Teach English in Dajipu Zhen - Huangshi Shi

Learning difficulties is a very important topic to consider when teaching students English as a second language. Often times these learning difficulties require unique strategies to help remedy them. These difficulties come in many shapes and sizes and need to be treated with the utmost care and respect by the teacher because often times these difficulties can result in the students struggling with learning, or giving up learning altogether. As a result of this the teacher needs to be aware of these difficulties and how to approach and confront them. As a teacher myself, I was responsible for teaching several different groupings of students, sometimes in the same classroom. It was very important for me to correctly approach learning difficulties that my students experienced. For example, one of my students struggled with her confidence. She was a very kind student and worked very hard on every assignment, but she would struggle when she made a mistake and subsequently lose her confidence. With this student, I learned how to build her confidence while still assisting other students. I would consistently praise her, call her by name, and I would ask between classes if she needed any help. When I had the free time, I would sit down with her for a few minutes and help her with the subject that was frustrating her. This show of compassion and dedication inspired her to not give up, and she was one of my best students. Another student that I taught really struggled with verb tenses while in a larger class. When I couldn’t help her one on one, I would usually pair her with a stronger student that she got along with during exercises. This helped her significantly with her tenses over time. The compassion of the teacher really needs to be apparent during these times, as an uncompassionate teacher will probably fail to understand why their students are struggling and either give up or not look to find solutions. It could also greatly damage the student’s confidence, which nobody should ever want. Different groupings may have different learning difficulties that may require different solutions. I taught several classes, and some days I would have a grade school class directly followed by an adult business class. The learning difficulties in these two classes varied greatly as the younger students would often struggle with boredom, and the adult business class would struggle more with when to use more difficult words or phrases which would require more discussion in English and more focus on the specific grammar points. It quickly became very important for me to learn how to make the kids classes very entertaining, often leading to my class preparations being more about creating games than how to explain the grammar point. The preparation time for the business class however would be better spent focusing on how to explain the grammar points and researching previous questions that the students had given to me to answer. Even the preparation can be a way to address learning difficulties. There will always be learning difficulties with learning any subject, and learning English will always be a subject with a wide variety of learning difficulties. A teacher should be dedicated, compassionate, and loyal to their students and genuinely care about their experience. This is the best way to approach learning difficulties. Often times learning how to remedy a specific learning difficulty may take time, effort, and patience on the teacher’s part. However, that is part of being a great and caring teacher. Learning how to approach and confront learning difficulties is just as important as learning grammar and how to teach it. A learning difficulty such as confidence might be the student’s greatest obstacle in mastering the English language, and a teacher’s guidance, compassion, and assistance just might be what gets them over that hurdle.