LInguistic needs of young Language Learners

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction                                                                                   3 – 4

1.General tendencies and trends in teaching young learners     5 – 8

1.1 How to work with young language learners

1.2 Children’s abilities and skills

2. Peculiarities of teacher’s pronunciation                                   9 – 16

2.1 Difficulties in teaching English pronunciation

2.2 Techniques in teaching English pronunciation

3. Teaching grammar                                                                   17 – 22

3.1 Grammar. Presenting and testing grammar.

3.2 How to teach English grammar to young learners.

Conclusion                                                                                      23

List of references                                                                           24

Summary                                                                                        25

Introduction

The object of my paper is to report on the process of teaching young language learners.

The subjects of research paper are methods and ways of teaching phonetics, vocabulary and grammar.

              This paper focused on linguistic needs of young language learners.

I think that pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary are the most important things for all learners.

              Proper pronunciation means reproducing the sound of the word through speech in such a way that any fluent speaker of the language would effortlessly understand the message. In order to communicate properly learners need correct pronunciation, because pronunciation affects very much on the understanding of the meanings of the words. If the sound of word is differing it may lead the listener to some other meanings, and if this happens, it is very much obvious that its not a proper communication. To avoid such kind of problems teachers must do their best in order to teach learners correct pronunciation.

Teaching grammar to young learners requires an extensive knowledge of a great

number of issues. Not only is it crucial to be aware of various teaching methods and

approaches but also it is fundamental to be familiar with the principles of the

development of children’s intelligence.Grammar is one of the most difficult aspects of language to teach well. Learning new pieces of information and using new skills in practice is strongly connected with mental abilities of children. As for me, playing games is one of the crucial activities in grammar, because learners learn to communicate with their friends, they have to accept others opinions and they learn how to present their own ideas.

              Young learners tend to have short attention spans and a lot of physical energy. In addition, children are very much linked to their surroundings and are more interested in the physical and the tangible. One way to capture their attention and keep them engaged in activities is to supplement the activities with lots of brightly colored visuals, toys, games or objects to match the ones used in the stories that you tell or songs that you sing. In general, young learners have a greater immediate need to be motivated by the teacher or the materials in order to learn effectively. Three very important sources of interest for children in the classroom are pictures, stories and games: the first being obviously mainly a visual stimulus; the second both visual and aural; and the third using both visual and aural channels as well as activating language production and sometimes physical movement.

              For the successful teaching of English to young learners, it is essential for the teacher to understand the young learners' characteristics, instincts, and interests.

1.     General tendencies and trends in teaching young learners

1.1 How to work with young language learners

Some people have argued for the existence of “critical period” in language learning: if you get too old and pass this period you will have significantly more difficulty learning; thus early learning in school would seem essential. [10, 287]

Teacher can raise children’s motivation and enthusiasm more easily than of older. On the other hand, teacher can also lose it more easily: monotonous, apparently pointless activities quickly bore and demotivate young learners; older ones are more tolerant of them. In general children have a greater immediate need to be motivated by the teacher or the materials in order to learn effectively. Three very important sources of interest for children in the classroom are pictures, stories and games:

1)     The most obvious type of visual material for children is the picture: and the more clearly visible, striking and colourful the better.

2)     Young children love having stories told to them. Moreover stories – in contrast to pictures or even games – are pure language: telling a story in a foreign language is one of the simplest and richest sources of foreign language input for younger learners.

3)     Games are essentially recreational ‘time out’ activities whose main purpose is enjoyment; language study is serious goal-oriented work, whose main purpose is personal learning.[10,288]

Young learners are often more enthusiastic and lively as learners, but they tend to have short attention spans and a lot of physical energy. For young pupils, from ages 5 to10 especially, it is a good idea to move quickly from activity to activity. Do not spend more than 10 or 15 minutes on any one activity because children tend to become bored easily. As children get older, their ability to concentrate for longer periods of time increases. So for learners ages 5–7, you should try to keep activities between 5 and 10 minutes long. Students ages 8–10 can handle activities that are 10 to 15 minutes long. It is always possible to revisit an activity later in class or in the next class.

In addition, children are very much linked to their surroundings and are more interested in the physical and the tangible. As Scott describe, “Their own understanding comes through hands and eyes and ears. The physical world is dominant at all times.” [8, 24]

One way to capture their attention and keep them engaged in activities is to supplement the activities with lots of brightly colored visuals, toys, puppets or objects to match the ones used in the stories that teacher tell or songs. These can also help make the language input comprehensible and can be used for follow-up activities, such as re-telling stories or guessing games. For example, if you are teaching a song or telling a story, don’t stay on that song or story the whole class time; later teacher can give pupils to play quick game in pairs.

