I enjoy teaching English

[Harry Smith]

What's the URL? ;-)

I don't know.:-D

 

[meylenlau]

The salary in our country is very low too. But it's not the main reason. I think working at school is not intersting. The textbooks are old fashioned. Sometimes teachers are given the right to chosse this or that textbook but the school programme isn't suitable for such a textbook. They are for private teaching. There are so many ploblems in nowadays schools. Nobody thinks about schools seriously. Neither government nor parents help school.

There are lots of problems in education,sometimes as teachers, we are not given choice not to use workbooks ordered by school headmaster. I'm an experienced teacher, i would like to use the text provided by the government and create some fun learning activities which are more suitable for my pupils according to their abilities, but,because i need to carry out the activities from the workbooks( whether suitable or not for my pupils) that I have to mimimise the activities that I think which are more interesting and suitable for my pupils' abilities. As a teacher I think you'll understand what i mean.
Thus, I feel teaching is stressful and painful when i can't really teach what i think is good and effective for my pupils.

 

[Harry Smith]

There are lots of problems in education,sometimes as teachers, we are not given choice not to use workbooks ordered by school headmaster. I'm an experienced teacher, i would like to use the text provided by the government and create some fun learning activities which are more suitable for my pupils according to their abilities, but,because i need to carry out the activities from the workbooks( whether suitable or not for my pupils) that I have to mimimise the activities that I think which are more interesting and suitable for my pupils' abilities. As a teacher I think you'll understand what i mean.
Thus, I feel teaching is stressful and painful when i can't really teach what i think is good and effective for my pupils.

I fully share your opinion, but nobody will help you if you don't do it yourself. Try and gain independence. I don't use the textbook I don't like or I use what I like in such textbooks. The rest of the time I use my own materials that I have been collecting since I started teaching at school.

 

[meylenlau]

Recently, I just tranfered to another school, to my surprise a primary 3( 9 years old) pupils still couldn't write his full name but only his Surname. I took at least a month giving him personal attention ,every two days once about 10 to 15 minutes,now he finally can write his full name. I think should have more of this kind of problem in this school ,as they are second language learners.

There is another one also have a problem with his writing but I had a hard time with him, as he always avoided me,he knew that I wanted to call him up for the personal attention session ,finally I wasted my time and could not do much to change him .His writing is terrible, the letters he wrote overlapping each other and unreadable.Hopefully next year when the school reopen I'll try again.

 

[Harry Smith]

Recently, I just tranfered to another school, to my surprise a primary 3( 9 years old) pupils still couldn't write his full name but only his Surname. I took at least a month giving him personal attention ,every two days once about 10 to 15 minutes,now he finally can write his full name. I think should have more of this kind of problem in this school ,as they are second language learners.

There is another one also have a problem with his writing but I had a hard time with him, as he always avoided me,he knew that I wanted to call him up for the personal attention session ,finally I wasted my time and could not do much to change him .His writing is terrible, the letters he wrote overlapping each other and unreadable.Hopefully next year when the school reopen I'll try again.

I hope you'll have less problem withyour pupils. First of all they will grow a little and secondly it's very typical to have difficulties in English writing.:-D

 

[meylenlau]

Malaysia is a multi-racial country. There are 4 types of primary schools(age range from 7-12), one of them is called Chinese Primary schools, mostly Chinese will enroll in this type of schools as they have a chance to learn their mother tongue in a few subjects, besides they also need to learn the Malaysian National language and English.

I made a mistake in the previous post, actually English is the third language for the pupil( Chinese School),therefore, it’s not easy for him, he needs to learn three languages. it’s good for the intelligent pupils but not for the slow learners.

There is another type of schools whereby their pupils only have to learn two languages. For those slow ones , I think it is better to enroll in this type of schools ,but many Chinese parents here still prefer Chinese school.

What’s your view? Do your country’s pupils need to learn at least two languages in their primary level?

 

[Harry Smith]

Malaysia is a multi-racial country. There are 4 types of primary schools(age range from 7-12), one of them is called Chinese Primary schools, mostly Chinese will enroll in this type of schools as they have a chance to learn their mother tongue in a few subjects, besides they also need to learn the Malaysian National language and English.

