Teach English in XiAnxia Zhen - Zhuzhou Shi

It has never been easy to teach. And this is not just the case of teaching students in a school but even if parents teach their children or if a friend of yours teaches you something new. The thing is, while teaching you should always pay attention so you could learn something new. But problem is that not everything we „have to“ learn is interesting for us. But there are ways that we can make our teaching interesting even if a person or people who we teach do not feel very comfortable about a new topic. Teaching begins in our early childhood. Even a small baby starts to learn new things. From the very beginning of our life until we get older. We learn every day. But what if there is somebody who is a teacher and thinks about teaching young learners, small kids or adults ? Which one should the thinking teacher choose ? Well, as everywhere, everything has its advantages and disadvantages. When we start teaching small kids we should not have big expectations. We have to be aware that these are still small children who barely speak their native language and they discover something new every day. If we think about a three or four years old kid, we should not be very strict on him and rather expect less than more. But this does not mean that the kid is not able to learn something new. Just do not have big expectations. But the best way to teach children at least in my opinion is teaching them by playing, singing, drawing or dancing. The thing is that small children are more likely to have fun than learn new things. But if we connect some activity with teaching, it is very useful. For example, the kids could draw a tree and we could tell them that a tree trunk has a brown color and the leaves on the tree are green or yellow. We can apply this for a song where they should point on different parts of their body while singing. So they can learn a new vocabulary. For example if they point out on their head, they say this is head, if they point on their knees, they can say that it is their knees... While teaching older students in the age of ten to sixteen it is possible that they do not care about learning the new language. They would like to spend their time with friends, do nothing, watch movies. I am not saying that this happens everywhere but they are in the age where they discover another new things and they are „forced“ to learn a new language in the school. But here we can also engage them and make teaching more convenient. We could give them some article that talks about websites or some technology. We could get their attention because we would know that they do like this area. It is very important for a teacher to find out what his students like and what they like less. We all have been in this age that they go through so a little empathy could do a miracle. Another big and difficult step is learning adults. It is a big challenge to learn adults new language. Especially if they have been out of the school for a long time. But the good thing is that it is up to them if they want to learn a new language so in most cases they participate voluntarily. They can understand with a teacher much more than a teacher with a young learners because those adults could have gone through the same or similar things that the teacher has gone. But on the other hand even teaching adults can be a huge challenge. Mostly, those people have their families, they work and take care about stuff that deals with their families or job. And if they work whole day it can be very difficult to learn something new after whole working day that has finished but they have to come to a language school and learn a new language. Probably, they are not mentally there and they think about things what they have to arrange in their private lives. Also most of those people have been out of the school for a long time so they do not have to be convenient about teaching style that has been adapted recently so they may have some difficulties. For example if they have to do some homework on a computer, older people can find difficulties if they are not used to work on a computer. Even their brain probably does not remember as good as few years ago so they can easily forget something that they have learned. Or maybe something happens and they are not able to participate on the lesson. So we should be very patient with this and understand if something similar happens. Take it slowly with them and praise them. This applies even for a younger learners. We should praise them and we should not correct every single mistake they make. Just praise them, sometimes explain them in a good way that maybe this and this would be more appropriate to use than this... So what is the difference between teaching young learners and adults ? I think that there is no single answer to this and every teacher find out this after some experience. But as I have mentioned before, every single thing as its advantages and disadvantages. But if we really make a connection with students and have a good relationship, it does not matter which group we would like to teach more. Just be there for them and be helpful and patient. Make them know that they can rely on you when they need your help and do not make differences between them. Sometimes it is difficult. Just do your best !