Delivering efficient English classes to the children aged 3–12 in Asian context



In this article I will describe my teaching experience during two years of delivering English classes to Chinese learners aged 3- 12 and indicate, which difficulties Chinese learners face when studying English and the ways of solving them.

After 2 years of teaching I came to conclusion that first thing that matters is being extremely qualified, passionate and creative.

Temperamental fitness to this kind of duty is essential: the more active and sincere the teacher is, the more chances he will have to make the children be interested in the English classes through a vide range of active games, such as, for example, «hammer game», «jump and say game», «music chair», and many other games along with the simple English songs that should also be implemented.

There are also quite a great deal of psychological «secrets», or, in other words, norms and principles an English teacher should adhere to, which are absolutely vital for pending the successful results, such as:

– Patience.

He should be utterly patient with all of the different students, having different characters.

What is meant is being kind in any situation, even if a child refuses to take part in a game, the teacher should not press on him, or show him anger or negativity, he should focus on the other children, letting him see how interesting it is to play games, rather than to put pressure on a «difficult» child, then it is 99 % guaranteed that in a while a child will join the process.

It is what we call «guidance», — the coach should guide the students to accurately pronounce the word, supporting him in every single step.

Intensive use of body language is absolutely appropriate here along with the use of jokes to relax the children and simply help them enjoy the process.

The new neuron connections will be built in such educational continuum that will enhance the development of their acting skills, that’s how important it is to create positive atmosphere.

– Positive attitude

It is always much more efficient when the teacher is sincerely interested and passionately involved in the process of actively playing games, singing songs, sharing positive attitude towards the children, especially in a situation when a child finds it difficult to produce a word or a sentence, or simply is shy that is exactly where the teacher should support the child, to always keep the energy up and guide them to feel free when producing the “little speech”

As it is widely known, chinese language system is fundamentally different from European one, and Chinese belongs to a different language family, that’s why all of the students have some pronunciation difficulties: they use Chinese way of producing the sounds, stressing every word in a sentence, and difficulties when pronouncing the certain English sounds, such as “th”, or “v”, and some others which does not exist in Chinese at all.

The interference of students’ mother tongue affects the pronunciation.

So Chinese learners of English create their own language, which is a mix of English and Chinese and is called ”Chinglish”.

Teaching Chinese learners English a foreign teacher should take into account these particular qualities of Chinese learners, that’s why I use the most efficient method of pronouncing the children’s tongue twisters along with the wine cork or a pencil, which is essential for correcting pronunciation.

This method is used worldwide, when actors or singers are taught to produce beautiful pronunciation and is also used as a means of getting rid of accents and dialects.

The teacher should guide the students to put the wine cork or a pencil between the teeth, and then for the first time slowly guide the students pronounce the tongue twister, more quickly the second time, and when the students manage to pronounce it clearly and audibly, guide them to pronounce it as quickly as possible.

Then do the same without a wine cork, guiding the student to breath through the stomach.

After practicing tongue twisters, the result of improving pronunciation can be noticed at once.

It is widely known that Chinese language system is fundamentally different from Indo-European groups of languages, in which tones play the main role, changing the meaning of the word.

So within the change of the intonation the meaning of the word is changed.

As it is described in the book of Gek Ling Lee, Laina Ho, J. E. Lisa Meyer, Chitra Varaprasad, Carissa Young, which is called ”Teaching English to students of China” in Chinese, depending on the changes made to the pitch while saying [no], the actual meaning of the sound [no] totally changes, so [no] may actually mean [table] or [life] or [pen] or [suitcase].

In English: consider how (a native speaker) would say [no] when answering the following 4 questions in 4 different scenarios:

1. Do you like horror movies? No. (Neutral)
2. Are you mad at me because I offered your girlfriend a drink? No (but you ARE actually mad at him for doing that)
3. So you're coming to my wedding on Saturday right? No. No??? (surprised)
4. Give me your money, give me your money now! No. (resistant, challenging and firm).

So, as it was mentioned before, teachers must do plethora of pronunciational exercises and explain that tone in Chinese has a different role in English and practice tongue twisters exercises as much as possible when teaching the new words.

Normally Chinese learners tend to mispronounce quite a lot of English sounds, such as, for example, Ø and /ð/ sounds, which does not exist in Chinese, so they produce ”s” sound instead.

Another reason of bad pronunciation is a lack of practice at schools, as schools teachers tend to pay more attention to grammar and lexis, rather that pronunciation.

One of the most common pronunciational mistakes is extra (de) (te) sound, which is added in the end of each word by most part of the students. For example, “cat” can be heard as cat(te), dad as dad(e).

The reason is that in Chinese language after each consonant there is a vowel, so they interfere this phenomena into English, that’s why it is quite challenging for native speakers to understand them.

There are some phenomena that does not exist in Chinese at all.

One of it is linking. Chinese people stress every word in a sentence, and they do the same in English. So they must also be taught to practice linking exercises.

Another one is the longness of some vowels, such as [i] and [i:] sounds that has influence on the meaning of the word.

So Chinese dialects also affect pronunciation.

For example, [r] sound can be replaced by [w] or [l] sounds, so the word “rice” can be pronounced like “lice”.

Many Chinese students are also confused to distinguish between /e/ and /æ/. The teacher should let them see the difference, giving them the words, containing the given sounds: bag/beg and etc, along with the special tongue twisters containing these sounds to master.

The importance of tongue twisters here is vital, because it is the best way to stretch and train the muscles, belonging to the articulation apparatus.

This helps them to produce beautiful and clear pronunciation, if trained enough even a native-like one.

Thus, using this methodology and articulation exercises, I guided them to produce beautiful and a native-like pronunciation.

Although English and Chinese don’t have much in common, Chinese children are extremely smart, with a bit more time and frequent practice they can gain fantastic results. It is the so-called “break the ice” method, targeting mutually respectful partnership relationships, in which a child should never be humiliated, stressed, or discouraged.

The right direction is to create an English educational continuum, in which all the children grow and develop their English language skills in a harmonious way along with the teacher’s guidance.

Keeping the spirit high means never show the attitude that “the teacher is more important”.

In the world of adults we got used to subordinate relationships, which is utterly ineffective in teaching the small children.

Every time a child demonstrates successful result, the teacher should praise him with a sticker, warm words and a broad smile, give him a high-five to always keep them encouraged and motivated. When a child reaches 20–25 stickers, he can change them and get the toy he likes from a training center. It is quite an effective motivating method in Asian training centers.