When teacher plan a variety of activities, it is important to have them connect to each other in order to support the language learning process. Moving from one activity to others that are related in content and language helps to recycle the language and reinforce learners’ understanding and use of it. However, moving from activity to activity when the activities are not related to each other can make it easy to lose the focus of the class. Here it is a good idea to use thematic unit planning because it builds a larger context within which learners can learn language. When teaching English to young learners this way, teacher can incorporate many activities, songs, and stories that build on learners’ knowledge and recycle language throughout the unit. This gives pupils plenty of practice using the language learned and helps them scaffold their learning of new language. Common themes for very young learners are animals, friends, and family or units revolving around any storybook. As children get older, units could be based on topics such as the environment, citizenship, and shopping, or based on a website or book relevant to them. [7, 43]

When choosing materials or themes to use, it is important for teacher to choose what are appropriate for his/her pupils based on their language proficiency and what is of interest to them. Because young learners are just beginning to learn content and stories in their native language in school and are still developing cognitively, they may have limited knowledge and experience in the world. This means that the contexts that you use when teaching English, which may be a completely new and foreign language, should be contexts that are familiar to them. Use of stories and contexts that they have experience with in their first language could help these young learners connect a completely new language with the background knowledge they already have.

1.2 Children’s abilities and skills

Children are able to understand the meaning without understanding particular words. If we try to speak in our lessons only English, the truth is that very often we cannot avoid using words which the pupils do not understand. The interesting fact is that they do not usually have any problems with understanding the meaning of the message in general. Therefore we as teachers must be aware of the fact that it is extremely important to use gestures, intonation, facial expressions etc. Children appreciate everything what is concrete, what they really can see and touch. If we speak about something, it is always advantageous to use visual aids. Unless children see what we are speaking about, it is too difficult for them to get the meaning. But is it good to keep asking children whether they understand what teachers are speaking about. If we want them to translate every particular word into their mother tongue, they start to be anxious. They think that unless they are able to understand every word, they do not understand at all and slowly they lose the confidence to communicate and express their ideas. As the courage to speak and make mistakes is one of the crucial aspects, we should be aware of this fact.[4, 3]

              Children are creative. This is not a set phrase, it is a fact that teachers should use in their lessons. Although their vocabulary is quite limited, it is enough for them to be able to communicate. Pupils do not have problems to ask and answer set phrases but it is much more difficult for them to construct sentences in unpredictable situations. Therefore games are so important and useful. If a teacher prepares activities where children are made to communicate, in such way children have to use their vocabulary and grammar as much as it is possible. It does not matter at all that the children make mistakes. What is important is the fact that they have to be creative in the foreign language they learn, which naturally leads to the development of their communicative skills. [4, 4]

Children learn although they are not aware of it. This ability is called indirect learning. If we want to teach our pupils some new phrases and grammatical structures, the best way is to use the method of “guessing”. Children ask and answer questions in order to find out some information. They are not actually interested in the structures and phrases which we want them to use, they are impatient to find the answers and they are very happy if they succeed. Nevertheless, we as their teachers can be satisfied too because finally, we find out that after some time the pupils are able to use the phrases without difficulties and what is more, they usually improve the pronunciation too. It is not probably necessary to stress that one of the most common tools of indirect learning is a game. It is definitely not enough to practise only the indirect way of teaching children. Some of the children prefer indirect subconscious learning. Such pupils are usually more talkative, they do not mind making mistakes and for them it is crucial to be able to communicate, they are not so interested in avoiding making mistakes. On the other hand, there are children who want to express their thoughts accurately and such children usually prefer direct learning. A good teacher should be able to coordinate both methods and offer the child what he or she really needs. The teacher should try to encourage the thoughtful children to be more relaxed and not to be afraid of speaking and making mistakes and at the same time teacher should persuade the “easy-going” children to think more before they start speaking. Nevertheless, we can say that generally the capacity for indirect learning is developed more than the capacity for direct learning. Young learners are not able to pay their attention for more than 10 - 20 minutes and after that they start to be bored and tired. Therefore we should be able to take children’s capacity for indirect learning and their instinct for games and fun as a great advantage. We cannot spend so much time on real direct conscious learning as if we teach adults but with adults it is exactly the opposite and we cannot use so many games and activities based on fantasy and imagination. The reason is obvious, children have the extremely developed sense of imaginative thinking. [4, 5-7]

2. Peculiarities of teacher’s pronunciation

2.1 Difficulties in teaching English pronunciation

Pronunciation- the way in which a language or a particular word or sound is pronounced and secondly it is the way in which a particular person pronounces the words of a given language.