I made a mistake in the previous post, actually English is the third language for the pupil( Chinese School),therefore, it’s not easy for him, he needs to learn three languages. it’s good for the intelligent pupils but not for the slow learners.

There is another type of schools whereby their pupils only have to learn two languages. For those slow ones , I think it is better to enroll in this type of schools ,but many Chinese parents here still prefer Chinese school.

What’s your view? Do your country’s pupils need to learn at least two languages in their primary level?

Here in Russia pupils start the primary school with two-three languages too. One of them is their mother tongue and the other two are foreign languages. One is English and the second they choose. I must say it's rather hard for them, they often mix these languages and mainly the letters.

 

[meylenlau]

Here in Russia pupils start the primary school with two-three languages too. One of them is their mother tongue and the other two are foreign languages. One is English and the second they choose. I must say it's rather hard for them, they often mix these languages and mainly the letters.

Teaching English is a challenging task, as I'm not a native speaker , hence I try in every chance that I encounter to immerse myself in this language. Hopefully it’ll help.

Usually as second language learners, the mother tongue will definitely influence the acquisition of the second or third language, it is called interlanguage problem. Moreover if the learners’ learning attitudes are not serious or keen enough, not serious in correcting their mistakes and so forth, the target language they learn will be sure fossilized, then as their teachers, we will be frustrated seeing the unprogressive pupils.
They need to change their attitudes in order to improve, and to motivate them is part of our responsible too. If they’ve their own intrinsic motivation , then learning process will be easier, it’ll help them to move fast.
I find that there is a wide range of vocabulary in English, thus I need to buy the latest edition of dictionary to keep me abreast. Every 5 years Oxford will publish upgraded dictionary, there’ll be more vocabulary added.

 

[RonBee]

But you know till now I can not well express my feeling and opinion, so I come here to do more construction to improve my expression level, these days I do feel that I have made a good progress, I can write down something without any more thinking, and maybe next month I could find some guys to practise both in my tongue and listenning.
If there are some mistake in my writting, pls feel free to tell me.
Thanks!
Ian:up:
Thanks!

:-( You need to make separate sentences out of that one long sentence. Perhaps:

Up to now I haven't been able to express myself very well in English. I have come to this website to get help with that. I do think I am making progress. I can now write in English without thinking about it too much beforehand. I do need to find ways to practice speaking and listening.

If there are some mistakes in my writing, please correct them for me.

​

How did I do?

 

[Harry Smith]

Teaching English is a challenging task, as I'm not a native speaker , hence I try in every chance that I encounter to immerse myself in this language. Hopefully it’ll help.

Usually as second language learners, the mother tongue will definitely influence the acquisition of the second or third language, it is called interlanguage problem. Moreover if the learners’ learning attitudes are not serious or keen enough, not serious in correcting their mistakes and so forth, the target language they learn will be sure fossilized, then as their teachers, we will be frustrated seeing the unprogressive pupils.
They need to change their attitudes in order to improve, and to motivate them is part of our responsible too. If they’ve their own intrinsic motivation , then learning process will be easier, it’ll help them to move fast.
I find that there is a wide range of vocabulary in English, thus I need to buy the latest edition of dictionary to keep me abreast. Every 5 years Oxford will publish upgraded dictionary, there’ll be more vocabulary added.

To have a good dictionary is very important because very often I myself know what the word means but I can't translate it into Russian. On the one hand I'm like a native speaker but on the other hand they want to know the translation.

 

[meylenlau]

What's the URL? ;-)

What is URL?
It is the address of a website, I don't know the full name but this is an example of URL= https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/newreply.php

 

[meylenlau]

To have a good dictionary is very important because very often I myself know what the word means but I can't translate it into Russian. On the one hand I'm like a native speaker but on the other hand they want to know the translation.

That is the problem in second/ third language learning, as the learners tend to
practise translation method, they’ll always keen to know what’s the meaning of a new word in their mother tongue, it becomes a formation of habit gradually, resulting the habit of translation always occurs in their mind when communicating with others. This is an inhibition, it’ll definitely slow down the process of interacting, the flow of language will be interrupted by the process of translating in the speaker’s mind. What’s your view?
That’s why some teaching approaches oppose/ reject the translation method. They postulate the direct method instead,without using mother tongue to explain or teach. They see the learning process of the second /third language should be like first language acquisition( mother tongue).
In the process of acquiring our mother tongue/native language, definitely no other language that need to be used for translation , right? and everybody seems to master it well without any problems, so why should we use translation method to learn the second language?

