English Language Teaching (Young Learners)

              Children are active learners and thinkers (Piaget, 1970). Children construct knowledge from actively interacting with the physical environment in development stages. They learn through their own individual actions and exploration.

              Children construct knowledge through other people, through interaction with adults. Adults/teacher work actively with children in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).  Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is the difference between the children’s capacity to solve problems on their own and their capacity to solve them with assistance.

              Children learn through social interaction (Vygotsky, 1962). The adult’s role is very important in a child’s learning process. Like Vgotsky, Bruner focused on the importance of language in a child’s cognitive development. He shows how the adult uses “scaffolding” to guide a child’s language learning through finely-tuned talk (Cameron, 2001).

Depend on Bruner, 1983 based on his effective scaffolding, parents who scaffold effectively:

·         created interest in the task;

·         broke the task down into smaller steps;

·         kept child “on task” by reminding him of the purposes or goal;

·         pointed out the important parts of the task;

·         controlled the child’s frustration during the task;

·         modeled the task, including different ways to do the task.

              Characteristics of young learners are varied depend on their ages and environment. The young learners under 7 (of age) acquire through hearing and experiencing lots of English, in much the same way they acquire their first language. They learn things through playing. They are not consciously trying to learn new words or phrase. Young learners under 7 love playing with language sounds, imitating, and making funny noises. They are not able to organize their learning and not able to read or write in their first language. Their grammar will develop gradually on its own when exposed to lots of English in context.

              On the other hand, young learners attain the age of 7 – 12 are learning to read and write in their first language. They are developing as thinkers. Young learners aged 7 to 12 understand the difference between the real and imaginary, they can plan and organize how best to carry out an activity. They can work with others and learn from others. They also can be reliable and take responsibility for class activities and routines.

              Although children may use similar processes for acquiring first language and second language, the environment for first language and second language acquisition can be quite different (Brewster, Ellis & Girard, 2004).

              In first language (L1) environment, the language highly contextualized and in the real world the language used is authentic so the learner highly motivated. On the contrary, in second language (L2) environment, the language more decontextualized. In the classroom, the language used tends to be artificial so the learners may not be highly motivated.

              Therefore, it is important to remember that an early start alone will not necessarily improve children’s ability to learn English. It is also very important that second language (L2) instruction include language structures that are presented within a context that is meaningful and communicative.

            Children neither just learning to read nor write, but for fluent learning and to be able to read literature, thinks and writes about ideas. These things are covered cognitive and affective domain. The children are also need to have development of psychomotor domain which are includes physical movement, coordination and use of the motor-skill areas. The children have to getting of best of those things and learn deeply in balance, because deep experiences with deep help grow deep people and also less easily fooled in a wide variety of areas.

Selecting and Developing Teaching/Learning Materials

This articles written by Kitao about why do we use materials or what are materials for, the role of materials in relation to other elements, what are characteristics of materials, how can we learn about materials, how do we get materials, and concern about materials.

Seeing on the part that have written in this article, it focus on the topic. The purpose is clear and it written adjust to the audience. The goal of this article is to guide/help (especially) the teacher in select and develop the materials. As we know that theacing/learning materials is based on curriculum need which is guide by syllabus and lesson plan. However, based on students need and time period, it may vary. The materials control learning and teaching, it help learning and teaching process. Learners should be the center of instruction and learning. The curriculum is a state of the goals of learning, methods of learning, etc. The role of techers is to help learners to learn.

The characteristics of materials describe generally, but gaining the readers. It provides information that need to be concern by the teacher. Correct, natural, recent, and standard language are something should have in materials. Information on culture should be provide correctly and recently. In conclusion, the materials should be useful, meaningful, and interesting for students.

Even it provides generally, however the readers gather forgetable ideas and information here. An easy understand written help the readers much to comprehend this article.
Further reading: http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kitao-Materials.html
Happy Reading!!!

Translation

Translation consist of transferring the meaning of the source language text into the receptor language text.