There are two aspects of pronunciation. The first - the way in which a language or a particular word or sound is pronounced needs a special attention, because in order to know how to pronounce the words or the sounds a person should be taught first.

In G. V. Rogova’s “ Methods of Teaching English “ in the compartment “Teaching Pronunciation “ we find that the first impact of any language comes from the spoken word. The basis of all languages is sound, but words are merely combinations of sounds. That is absolutely right and yet the acquisition of good pronunciation depends to a great extent on the learner’s ability of listening with care and discrimination . One of the tasks of language teaching consists in devising ways to help the learners and the unfamiliar sounds. The hearing of a given word calls forth the acoustic image of that word from which a meaning is obtained. Therefore teaching pronunciation is of great importance in the developing of pupils’ hearing and speaking habits and skills. [3, 176]

Teaching pronunciation is as well of no less importance in the developing of reading and writing habits, since writing or what is written is a graphic representation of sound sequences. In reading the visual images become acoustic images. These are combined with kinesthetic images, resulting in inner speech. Wrong pronunciation often leads to misunderstanding. For example when a speaker or a reader replaces one phoneme with another, he unintentionally uses quite a different word, in this way altering the sense of what he wanted to say ( For example: white instead of wide, it instead of eat, ship instead of sheep, etc.) Every teacher must understand how important the teaching correct pronunciation is. As we already know any language has its specific phonic system and this is true for English as well. The pronunciation of words is not only a matter of sounds, but also of stress on accent. Some words have the heavier stress on the first part of the word: e.g sorry,evening, morning, answer; and other words have the heavier stress on the second part :e.g. begin, mistake, about, reduce, result, occur, effect.

              Language teaching practice often assumes that most of the difficulties that learners face in the study of English are a consequence of the degree to which their native language differs from English.

Language learners often produce errors of syntax and pronunciation thought to result from the influence of their mother tongue, such as mapping its grammatical patterns inappropriately onto the second language, pronouncing sounds incorrectly or with difficulty or confusing items of vocabulary known as false friends. This is known as mother tongue transfer or language interference. However these transfer aspects are typically stronger for beginners language production.

It happens very often that teachers are comfortable teaching reading, writing, listening and to a degree general oral skills , but when it comes to pronunciation teachers often lack the basic knowledge of articulator phonetics not difficult to acquire, to offer students anything more rudimentary and unhelpful advice. There is also a tendency for teachers to focus on production as the main problem affecting learners. Most research however, shows clearly that the problem is more likely to be reception - what you do not hear, you do not say. Moreover if the English is not clearly received the brain of the learner converts it into the closest sound into their own language. [2,2]

              It is very important to mention the opinion of Marianne Celce-Murcia and

Janet M. Godwin concerning difficulties in teaching English pronunciation. They

say that there have been many differences of opinion over the years in the language

teaching pronunciation and about how best to teach it. In direct approaches

pronunciation is very important but the methodology is primitive: the teacher is

ideally a native or near native speaker of the target language who presents pronunciation inductively and corrects via modeling – listen and imitate me as best

as you can. There is a threshold level of pronunciation in English such as that if a

non-native speaker’s pronunciation falls below this level he or she will not be able to

communicate orally no matter how good his or her control of English grammar

might be. [15, 1]

What are the variables that seem to impede or enhance the acquisition of a

reasonable pronunciation in English? Kenworthy (1987) provides a useful

inventory. For each of her 6 factors we can make our own conclusion at the end.

The first factor is the learner’s native language. Mother-tongue transfer is

generally more systematic, pervasive and persistent in the area of pronunciation

than it is in grammar or in lexicon. This makes it important for teachers to know

something about the sound system of the language that their learners speak in order

to anticipate problems and understand the source of errors. The second factor is the learner’s age. The younger the age when the learner begins to acquire English the better the learner’s pronunciation. In fact complete mastery of English before age 12 generally results in accent-free speech, whereas acquisition after age 15 virtually guarantees some degree of accentedness in speech. The third factor is the learner’s exposure. Exposure to the target language can refer to both the length of time and the extensity of the exposure over time. Generally speaking the more time spent on learning the spoken language the better pronunciation. The learner’s innate phonetic ability is the fourth factor. Some people simply have more skills at or aptitude for imitating and producing sounds and sound patterns that are new to them. All other things equal such learners will achieve a better pronunciation than will those learners with lesser aptitude. The fifth factor is the learner’s attitude and sense of identity. The attitude a learner has toward the target language and its speakers may affect his or her

pronunciation. The more favorable the attitude, the better the pronunciation is.

