1- Sometimes we as teachers struggle with the lack of intrinsic motivation of the pupils in any subject, but we as teachers need to find the to make our classes meaningfully attractive for them. That’s an every day challenge.
2- When we returned to Mexico I didn’t have an English Teacher until I was is junior High, but the teacher was tired all the time and literally slept during the class, but I was so interested to learn English that I started to translate my favorite songs I things that I was interested in at that time. So… teachers need to provide knowledge in an attractive way.
Offering what students are interested in and in a way that keep pupils engaged is the real struggle in formal languages setting. Memorizing long list of vocabulary is proven not working in the long term memory. We need to learn the words in context.
I don’t make my students memorize vocabulary list anymore. We learn vocabulary in stories, listening and writing them. Vocabulary list may have some use in the review process.
I am only a mother. But i want to share: When my son was five he had a developmental challange and we had advisory from govermental proffessionals. We wanted him in a Waldorf school. The Government specialist teacher said it was a bad idea. But he still went. In his class they were 5 students, age 3-6. Between them and the teacher there were 7 languages (mothertounges) When the Government specialist teacher came to visit my son, in the Waldorfschool, she asked my sons teacher if they only “would only speak Swedish with him since this was a Swedish speaking country”.
I just looked at the his Waldorf teacher but, she camly nodded and answered: “Självklart” (offcourse) with a broad Finnis accent. After the specialist teacher had left, my sons Waldorfteacher just chook her head and said: “They do not know so much about children now, do they?”
I am not actively teaching FL at the moment but I am an adult learner of German, and I can absolutely relate to what is said in the video about it being more motivating to learn vocabulary and structures when you need them. I find I have little patience any more for learning abstract information or things i might need but never in fact use. When I need and want to know a word or a way of saying things, then I have automatically energy to learn them and I don’t need to force-manufacture it (which gets less and less possible as I grow older anyway).
I haven started teaching yet but i have discovered that kids nowadays have interesting ways of learning and acquiring knowledge and vocabulary and structures are only relevant during review
I have not started teaching yet but I can identify with the Waldorf teaching method from personal experience. I have participated in so many grammar and vocabulary lessons, but looking back on it, I only started to talk fearlessly once I got exposed to language in an immersive way. I also think it is a great way to do little exchange programs, so students get in touch with cultural differences and the use of language at first hand.
As a child I used to read a lot. And this was also my way to the German language, which I learned best – I took a book, which I received from my father and read. I read it in a way, which we try to avoid this days – checking word by word in a dictionary. Today, as a teacher, I try to introduce books or at list short stories to my pupils, but urge them not to worry about the words they understand.
However, other than Martyn, I use also the knowledge gained at school, such as grammar exercises. This was not immediatly useful when speaking to other people of course, but created a base, which I could recall when I was not sure which case or which tense to use.
I remember being in the bilingual environment since I was born. My mum was half Hungarian and she used to speak Hungarian with her relatives. However, she did not teach us this language. At that time it was not important to me, but nowadays I think that it was pity. I could speak Hungarian at some point of my childhood because I used to visit my auntie who spoke Hungarian and her children too. At the end, when I did not use the language I forgot it.
As to answering the question, the informal environment forces you to dive into the language fully. If you are motivated, you can learn the language very easily only by listening and realising the melody of the language.
As an English teacher I see the point in learning the grammar and syntactic structures too.
My learning experience of English is long because I started studying English when I was 8 years old. It has always been part of me. Sometimes I even can think better in this language. A vivid experience of culture and language occurred to me when I was living in England. The environment and need to speak English all the time had profound changes on me. I remember the day when I realised that I am losing the contact to my mother tongue.
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8 Comments
1- Sometimes we as teachers struggle with the lack of intrinsic motivation of the pupils in any subject, but we as teachers need to find the to make our classes meaningfully attractive for them. That’s an every day challenge.
2- When we returned to Mexico I didn’t have an English Teacher until I was is junior High, but the teacher was tired all the time and literally slept during the class, but I was so interested to learn English that I started to translate my favorite songs I things that I was interested in at that time. So… teachers need to provide knowledge in an attractive way.
Offering what students are interested in and in a way that keep pupils engaged is the real struggle in formal languages setting. Memorizing long list of vocabulary is proven not working in the long term memory. We need to learn the words in context.
I don’t make my students memorize vocabulary list anymore. We learn vocabulary in stories, listening and writing them. Vocabulary list may have some use in the review process.
I am only a mother. But i want to share: When my son was five he had a developmental challange and we had advisory from govermental proffessionals. We wanted him in a Waldorf school. The Government specialist teacher said it was a bad idea. But he still went. In his class they were 5 students, age 3-6. Between them and the teacher there were 7 languages (mothertounges) When the Government specialist teacher came to visit my son, in the Waldorfschool, she asked my sons teacher if they only “would only speak Swedish with him since this was a Swedish speaking country”.
I just looked at the his Waldorf teacher but, she camly nodded and answered: “Självklart” (offcourse) with a broad Finnis accent. After the specialist teacher had left, my sons Waldorfteacher just chook her head and said: “They do not know so much about children now, do they?”
I am not actively teaching FL at the moment but I am an adult learner of German, and I can absolutely relate to what is said in the video about it being more motivating to learn vocabulary and structures when you need them. I find I have little patience any more for learning abstract information or things i might need but never in fact use. When I need and want to know a word or a way of saying things, then I have automatically energy to learn them and I don’t need to force-manufacture it (which gets less and less possible as I grow older anyway).
I haven started teaching yet but i have discovered that kids nowadays have interesting ways of learning and acquiring knowledge and vocabulary and structures are only relevant during review
I have not started teaching yet but I can identify with the Waldorf teaching method from personal experience. I have participated in so many grammar and vocabulary lessons, but looking back on it, I only started to talk fearlessly once I got exposed to language in an immersive way. I also think it is a great way to do little exchange programs, so students get in touch with cultural differences and the use of language at first hand.
As a child I used to read a lot. And this was also my way to the German language, which I learned best – I took a book, which I received from my father and read. I read it in a way, which we try to avoid this days – checking word by word in a dictionary. Today, as a teacher, I try to introduce books or at list short stories to my pupils, but urge them not to worry about the words they understand.
However, other than Martyn, I use also the knowledge gained at school, such as grammar exercises. This was not immediatly useful when speaking to other people of course, but created a base, which I could recall when I was not sure which case or which tense to use.
I remember being in the bilingual environment since I was born. My mum was half Hungarian and she used to speak Hungarian with her relatives. However, she did not teach us this language. At that time it was not important to me, but nowadays I think that it was pity. I could speak Hungarian at some point of my childhood because I used to visit my auntie who spoke Hungarian and her children too. At the end, when I did not use the language I forgot it.
As to answering the question, the informal environment forces you to dive into the language fully. If you are motivated, you can learn the language very easily only by listening and realising the melody of the language.
As an English teacher I see the point in learning the grammar and syntactic structures too.
My learning experience of English is long because I started studying English when I was 8 years old. It has always been part of me. Sometimes I even can think better in this language. A vivid experience of culture and language occurred to me when I was living in England. The environment and need to speak English all the time had profound changes on me. I remember the day when I realised that I am losing the contact to my mother tongue.