Is it necessary to change the form when translating?
Anything that can be said in one language can be said in another. It is possible to translate. The goal of the translator is to keep the meaning constant. Whenever necessary, the receptor language form should be change in order that the source language meaning not be distorted. Since a meaning expressed by a particular form in one language may be expressed by quite a different form in another language, it is often necessary to change the form when translating. It is not uncommon that passive constructions will need to be translated with an active construction or viceversa, depending on the natural form of the receptor language.

How does a translator know that he is successful in his translation task?
He will know that he is successful in the receptor language readers do not recognize his work as a translation at all, but simply as a text written in the receptor language for their information and enjoyment.

How does a translator make his translation as dynamic as the original text?
For the translation to have the same dynamics as the original, it will need to natural and easy to understand that the readers will find it easy to grasp the message, including both the information and the emotional effect intended bu the source language writer.

Interactive Multimedia Development Based on Behaviorist Approach

Educators today debate the most appropriate instructional role for technology, particularly computer technology. Here, the use of simple online games and quizzes in computer technology provides positive reinforcement to learners and adds interest to subjects which focus on fact based learning by bringing variety and heightened sensory experiences to repetitive tasks.

Robyler and Havriluk (1997) point out that among the “needs addressed by directed instruction” (their term for the Behaviourist approach) are “making learning paths more efficient- especially for instruction in skills that are prerequisite to higher-level skills” and “performing time-consuming and labor intensive tasks (e.g., skill practice), freeing teacher time for other, more complex student needs”.

Anecdotal evidence from the teacher of the subject indicates that students now learn and retain the words more quickly and complain less about the subject.

This heuristic is useful as a learning resource developer at CIT (Computer and Information Technology) as part of the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector and many of the initial subjects courses require learners to acquire a certain base level of technical subject-specific knowledge. Many of these games can be produced easily by teachers with free or inexpensive software and require minimal technical ability to create and put online.

Games are a familiar, accessible and engaging medium which can be used in situations ranging from Behaviourist drill and practice exercises to more Constructivist problem based scenarios. There is currently a growing group of educational game producers – known as the Serious Games movement – focusing heavily on the possibilities of the latter.

Learning practitioners wishing to make use of interactive multimedia in the form of games and quizzes should allow themselves adequate time to become familiar with the game/quiz creating software that they wish to use. While most of it is designed with the less technically inclined user in mind (i.e. a wizard based approach), it can often still require the uploading of multiple supporting image and javascript files to our website or learning management system.

Integrating the Learning of Micro-skills (Video & Blogs)

Two technologies were employed here, video and blogs. Videos could serve as a good mode of inquiry that allows respondents to review rich contents that include various aspects of teaching: pedagogy, climate, management, classroom characteristics and student characteristics (Colestock & Sherin, 2009). The amount of attention given by teachers to each domain was different with instructional strategies receiving more concerns than other aspects. Colestock and Sherin found that teachers applied different strategies in interpreting teaching videos and subsequently developed their professional view of teaching through their interpretation and discussion. Video technology has also been implemented in micro-teaching to show examples of teaching or case-based learning by illustrating the actual and complex teaching environment.Videos allow pre-service teachers to learn teaching skills and teacher-student interaction through modelling and developing problem solving skills through observing the case in video playback (Kpanja, 2001; Lee & Wu, 2006). Video recording and playback is a useful technology to improve reflection in teaching (Akalin, 2005; Albrecht & Carnes, 2006; Benton-Kupper, 2001). Video-enabled and video-oriented discussion followed by critical reflection helped pre-service teachers to identify areas for improvement in professional growth (Fernandez, 2010; Kpanja, 2001). As a result, they could develop an increased awareness of their instructional strengths and weaknesses by observing the videos. The use of videos allows student teachers to have evidence-informed discussion and this fostered reflective practices among teachers (Albrecht & Carnes, 2006; Fernandez, 2010).