The sixth is the learner’s motivation and concern for good pronunciation. This factor is of great importance in pronunciation instruction. If the learner’s motivation to prove is strong and if the investment of time and effort is great , there will be improvement.[15, 4]

              The pronunciation is definitely the biggest thing that people notice when a personis speaking English . The speaker’s pronunciation creates the first impression he or she makes when speaking.

2.2 Techniques in teaching English pronunciation

A good method in teaching pronunciation is using songs. A teacher can use songs to focus on sounds. Sounds are the smallest unit from which words are formed and can be categorized as vowels and consonants. As languages differ in their range of sound, students have to learn to “physically“ produce certain sounds previously unknown to them . Learners can find sounds difficult to pick up out, and may not see the point in focusing on them. However, incorrectly pronounced sounds strain communication, sometime even changing a phrase’s meaning. Songs can help because they are authentic and easily accessible examples of spoken English. The rhymes in songs provide listeners with repetition of similar sounds. We can use songs also to focus on words.

There is opinion of David F. Dalton, that exercise is good in training pronunciation. It should be simple, accessible, fun and combine reception and production. Some students, usually adults, do feel embarrassed to pull ridiculous faces when practicing vowel sounds, but David F. Dalton has generally found that this soon passes and students enjoy the pronunciation work. Where possible, exercises should be communicative, and generate differences of opinion and disagreement of what was said or heard. The exercise allows clear practice in production and reception and gives concise feedback to individual learners , as to where problems lie in these areas and how to repair them . Often these are very simple physical questions such as not rounding the lips as in [u: ] in ‘ fool ‘ which the teacher can help them to focus on . As teachers, we are not the best judges of the accuracy of our students’ pronunciation. We are accustomed to it and usually very tolerant, when in general, native speakers are not. The exercise then helps teachers to be more aware of real problems learners have in their oral production and to help to correct them.

Celce Murcia and Godwin suggest us several techniques in teaching pronunciation. First there is “listen and imitate/repeat” technique which was used in direct approaches and also the audio-lingual approach. Second there are tongue- twisters like “She sells sea shell by the seashore.” or “Peter Piper picked a pick of peppered piper”. The third technique is suppose to be the technique of using lists of words as minimal pairs.[13, 5]

e.g. syntagmatic: Don’t sit on that seat.

               paradigmatic: Don’t slip/sleep on the floor.

A fourth technique that is used by first language acquisition research is the developmental approximation drill, where the developmental sequence followed by

most L1 children becomes a way to get nonnative speakers to produce a problematic sound or sound quality .

e.g. [w] ------------------ [r] [y] ---------------------- [l]

wed--------------------red     yet----------------------let

The fifth technique that is wide spread is the drilling of vowel shifts and stress

shifts, something that was given by the early work in generative phonology.

e.g. vowel shift  [ay] ---------------- [I ]

                       bible--------------- biblical

  stress shift PHOtograph --------------phoTOgraphy

In fact what we have to do is to apply the most useful and usable of the old

techniques along with the same new and innovative exercises suggested in work on

teaching pronunciation.

              The 44 phonemes of English break down into 12 vowel sounds, 8 diphthongs

and 24 consonants.

English Vowels – there are 12 simple vowels in English. That means that these vowels appear in initial, mid and final position.

Pronunciation of the vowels [i:] and [I]

25

The "long" sound of vowel [i:] sounds like the name of the letter. e.g. sigh, ride, file.

And the "short" sound of vowel [I] is often found in short words. e.g. did, sit, lip

Pronunciation of the Vowels [e[ and [ æ]

We can find the English vowel [e] at the beginning and in the middle of the words and never in the final position of a word.

e.g. eggs, enemy , any, bell, says , fence.

The vowel is longer when it is followed by a voiced consonant and shorter when it is followed by a voiceless consonant.   e.g. bed – bet, led – let, beg – beck, said – set

The vowel sound [æ] can be obtained by keeping the mouth wide open as for pronouncing [a]. The tip of the tongue has to touch the inner edge of the lower teeth. The vowel [æ] appears only in initial position and in the middle of the words.

e.g. Ann , apple , act, hat , sand , natural .

The vowel [æ] is modified in dependence of the position in words. It is longer when it precedes a voiced consonant and shorter before a voiceless consonant.

e.g. cab – cap, bag – back.

Pronunciation Of the Vowels [a:] and [ʌ]

The English vowel [a:] appears in initial, mid, and final position.

e.g. arm , art , hard, calm, far, car

Just the same as the other English vowels, [a:] suffers some modifications, in dependence of its position in words. The vowel [a:] is very long when it is in a final position or followed by a voiced consonant. e.g. car, far, are, tar, father, garden.

