Six teaching methods for children’s English education
The second part of the “Educational Content and Requirements” of the “Kindergarten Education Guidelines” points out: “Language skills are developed in the process of active use. The key to developing children’s language is to create a language that can make them want to say, dare to say, and like. An environment where children can speak, have the opportunity to speak, and receive a positive response.” At the same time, it also emphasizes that “children’s language development is closely related to the development of other aspects such as emotion, experience, thinking, and social skills. Therefore, the important way to develop children’s language is through mutual Infiltrate education in various fields, expand children’s experience in a variety of activities, and provide conditions to promote language development.”
So how to guide children to contact English in English teaching? How to let children master English and promote their language development?
1. Environmental edification
Studies have shown that children’s language learning is developed in the interaction with the surrounding environment. Children must actively interact with the language and non-verbal information and materials in the surrounding environment to develop their language. Peter Klein, a famous American educational psychologist, said: “Children’s innate intelligence enables them to compose grammatically complex sentences without the guidance of others. Listen and practice speaking.” Obviously, the most effective language learning is a natural experience in a certain environment. Therefore, it is very important to create a simulated environment full of English for young children.
The environment includes the physical environment and the interpersonal environment. The creation of the English material environment means that the environment layout of the activity room and the provision of toy materials should be the same or similar to the activity environment of foreign English children, and should be linked to the children’s current English learning content. The interpersonal communication environment means that teachers should use English as much as possible when organizing children’s daily life and formal English learning activities, as well as teachers’ dialogues, so as to provide children with more opportunities to contact, imitate and internalize English.
In the living environment, we make full use of children’s various life experiences to provide children with opportunities to use language. Toddlers do not need to ask and answer in a natural, harmonious, relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. The teacher encourages the children to speak out, be on an equal footing with the children, participate in their conversations, and grasp the children’s certain life experiences or points of interest as Cut into the entrance, run English life situations through children’s daily life, and constantly communicate with them bilingually, so that children can use English freely in life situations. In this way, children learning English is a natural, unconscious and subtle acquisition process. And it is stress-free and burden-free, and children gradually feel the joy of bilingual communication.
2. Visual intuition method
Comenius once said: “As far as possible, everything should be placed in front of the senses as much as possible.” According to the characteristics of the specific image of children’s cognitive development, we present the educational content to the children in the most intuitive and vivid way. ,, Let it directly act on children’s various senses, mobilize children’s multiple senses to participate in activities, combine specific perception with English pronunciation, and establish a direct connection between the voice and the things expressed, so as to reduce the children’s mastery of abstract language Difficulties stimulate children’s interest in learning and their enthusiasm for learning.
Aiming at the poor development of children’s intentional attention, persistence and self-control, we have made many teaching aids with bright colors, exaggerated shapes and movable visual images. These teaching aids are not only vivid, easy for children to understand, accept, and help to remember, but also suitable for children’s curiosity and activeness. They maximize the enthusiasm of children to participate in English learning activities and enhance their thirst for knowledge. In addition, we use TV, computer and other modern media to assist teaching, to give children vivid, vivid and lifelike sensory stimulation, so that they can come into contact with language symbols and receive English education with a strong interest.
3. Emotional motivation method
In order to help children form English thinking, in bilingual activities, try not to speak Chinese. This is more difficult for young children who are new to English. Therefore, in order to help children understand and accept the teaching content, teachers should use exaggerated expressions and movements to infect and motivate children with their own emotions, so that children can use the teacher’s movements and expressions and the situation at the time to understand the English spoken by the teacher to ensure The stability of English learning.
This method has higher requirements for teachers. It requires teachers to have invested emotions, exaggerated performances, and delicate feelings, and use their own exaggerated performance to stimulate children’s feelings and arouse their resonance, so as to truly understand the connotation of English and be accurate expression.
4. Music infection law
Music knows no borders, and no one can refuse the charm of music. This is true for adults, and even more so for children. When they hear music, children will show happy expressions; when they hear music, children will involuntarily dance their hands and feet; when they hear music, children can’t help imitating and learning to sing. Using music as an intermediary, let children feel that learning English is not difficult, and English can be “sung”.
Accompanied by music, children naturally open their mouths and imitate learning to sing. For them, learning English is not scary, but a happy and wonderful thing. When the familiar melody sounded, proficient English blurted out of the children’s mouth.
5. Systemic reaction method
The professor of psychology at San Jose State University in California, USA, created a method of language learning — the whole body response method. It is a teaching method of teaching language through the coordination of language and behavior. This method makes full use of the children’s lively and active characteristics, allowing children to respond with the body first, and then learn to respond with language. “Listen-do actions” is the most obvious feature of the whole body response method. We have expanded on the basis of learning and using this method, that is, “doing-speaking”. Let young children speak while doing actions, and use actions to help young children understand language. Toddlers like to repeat the actions and utter words and sentences, so they can master the knowledge they have learned without realizing it.
6. Game acquisition method
“Taking games as the basic activity, embedding education in various activities” is a basic idea in “Kindergarten Work Regulations”. Play is the basic way for children to learn and the best way to develop. Games give happiness, which is triggered by inner motivation and is relatively free. Children are very interested in games and they cannot do without games. Bilingual education is no exception, and it is necessary to use game situations to stimulate children’s interest in bilingual learning. In this way, children yearn for bilingual learning and feel that bilingual learning is happy. In our exploration, we try our best to make kindergarten English activities gamified, so that children can learn easily and lively in pleasant games, and give play to the inner motivation and intellectual potential of children’s learning.
Giraffe American Xuzhou Quanshan School focuses on American language education for children aged 2.5–12 years old. It cultivates children with fluent English skills and self-confident and optimistic character, so that children are not only excellent, but also leaders!
