Teach English in Nuobuyuanfengjing Guanlichu - Huanggang Shi

Parents are the first models and teachers of children. Children look up to their parents, imitate them and pick up traits from them, either desirable or not. Due to this fact, parents of young learners of English language are urged to play their roles as models thoroughly in corporation with the efforts of the teacher. This joint effort would influence the rate at which the child is exposed to the language. Parents can help students learn English in the following ways : • Learning English : In cases, where the parent’s native language (L1) is a language other than English language and the parent has little or no contact with the language whatsoever, it is advisable for the parent to join an English class. This helps the children know that when the parents make an effort to speak and make mistakes, they want to ‘have a go' at the language and they are not aimed at immediate perfection. This in turn helps the student build a positive attitude towards the language as both parents and children would want to come home at the end of a work/school day to show off what they have newly learnt during the course of the day. • Communication in English language : Young students tend to retain knowledge and values that are taught repeatedly both from parents and the school environment. When parents communicate with their wards at home in English language, such student tend to perform higher in class compared to a child whose only access to the language is when he or she is at school. Several ways by which communication in English language could be encouraged by parents include: 1. Singing in English language: At school, young learners are typically taught songs in English in order to catch their interests and make the lessons more varied and interesting. Getting this kind of atmosphere of singing at home makes the children enthusiastic and helps keep knowledge been acquired to memory and help children express themselves more without fear of criticism. Children who had difficulties catching up with the lyrics of songs been taught at school would also be at an advantage as their parents could help correct misconceptions. 2. Games and craft: The home could be made an engaging place just like the classroom for learning at school. Parents could help achieve this by organizing fun games that elicit words from English language from the students. This could be in form of games such as gap-fill exercises, memory games, painting, etc. For instance, during drawing and painting activities organized by the parent, the student could be told to help bring the glue, the paint or the pencil in English language. Phrases like that help the child get a pictorial representation of the word or equipment he/she is been told to get and such word sticks to the child’s memory. 3. Reading bedtime stories in English: In African countries such as Nigeria, some families or parents are known for telling bedtime stories to their younger children or relatives. This opportunity could be used to help the children learn more folklores in English. The purpose of this is not for reading and listening to stories alone but also to listen proper construction of English tenses as children are flexible in learning compared to teenagers and adults. 4. Gesture making: Gestures and facial reactions of parents to the students goes a long way in encouraging their learning of the language. Gestures such as thumbs up and clapping could be made when they make efforts to successfully say a word or make a sentence. This makes them feel happy and appreciated as children tend to seek validation from their parents and older people around them. This in turn makes them want to do more and put in the efforts to learn more of the language. • Motivation: Parents should endeavour to motivate their children on the importance of learning English language. Young learners are rarely motivated as they are care-free but older adolescents could be motivated by letting them know the importance of the language and future prospects that the language holds for them. Asides this, young learners could be motivated by praises for successfully completing an activity in English. Praises are given by teachers too and parents could go the extra mile by offering rewards. Rewards don’t have to be monetary or in form of gifts always. It could be in form of extra play time for the child or even the permission to ask for whatever they want. This makes the child want to do more and upholds the child’s interest towards consistent learning. Other methods include asking English-speaking family and friends over as constant communication with native speakers helps improve and expand the children’s vocabulary. All of these methods are important and play vital roles in helping the students learn English language but above all, courage and confidence are important. The parents should always encourage the children to speak the language, irrespective of the errors made. Gradually, the children would pick the correct words. It might take time and might in turn frustrate the parents but with persistence and confidence, the children will be able to express themselves and even when they make mistakes, they should be corrected in love. During the process, parents could help report whatever errors they observe the students make regularly in the production of the language and help report to the teacher for him/her to also work on for the individual in the classroom.