Blogs are a well accepted learning technology in education. Similar to online discussion forums, which allow participants to post their thoughts and subsequently read and comment on what is posted, blogs foreground the individual’s thoughts and cater to a much wider audience – anyone who happens to find the blog online can read and comment. As such, the fundamental difference between writing for an online discussion forum and a blog is that a blogger writes to a diverse and probably unknown audience. In education, the use of blogs is still being explored and developed (Jonassen, 2000) and this is also the case in teacher education. Duffy and Bruns (2006) proposed that technologies like blogs, wikis and RSS promote desirable practices such as collaborative content creation and reflection of learning experiences, and enable peer and formative evaluation to take place. Hernandez-Ramos (2004) carried out a comparative study between the use of blogs and online discussion to promote reflection in an instructional technology course in a teacher preparation program. His study reported that while teachers prefer blogs to online discussion forums in their reflection, the availability of information to a wider audience resulted in some apprehension in using blogs.

However, once the teachers become familiar with using blogs, they reflected on events ranging from their reactions to the time spent with their students, to their own professional learning and classroom management strategies. Pre-service teachers worked on an individual blog to reflect on the videos presented to them. Peers reading these blogs will be able to gain diverse perspectives from watching the same videos and reading the blogs. Shih (2010) used a blended learning approach using video-based blogs and found that students in the English Public Speaking course were able to enhance their learning motivation and encouraged their cooperation with their peers. He also reported that the video-based blogs helped students overcome their fear in public speaking. This is a relevant finding for this study since pre-service teachers have to overcome their fear of public speaking when they start teaching.

In conclusion, by integrating the learning of micro-skills through video technology and reflection using blogs; it aims to examine exactly what forms of reflection pre-service teachers engage in with regard to learning teaching skills.

Things Need to be Concern for Teaching and Learning English

English is the most powerful language in the world. Many people around the world learn and use it. However, there are obstacle in teaching and learning English still. There are many ways to learn and teach English successfully by pay attention to the history, culture, also environment which are create, adjust and apply.

It would be valuable to have an international language with which all could be at ease, containing terms for the peculiar concepts of varying cultures and practices. English -because it spoken by many people around the world- has many varieties of dialect. However, if English can fufill this need and aid in international understanding, the we should welcome it rther than becoming alarmed by it. At the moment, English is merely experiencing the growing pains of becoming the first modern-day international language. According to Potter, the English spoken today is blended from the Germanic and Romance languages, the former incuding Scandinavian and the latter French and Latin. This blending of various language is not unique to the English languages. However, it is a fundamental characteristic of the language as it has experienced numerous changes through Shakespeare, Swift, Tyndale and many others, each borrowing blending and adding to the language which has been versatile enough to readily adopt new words, spellings, and pronunciations and expressions.

Nowadays, English language is very popular and use also teach by most of school. New ways of studying English are popping out. Foreign language learners, for example, have different processss in learning English than monolingual students anyway, because they interacts with more than one language. They have culturally different schematic and limited English vocabulary knowledge. It is important for their teacher to understand them from cultural, linguistic and social perspectives and to respect their individual differences. The results showed that sucsessful bilingual learners used top-down approaches (which focused on how word is structured, readers empashize the whole text passage and look for key information by activating prior knowledge and compensating for meanings of unknown vocabulary) than the others did. Proficient bilingual students also utilized both fits and second language to compensate for a lack of understanding of materials. It is suggested that teacher carefully consider why English language learners are experiencing difficulties in learning English. The students have different constructive processes from their first language learning experiences. Teacher need to accomodate teaching instruction effectively for English language learners and to interact with their colleagues for enhancing their cultural sensitivity (Nieto, 2000).

In everyday life, first impression are so very important. So, how we are perceived often depends on a blink of a moment which may define us for a long period if not forever. Our communication skills are so important in how we are seen by others. Our body language project subtle messages to those around us and others respond in accordance to what they perceive as “us”. In life, we are playing many roles, therefore, we are wearing many mask. How people take place in their environment, will showed how they are. In classrom environment, teacher should recognize how it differ and adjust it to the learning. Unite all defferences are something complicated to do, but it is possible to gather it. It will enrich the students’ learning and knowledge. By using volunteers, for example, the students can share and learn more. The mentality awareness will emerge as well. However, it is important for both teacher and students to create a comfortable and enjoyable environment.