The vowel is shorter when precedes a voiceless consonant: e.g. carp, clerk, art, calf.

The vowel [ʌ] appears only in initial and mid position, both in stressed and unstressed syllables. e.g. up , upper, cup, does , pronunciation.

Pronunciation of the Vowels [ɒ] and [o:]

The vowel [ɒ] appears only in initial position in words. 

              e.g. on , odd ,opera, not, lock , box.

In American English the sound [ɒ] is substituted by a sound which is similar to

[o] . Such words like mob [mob ], log [ log].

When[ɒ] precedes a voiced consonant, it is longer in such words as : long, log, rob, cod, than in : pot, hop, lock .

The English vowel [o:] appears in initial, mid and final positions in words:

             e.g. ought, all, order, pawn ,call, hoard, paw , core .

The vowel is very long when it is situated in final position or precedes a voiced consonant.    e.g. saw , four , more , board, lawn, cause .

When given sound is followed by a voiceless consonant its length is shortened.

             e.g. walk , thought, daughter.

Pronunciation of the Vowels [υ] and [ u:]

The vowel [ υ] appears only in the middle of the words. e.g. put , full, look.

This vowel is longer before a voiced consonant and shorter before a voiceless

consonant.  e.g. good , pudding, book, foot.

The English vowel [u:] requires length and it appears in initial, mid and final position. e.g. ooze , spoon, fool, rule, shoe, argue, do.

The vowel [u:] is very long in final position and when precedes a voiced

consonant .   e.g. who , woo, blue, lose, move, wooed.

When it precedes a voiceless consonant its length is shortened.  e.g. shoot, group.

Pronunciation of the Vowels [ə] and [  ]

The vowel [ə] is one of the most frequent sound used in English and it is called also “schwa”. The schwa appears in initial, mid, and final position and only in unstressed position.  e.g. above , alike , ago , suppose , condition , summer , soda, ever.

The schwa is longer in final position or when is followed by voiced

consonants, and it is shorter when it precedes a voiceless consonant .Sometimes the

schwa is omitted , without changing the sense and the meaning of the word.

e.g. condition [ kən’di∫ən] [k ən’di∫n]

The English vowel [  ] is well pronounced if we pronounce it very long and

our tongue is strained. We can find the vowel [  ] in initial, mid and final position.

When it is in a final position or is followed by a voiced consonant the sound is very

long :  e.g. her , sir , fur, heard , bird , pearl ,.

When the sound we are speaking about is followed by a voiceless consonant, its length is considerably reduced.   e.g. hurt , earth , curse.

English consonants – there are 24 consonant sounds in English language. Consonants are letters that are pronounced by forcing air through, over or between the various parts of your mouth: palate, teeth, tongue, lips.  Sometimes the sound is made by stopping the flow of air and then releasing it. We can classify the consonants according to the manner of articulation as follows:

* Stop consonants [p, b, t , d, k, g]

* Fricative consonants [ f, v, θ, ð, s, z,∫, ʒ, h ]

* Affricate consonants [t∫, dʒ]

* Nasal consonants [ m, n, ɳ ]

* Liquid consonants [ l, r ]

* Glide consonants [ w , j ].

Except this classification consonants have one more classification , that means

according to the functions of speech organs which are involved in their articulation.

*Bilabial [ p, b , m ,w]

*Labiodentals [ f, v ]

*Dental [θ, ð]

*Alveolar [ t, d, s, z, n, l ]

*Palatal [∫, ʒ, t∫, dʒ, r , j ]

*Velar [ k, g,ɳ ]

*Glottal [ h ]

And there is one more classification of the consonants – according to the

criteria of vibration of the cord:

*Voiced [ b, d , g ,ð , v , ʒ , z, dʒ, m , n, l, r , w, j ]

*Voiceless [ p, t, k, θ , f , ∫ , s, t∫, h ]

And we have consonants which make pairs:

[p, b] ,[ t, d] , [k, g] , [f , v] , [θ, ð] ,[s, z ] , [∫, ʒ] , [t∫, dʒ].

English diphthongs – when two vowel sounds blend together in a word, it is called a diphthong.  Sometimes the sound is spelled with two letters and other times one letter does the job.  In fact, many of the Long Vowel sounds in English are called Diphthongs There are many combinations of sounds in English which can be counted as diphthongs, but only 8 of them have a statue of phoneme. They are [eI], [aI], [oI], [Iə], [eə], [υə], [əυ], [aυ].

