Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Young Learners

The years at primary school are extremely important in children’s intellectual, physical, emotional, and social development. They go through a series of stages, progressively acquiring skills that are thought necessary by the society they live in. Many of these skills are interdependent, and if one has not been sufficiently developed, the acquisition of another may be impeded. For example, children who are unable to identify the odd shape in the following group will have difficulty in differentiating between the letters p, b, and d.

Similarly, if an older child is unable to dissociate him- or herself from the here and now, and to project and enter into imaginary hypothetical worlds, he or she will find it difficult to make deductions from evidence, to apply his/ her experience to other situations, or indeed to accept that the world has not always been as it is now. This is a serious handicap in the educational system in which knowledge is usually acquired from books and not from firsthand experience.

The way children learn a foreign language, and therefore the way to teach it, obviously depend on their developmental stage. It would not be reasonable to ask a child to do a task that demands a sophisticated control of spatial orientation if he/ she has not developed this skill. On the other hand, beginners of 11 or 12 years of age will not respond well to an activity that they perceive as childish, or well below their intellectual level.

As a general rule, it can be assumed that the younger the children are, the more holistic learners they will be. Younger learners have the advantage of being great mimics, are often unselfconscious, and are usually prepared to enjoy the activities the teacher has prepared for them. Here are some points to bear in mind:

• The activities should be simple enough for the children to understand what is expected of them.
• The task should be within their abilities: it needs to be achievable but at the same time sufficiently stimulating for them to feel satisfied with their work.
• The activities should be largely orally based-indeed, with the very young children listening activities will take up a large proportion of the class time.
• Written activities should be used sparingly with younger children. Children of six or seven years old are often not yet proficient in the mechanics of writing in their own language.

Teaching children is tremendously rewarding. The time spent on preparing classes that reflect their interests and needs is time well spent, as, perhaps more than with another group of learners, children respond wholeheartedly to our efforts. They know instinctively whether you enjoy working with them and whether our lessons are thoughtfully prepared.