 

[Harry Smith]

That is the problem in second/ third language learning, as the learners tend to
practise translation method, they’ll always keen to know what’s the meaning of a new word in their mother tongue, it becomes a formation of habit gradually, resulting the habit of translation always occurs in their mind when communicating with others. This is an inhibition, it’ll definitely slow down the process of interacting, the flow of language will be interrupted by the process of translating in the speaker’s mind. What’s your view?
That’s why some teaching approaches oppose/ reject the translation method. They postulate the direct method instead,without using mother tongue to explain or teach. They see the learning process of the second /third language should be like first language acquisition( mother tongue).
In the process of acquiring our mother tongue/native language, definitely no other language that need to be used for translation , right? and everybody seems to master it well without any problems, so why should we use translation method to learn the second language?

I don't use the translation method very often but I think we can't teach without it. It's not the basic method of teaching foreign languages. I'm trying to explain the words in English of course.

 

[meylenlau]

I don't use the translation method very often but I think we can't teach without it. It's not the basic method of teaching foreign languages. I'm trying to explain the words in English of course.

Don’t worry, as teachers , we always refer to other researchers’ research outcomes , educational theories, methods, techniques, approaches and so forth .We browse , search, read ,listen, think..get others to discuss.. present our own view....and ......as we have our own brains too, which are capable of evaluating and making critical judgments of those resources….and finally back to our own classroom and make our own decisions.
Yes, the reality is right in front us, we have to make up our own strategies, adopt and adapt them to suit and cater for our pupils’ needs , right?
Hence , we also have to look at the positive side of the translation method, it can save time and also energy, very practical and convenient. Frankly, it’s very suitable for nowadays world, which needs direct, fast information and without any delay to get the meaning across. That is the main reason why the translation method is widely and much welcome by SL learners.Thus,using translation method is inevitable, me too.When there is a demand for sure there'll be a supply.

 

[Harry Smith]

Don’t worry, as teachers , we always refer to other researchers’ research outcomes , educational theories, methods, techniques, approaches and so forth .We browse , search, read ,listen, think..get others to discuss.. present our own view....and ......as we have our own brains too, which are capable of evaluating and making critical judgments of those resources….and finally back to our own classroom and make our own decisions.
Yes, the reality is right in front us, we have to make up our own strategies, adopt and adapt them to suit and cater for our pupils’ needs , right?
Hence , we also have to look at the positive side of the translation method, it can save time and also energy, very practical and convenient. Frankly, it’s very suitable for nowadays world, which needs direct, fast information and without any delay to get the meaning across. That is the main reason why the translation method is widely and much welcome by SL learners.Thus,using translation method is inevitable, me too.When there is a demand for sure there'll be a supply.

Yes, I fully share your ideas. As to translation method, it's sometimes better to translate the word than give the explanation which is near to it. The only problem of translation method is that learners start making sentences in their mind in one language and then translate them.

 

[Tdol]

Translation is a tool, but, like any tool, it has its limitations. ;-)

 

[SERKANYT]

if you teach me english I'll be very happy
please help me about learning English

 

[Harry Smith]

Translation is a tool, but, like any tool, it has its limitations. ;-)

It's a pleasure when I hear my students speak English fluently without any translation in their mind. Also I'm happy to hear them speak correctly translating some words in their mind. I always praise them when they speak English. It doesn't matter how many mistakes they make. It's very important for me to make them speak.

 

[Harry Smith]

Yerterday one of my students made a project. He came to school earlier than his friends and prepared the classroom. He hang some pictures on the blackboard. The project was devoted to "The Beatles". I was so happy that he was going to speak about my favourite band. I remembered my young days for a while. The most interesting was,when we were listening to the song "Imagine", all of them were singing too. I really enjoyed that lesson and will never forget it.:-D

 

[Harry Smith]

Do you enjoy teaching English or you do it because you have to?;-)