Communication is the most important component of any human society. In order to communicate properly learners need correct pronunciation, because pronunciation affects very much on the understanding of the meanings of the words. If the sound of word is differing it may lead the listener to some other meanings, and if this happens, it is very much obvious that its not a proper communication. So, to avoid such kind of problems we need to let know every speaker, correct pronunciation

25

3. Teaching grammar

3.1 Grammar in language teaching

Grammar is partly the study of what forms (or structures) are possible in a language. Traditionally, grammar has been concerned almost exclusively with analysis at the level of the sentence. Thus a grammar is a description of rules that govern how a language’s sentences are formed. [9, 1]

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines grammar as the rules by which words change their forms and are combined into sentences. There are two basic elements in this definition: the rules of grammar; and the study and practice of the rules. The rules of grammar are about how words change and how they are put together into sentences. The knowledge of grammar also tells the learner what to do if he wants to put the some phrase into the sentence.  Grammar should be called the way in which words change themselves and group together to make sentences.”  [6,1]

              In order to be able to speak a language to some degree of proficiency and to be able to say what we really want to say, we need to have some grammatical knowledge. By teaching grammar we not only give our students the means to express themselves, but we also fulfil their expectations of what learning a foreign language involves. There are two main approaches to teaching grammar. These are the deductive and the inductive approach. A deductive approach is when the rule is presented and the language is produced based on the rule. (The teacher gives the rule.)An inductive approach is when the rule is inferred through some form of guided discovery. (The teacher gives the students a means to discover the rule for themselves.) [14,3]

A good teacher has several possibilities how to teach grammar. There is a number of techniques for presenting and practicing grammar. According to J.Harmer the grammatical information can be given to students in two major ways. The first one could be extremely covert and the second will be made extremely overt.

Covert grammar teaching means that grammatical facts are hidden from the students- even though they are learning the language. Students may be asked to do any activity where a new grammar is presented or introduced, but their attention will be drawn to this activity not to the grammar.

Overt grammar teaching means that the teacher actually provides the students grammatical rules and explanations-the information is openly presented.

With overt teaching grammatical rules are explicitly given to students, but with covert teaching students are simply asked to work with new language to absorb grammatical information which will help them to acquire the language as a whole.

It is expected to do a lot of structures in teaching and practicing, and less really free communicative activity at the beginner level. The teaching of grammar is likely to be fairly covert since the main aim is to get students to use language as much as possible. On the other hand students at intermediate levels should be involved in more communicative activities and should have less grammar teaching. The teaching grammar would probably be more overt. Then advanced students can actively study grammar in more overt ways.[1,74]

Presenting grammar is the stage at which learners are introduced to the form, meaning and use of a new piece of language. Students can learn how to put the new syntax, words and sounds together. They learn grammar that they will need for their most important experience, applying it to themselves. We call this experience  personalisation: this is the stage at which students use a new piece of grammar to say things which really mean something to them. Presentation can take place using personalization immediately, teacher uses the students and their lives to introduce a new language. Personalisation can be the final part of a presentation which is done through the use of texts or pictures.

J. Harmer speaks about characteristics of a good presentation, such as:

1) a good presentation should be clear ( no difficulties in understanding for learner)

2) a good presentation should be efficient (students can manipulate the new language)

3) a good presentation should be lively and interesting (to get interest for students, their involving during a presentation)

4) a good presentation should be appropriate (not put so much information)

    5) a good presentation should be productive (the introduced situation should allow students to make many sentences or questions with a new language).  [6, 18]

Testing grammar. – It has been said that pupils would do the exercises with pleasure and in a funny way. But it is quite difficult to test grammar in the same way. However it is difficult, it is possible. There are several types of tests. Teacher can test students’ ability to speak or write, his reading or listening skills. Of course, written tests take less time and they are easier to administer. That’s why most tests are based on written skills. This could cause some problems, because so much teaching in the classroom is based on oral work. Teacher should remember this fact and try to make the tests suitable for students. Good test shows both teacher and learner how well they are all doing. Teacher who writes tests should bear in mind the rules that are offered by J.Hamer:

1)     Don’t test what you haven’t taught

2)     Don’t test general knowledge

3)     Don’t introduce new techniques in tests

4)     Don’t just test accuracy

5)     Don’t forget to test the test [6, 58-59]

There are many items to test a student’s  knowledge of grammar, such as:

1.      In multiple choice items, students have to choose the correct answer from a number of alternatives. At the most simple level, multiple choice can be used to test the students’ grammatical knowledge.

