why the Cambridge Young Learners Tests (Starters, Movers and Flyers) have become so popular. They are definitely suited to the needs of the children both in terms of topics and language, they are very attractive as they consist of pictorial support and game-like tasks, and, most importantly, they are objective. Surely, this is exactly what language schools currently need in order to satisfy the school’s, the learners’ and the parents’ expectations. They may therefore take into consideration the following:

The Cambridge Young Learners Tests:

are tests for children
offer an interesting and a positive experience in testing without the usual stress
motivate children for further learning
test what children can do and not what they cannot do
are friendly because all learners can take them and all learners are rewarded for what they know
are motivational because all learners are awarded with a certificate
are a good motivational factor also for weaker pupils
are professional
test the four language skills which represent an overall knowledge of a language: reading, writing, listening and speaking
motivate children to start learning other languages
are international tests
represent the first step towards other testing in school
represent the first step towards taking of further Cambridge exams, i.e. KET, PET, FCE, CAE and CPE.

To conclude, it is always difficult to predict what ways the development in language teaching and learning will go. However, there is no doubt that they will be faster and strongly influenced by the modern technologies. Adaptation will be the key to success, and not only in state schools but also in language schools offering paid-for courses for children. Therefore, reconsidering the value of motivation for language learning and a positively-orientated evaluation of the acquired knowledge might be of help to both teachers and learners and at the same time result in the outcomes we want to achieve.