One of the most important landmarks on way of teaching – learning process of a language is the sort of achievements attained through training on approach and its consequent reflection on the classroom practice. In a teaching context, what is the usual practice determines the areas and aspects of competence that the learners are most likely to develop; to which extent or to what end – just theoretical or practical- is an entirely different issue often not explored. When in such a context training is introduced, some scope of such query and analysis is created and certain specific ways to solution is opened which were not available previously. Training brings with itself the privilege of a chance of being aware of the known anew and learning what is new or different. That is exactly what happens in case of an ESL training as well and a positive reflection of that is the most likely thing to expect after the trainees return to their classrooms.
The very first thing a teaching training is most likely to offer is often a new approach, new methods and techniques, and a new way of viewing the entire process; a complete philosophy of teaching. Quite naturally, an ESL training is most likely to offer ways of teaching English as a second language and what it takes to understand what learners do as the second language learner.
The most positive impact in class after such training is, learners receive greater understanding and strategic help and guidelines from the teacher. ESL training offers insight into learner strategies and psychology which enables a teacher to plan his lessons and its approach in a much more effective form which would address the learners’ potential individually. Such a teacher can always do something or the other to address the learners’ aptitude and to manipulate their individual learning nature (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) to the objective of the lessons in hand. ESL training addresses how a language is learned on a second language level and what faculties are in use here. So naturally, when such a trained teacher returns to class, what he sees on the face of his students sitting is not just the faces but also the mechanism that does and can drive them further. Such a teacher can understand how the individual student’s knowledge of L1 parallels with that of his TL, how the learners apply individual learning strategy and intake to what extent, how to progress through ensuring participation and development of entire class, how to address strengths and especially weak areas, and above all, how to guide through the learners in class.
In ESL training, the first change that is brought about is incorporating a structured approach to teaching on a classroom level. That is, in most cases, it stresses on planning an effective lesson where the objectives of both teacher and students are clearly defined driving the purpose of every step of the plan. This contributes immensely to the effective learning by the students. The most typical scenario before the trained teacher’s arrival is that, classes are sessions of almost one sided lectures where students have very little to do actively. The first feature of the new class that works towards the positive achievement by the students is a workable plan of the lesson of that class where there is a balance between the student and teacher talk time and specifically directed and well thought out purposeful scopes for the students to take part in the lesson actively through relevant and creative interaction. The part that is often missing in a typical class is the student- opportunity to participate actively. That opportunity can be created and maintained only through careful and purposeful step- wise planning. Creating such opportunity confirms effort from the part of the learners which work as an investment psychologically evoking a sense or need of personal growth in the actual use of language. Anything learnt through direct effort rather than trying to conceptualize listening passively and participating occasionally, is way more effective in terms of comprehension and retention.
As obvious logically, the second help provided by ESL training is assigning useful and important roles to students making them feel their significance in the process of teaching and learning. Motivation is one of the prime factors that goes a long way in ensuring effective learning on the part of the students. An ESL trained teacher gets to know this fact and to ensure that effectiveness, he/ she is most likely to design the classes as such. Consequently, the learners get the chance of act with a sense of control and role when assigned with specific responsibility as a part of the lesson- task. Corrective and positive feedback in such cases also ensures intrinsic motivation of the students through the manner in which they are delivered. This brings us to the very important conceptual and practical help that the trained teacher provides; considering Errors. While a general teacher at one point was critical to mistakes, that very person would treat errors through techniques like repetitive self-reflection or peer correction or feedback and end the part by eliciting and drilling holistically across the class ensuring practice of all. This makes errors appear like opportunity of learning further. That is the most motivating aspect of the ESL classroom which shatters any inhibition of individual shyness of making mistake in front of peers and be mocked at due to that. In language learning that is a breakthrough.
An ESL classroom shifts the locus of control, partly and in a directed manner, from teacher to learners, and in so doing acknowledge the importance of the roles learners play. Such as, and ESL trained teacher lets the learners choose topic to work on, ground rules to follow and even timeline for submissions so that learners themselves remain alert and out of a sense of duty and involvement, maintain whatever they decide. This method works on a subconscious level and makes the learners be actively involved in and responsive to the lesson. Such learner- effort, in turn, allows great intrinsic drive and sense of satisfaction that makes retention almost permanent.
