HAVING taught English at a Chinese independent high school, my experience and intuition have convinced me that the major motivational factor for successful ESL (English as a Second Language) learning lies in the teaching approaches, notwithstanding variables like learners’ goals, expectations, anxiety, effort and attitude, as informed in research done globally (refer to the Education Resource Information Centre website at www.eric.ed.gov).

Moreover, a good L2 (Second Language) teacher must be linguistically competent and academically comprehensive.

The teacher’s teaching approaches subsumes his/her teaching attitude, personality, including actions and behaviours taken in the course of classroom teaching. Many learners turn a deaf ear to English in schools mostly because their teachers can’t arouse their interest in the language, or worse, kill their interest for good.

As an ESL learner, there are obstacles to be overcome. For some, English is learned only in school and not used out of school. Learning English is not a life or death matter because the student can survive perfectly well without mastering English in his or her own speech community.

As such, learners need stimulation and motivation, and teachers are the best drivers for this.

On the other hand, on top of everything, an L2 teacher needs to know what Second Language Acquisition is all about.

The latest SLA theories and hypotheses put forward have probed deep into the undiscovered psychological facets of learners and they are both down to earth and applicable. For instance, learners should be given allowance for “silent period”; and teachers should have an awareness of “natural order of learning”.

Having this knowledge, the teacher can then prove his/her postulations and experiment with approaches to bring about the reactivation of English. – Khei Yok Man

English for free

www.esolcourses.com: For those of you who are interested in improving your English, this is a website that provides free lessons for learners of all levels. Among its interesting features are grammar and listening exercises, reading activities, crossword puzzles and picture quizzes. There’s even a section where one can learn English through songs!

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