2.      Fill-ins are those where students have to fill a blank with a word or words. This is a good test of students’ comprehension as well as of their knowledge of individual grammatical items (such as personal pronouns, prepositions and the verbs.  Ex. He ate____ orange after lunch)

3.      Sentence reordering – this type of test item explores the students’ knowledge of syntax and it looks like this: (Put the words in order to make correct sentences. Ex. he lives/ John is/ and/ in London./a student)

4.      A test of students’ knowledge of syntax and structure sentence transformation. Here students have to rewrite sentences so that they have the same meaning but different grammatical structure. (Ex. “I haven’t seen her for years” he said – He said that he hasn’t seen her for years )

To my mind, all grammar teaching should not be covert. Teacher should not always draw students’ attention to grammatical facts and rules. Sometimes pupils should discover facts about grammar through problem –solving activities and sometimes through practicing grammar. Teacher should not think that the only best kind of grammar practice is written grammar practice. Teacher should remember that it is not good to test grammar only with accuracy. The main point in teaching grammar is based on the fact that children do not learn grammar when they acquire first language, so it could work when they learn the second language. 

3.2 How to teach English grammar to young learners

When teaching English grammar to young learners, teacher can use a wide variety of creative material ranging from games and songs to movies and TV shows. When selecting materials to teach English grammar to young learners, it is important to choose age-appropriate songs or videos.

For children at primary school a game is one of the crucial activities. They enjoy playing games but what is more, games are important as they serve as tools of

socialisation. Children learn to communicate with their friends, they have to accept

others opinions and they learn how to present their own ideas. In our English lessons

we can use games for the development of communicative skills as well as for the

revision of vocabulary and grammar.

Nevertheless, activities presented in our classrooms are not typical games. If we use the term “game”, we usually mean just playing for fun and it is something completely different from the activities we do with young learners. Although we have fun, the main purpose is educative and therefore it is better to call such activities “game-like activities”. [10, 279]

Although a game-like activity seems to be a very easy and natural way of learning, it is not an easy task for a teacher to prepare a good activity. We have to be aware of two basic aspects. Firstly, what we expect from the particular activity. We should consider whether the game-like activity is for children only to make the lesson more attractive and protect them from being bored or whether we tend to revise and practise some particular part of grammar, vocabulary etc. Secondly, it is important not to waste our time. Some activities have too complicated rules or on the other hand, some activities are too simple and both the cases make children speak their native language, which we definitely want to avoid. [2,253]

It is not really possible to divide game-like activities into several separate groups as

most of them combine and involve more features. They usually combine speaking,

writing, reading and listening skills. There are some basic types of game-like activities and suggest their usage for teaching young learners grammar. Game-like activities involving speaking make our pupils engage more of their skills. They are expected to listen and react. One of the most useful are “question/answer activities”. Children are said to find out some information by asking and answering questions. Also children can be given prepared handouts to fill in their answers. If we want to practise the present simple tense, children choose the names of their classmates, they go to them and ask them what they do on Mondays etc. After all of the pupils finish their “searching for information”, it is beneficial to discuss all the answers together. Children enjoy playing such games as they are interested in the information.[9,23] Children’s favourite activities are those which involve physical movements. The last category concerns game-like activities in which we use some materials, for example: pictures, puzzles, crosswords, matching exercises etc. Pictures are usually considered to be suitable only for vocabulary revision but we can use them to practise grammar as well. Children look at the picture and then they tell us what the people in the picture are doing. This is good for practising the present continuous tense. Also teacher can think about a number of such activities, as various types of crosswords and puzzles. For example one type of a puzzle which children usually enjoy very much. Firstly, we prepare the following puzzle:

“swimminglucksleepingwxopeningwritinggoingdoinghapyfallingboloin”

Secondly, children are told to find all the verbs ending with –ing. Such activities are

usually played in pairs or small groups as children prefer playing games in groups.

When they find all the verbs, they are encouraged to make their own sentences

containing the verbs in the –ing forms. After that the children are asked to read their

sentences. If we have enough time, we can ask a child to act a sentence from the puzzle and the other children try to guess what the sentence is. In such way, teacher can in a short time involve and practise visual differentiation, making sentences, reading sentences and acting.

The main purpose of this chapter is to emphasise the fact that the relationship between games (game-like activities) and children is indissoluble and a good primary English teacher is able to incorporate such activities into all of his/her lessons. The results and benefits we get from game-like activities depend only on our creativity and imagination. It is not a problem to make up a game-like activity for any part of grammar but the activity has to be both interesting and useful for children. [11, 3]

Conclusion

Teaching English to young learners is both a difficult and enjoyable experience. It is difficult for you as a teacher, because you always have to find new and interesting methods and approaches in order to stir the learners' interest. As far as young learners are concerned they find lessons enjoyable, as they are active parts in the process. They use the language in order to communicate, to play games, and later on to tell stories.

