1, Silvia Gonzalez-Powers said that when children have established a solid mother tongue foundation, when teachers can establish contact with the language, they will learn a second language more effectively. He worked as a teacher in Boston public schools for 19 years, and now he runs a tutor company to train educators.
2. Gonzalez-Powers said that it is very common for ESL students to receive English language guidance from ESL teachers and other teachers' grade or content guidance, so all teachers must coordinate and work as a team. In this way, they can provide seamless and meaningful guidance in listening, speaking, reading and writing.
3.ESL teachers should also understand students' academic advantages and needs. "ESL students are most successful when they provide direct, clear, systematic and multi-sensory guidance and visual and linguistic support," she said. Shearer said that if ESL students are encouraged to continue learning their mother tongue, they can actually have a larger vocabulary than pure English students.
4. "They may walk back and forth between their languages to write, think or process, but it just means that they are using all the languages they have mastered," Hile said. "If students are taught to think about the connection between their language and English, their skills will multiply.
Cross-grade language acquisition
According to Golding, there is an ideal window of opportunity for learning a second language, which is called "critical period", usually at any time before early adolescence. After that, students need different types of support and teaching strategies. Golding said: "For all children, conversational language skills are acquired quickly, while academic language takes several years to learn and master."
She said that the process of learning a second language will change with students' grade level:
1, preschool and kindergarten. Children of this age learn a second language quickly, and because the brain has the ability to change and adapt, it seems effortless. At school, a lot of time is spent teaching important basic reading and writing skills. Multilingual learners who have not learned to read and write in the first language can start their literacy journey in English.
Grade 2, 3-5. At this age, many multilingual learners have mastered the reading and writing skills of the first language. Therefore, besides learning to speak a second language, they must also learn to read and write, and make progress in other subjects.
Grade three, grades six to eight. As children grow into teenagers and other factors play a role in the learning process, language may not be so natural, especially in pronunciation. Anxiety, embarrassment and self-awareness will also make language learning more challenging.
Particularity of English
According to Hile, English is a combination of many languages, with many grammatical rules and many exceptions. "Words with the same spelling often have different pronunciations, such as' pass',' buy' and' hard'," she said. Gonzalez-Bowles said that this is because English is regarded as an opaque language, which means that letters can represent multiple sounds. "English has 44 pronunciations, but they can be spelled in 250 different ways. There are many spelling rules, exceptions to these rules and irregular words, which make English more challenging than transparent and phonetic languages such as Spanish, "she said." "
2. Golding said that the similarity in structure and pronunciation between English and students' mother tongue may be the key to language acquisition. She said: "For example, it is more difficult for Russian speakers to learn English than German speakers because English and German are similar in structure." "However, English is difficult for everyone to learn to read because of the lack of consistency in pronunciation between letters. Although the complete alphabet is used, there are about 50% English words to remember.
How does the teacher help?
According to Golding, it may be more necessary than ever for teachers to prepare tools and resources to help multilingual learners succeed. "A good tool that teachers can use is' cross-language'," she said-allowing students to communicate in multiple languages. "Knowing that their classroom is a safe space, a place where they can use English and their first language when needed, they will feel supported and less anxious. Golding said that displaying classroom signs and labels in multiple languages and using multilingual resources or texts can make language learning a natural part of all children's lives.
2. Immersion learning is also an effective mode of bilingual education. In this mode, mainstream courses are taught in two languages to promote bilingualism and bilingual literacy. Children who are immersed in learning can communicate in two languages during the course and have real social opportunities to interact with their peers. "In the United States, most of these courses are Spanish-English, but a series of other target languages are also offered," Golding said. "Two-way bilingual courses provide services for a student group composed of almost balanced English learners ... and fluent English," she said.