Learning a foreign language does not mean only to be able to speak, but also to speak correctly, this implies studying grammar. Therefore it must always exist a connection between studying grammar and vocabulary and using it correctly.

Knowing a foreign language is essential in the activity and life of any person. I think that it is advisable to start learning language at a very young age, because young learners learn more rapidly than older. All the information received at this age becomes an useful thing for the rest of their lives. The first years of study are the most important since that time it is developed the child's attitude towards the new language. This thing involves a lot of factors which interfere in order to achieve its purpose - making the child love or at least enjoy studying English.

For the successful teaching of English to young learners, it is essential for the teacher to understand the young learners' characteristics, instincts, and interests in their cognitive, linguistic, and emotional aspects, because this will play a crucial role in how the teacher builds a lesson, how he or she can make sure that the young learners are fully involved in the learning process, how he or she achieves the objectives of a lesson, and how they respond.

Young learners have short attention span, so teachers should vary their techniques to break the boredom, they should give varied activities as handwriting, songs, games. To my mind playing games is an important factor in studying a foreign language to young children. Games are not the way of reflecting young children’s personalities in the language classroom. The roles of stimulation, imagination, creativity and fantasy are also of great importance. So, teachers must take advantage of this in language classes and stimulate the children’s creative imagination in a way that they will want to use the language to share their ideas.

List of references

1. Н.К. Навчання граматичних структур англійської мови в школі.  К:Радянська школа 1982

2. Brumfit C., Moon J. and Tongue R. Teaching English to Children: From Practice to Principle. London: Longman Group UK Limited, 1995.

3. Dunn O. Beginning English with Young Children. London: modern English republications 1983

4. Halliwell S. Teaching English in the primary Classroom. London: Longman

Group UK Limited, 1992.

5. Harmer J. How to teach English.  London: Longman 1998

6. Harmer J. Teaching and Learning Grammar.  London: Longman 1987

7. Moon, J. Children learning English. Oxford: MacMillan 2000

8. Scott W. Teaching English to children. London: Longman. 1990

9. Thornbury S. How to teach Grammar. London: Longman 1999

10.Ur P. A course in language Teaching. Cambrige: Cambrige University Press 1996

11. Widdowson H.G. Aspects of language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1990

12. Willis J. A frame work for task-based learning. London: Longman 1996

Internet resources

13. Teaching Grammar to Young Learners

http://is.muni.cz/th/44537/pedf_b/bachelor_thesis.pdf

14.http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/planning-a-grammar-lesson

15. http://www.scribd.com/doc/24914346/Teaching-Pronunciation

Summary

Давно помічено, що діти молодшого шкільного віку в іншомовному середовищі набагато швидше опановують нові засоби спілкування. Навчаючи молодших школярів іноземної мови, треба зважати на їхні психологічні особливості.

Увага молодших учнів нестійка: вони не можуть протягом тривалого часу займатись одним видом діяльності. Тому на уроці варто постійно змінювати форми роботи і навчальний матеріал: усне мовлення чергується з письмом; діалогічне — з монологічним; хорова робота — з індивідуальною; опис погоди — з розповіддю за картинкою.

Враховуючи вікові особливості, не треба забувати і про загальні закономірності засвоєння іноземної мови: рідну мову неможливо усунути з навчального процесу, як і не можна навчати нової мови без опори на рідну, тому доцільно широко спиратися на неї, використовуючи переклад. Усі види мовленнєвої діяльності взаємопов’язані, тож слід, наскільки це можливо навчати всіх видів мовленнєвої діяльності.

Навчання вимови – одне з основних завдань, оскільки на початковому етапі вивчення іноземної мови формуються основні механізми вимови, а поставити правильну вимову легше, ніж у майбутньому корегувати фонетичні помилки. Добре сформовані навички вимови мають велике значення не тільки в мовленні, але й в розумінні мовлення, оскільки той, хто сприймає інформацію, спирається на вже відомі йому звукові образи.

Оволодіння мовленнєвими навичками здійснюється в кілька етапів. На першому етапі дитина ознайомлюється зі значеннями мовних одиниць - простих  і складних. Складання дітьми речень з двох-трьох слів сприяє синтаксичному засвоєнню мови - у вигляді граматично об'єднаних в одне семантичне ціле окремих мовних одиниць. Другий етап - пасивне мовлення. Це усвідомлення і запам'ятовування словесного виразу, тобто багаторазове зіставлення дитиною мовної одиниці з відповідними предметами та явищами реальної дійсності. А вже третім і останнім етапом є активне мовлення, тобто використання слів чи виразів у мовленні.

25