An ESL trained teacher designs and conducts lesson in such way that ensures active involvement of all the students in class. He elicits randomly that would demand general alertness, conducts drill holistically that allows both strong and weak students chance to be reinforced in the correct form or language item, allows peer feedback for ensuring all around interaction with active task involvement and the like. Applying such techniques gives learners chance to remain focused on lesson uninterrupted as much as possible. In the process of learning, such techniques provide technical, psychological, cognitive and learning support to the learners in various levels. It demonstrates an almost transformation from what the class was to what the class is with what points of responsibility and easy potential.
As mentioned before, an ESL trained teacher considers various factors in planning a lesson that aids positive achievement of the learners’ part. One of the very important such precondition to effective learning is ensuring comprehension. Such a class introduces new knowledge in such amount that is comfortable for the learners to add to their existing schemata or knowledge of the language. Parallels are drawn with their L1 so that they can internalize the semantics of the TL in a comparative manner and multiply on based on it. Similar real life parallels are elicited so that the learners can view the connection of what they are learning with their reality beyond classroom and class final examinations, and in so doing, retain the knowledge forever through real use. Such reality parallels help understand the language and internalize it more effectively.
An ESL class synchronizes the content of the lesson most effectively with the supplementary and direct aids to make the lesson most effective in terms of lesson, contextual and grammar contents. Not that the use of such audio visual aids are new to be introduced but ESL training ensures the effective application of such familiar aids with different competence levels of learners; both individually and in groups. Such as, choosing which poster to use to teach which grammar item is also a matter of expert choice since the effectiveness of the lesson would depend on the right choice of the material. Correct choice of material eases the learner’s identifiability with the lesson.
ESL tasks are also designed to help learners learn very effectively step by step. In a traditional classroom, there is hardly any specific task design except for one or two central themes, often offered by the text lesson. An ESL class is designed involving mediating steps of activity for every single task leading to the objective of the class where learners always have their individual, group, pair and skill enhancing roles to play. Every single step enables them to learn each helpful bit leading to the completion of the learning objective from the part of the learner. It also eases the process of learning for the learner providing a sense of direction and growth with the structured and conscious pattern that such designed tasks offer. This enables the learners to internalize all bits of the language- knowledge very effectively and functionally.
Then again, such a class is student centered and activity based. While the classes where a concept is discussed in lecture or in illustrations or texts, an ESL class offers the scope of functionally using it in various patterns and contexts before simply reading out the textual definition or examples for deductive paralleling leading to the metalinguistic term. This activity based approach makes the learners apply first hand and understand the use of the language in that pattern and then come to know the terms and traditional definitions.
Such a trained teacher also involves relevant and overall review of what is done, to find out areas of further development and required repetition for effective and successful internalization through the next lesson plan. Re-planning is conducted so that the content of the lesson is fully internalized to a functional extent. Based on that, further follow up activity is also designed to ensure effective practice and multi- level application of the lesson content. In any course of teaching and learning, follow up is the step that ensures continuation of the learning beyond classroom and the prospect of mere examinations. This helps learners assess themselves beyond the sense of security of the setting of schools and classes and explore the functional relevance and reality of the content taught in the classroom. This again contributes immensely to their motivation, sense of growth, capacity development in real contexts, and spontaneous intake of the lesson content.
Beyond this obvious set of changes, are some very fascinating but subtle aspects of the class of an ESL trained teacher which help the learners’ positive achievement in terms of learning in the course and of overall development and capacity building.
The very first novelty such a class offers is an atmosphere of interaction ensured by effective planning of the lessons. In a traditional class, learners’ achievement depends on the uniquely personal rate of effort and drive that they personally exert to ensure learning on their own accord. Class structure, design, content and even teaching staff hardly have much to do with his/ her performance. The scenario in and objective of an ESL class, however, is completely different. The very objective of ESL training is to create classes where even monitoring is meant to help learners learn their lesson. An ESL trained teacher would design the class or lesson in such way that, even the weakest learner in the class would get enough scope to participate or learn from the response of the peers and from the way activities or steps are designed. In such a class, every single step is meant to help the learning process of all sorts and competence levels of learners. So naturally, the achievement on the part of the learners is bound to be positive if implemented and maintained successfully.
ESL classes are trained student centered classes where most of the activities are designed to make the learners participate in the lesson- process and learn through active effort. In such a class, the student talk time is much more than teacher talk time. Activities are often in groups where the presence of the teacher is only as a facilitator who initiate and assist the effort by the learners while trying to complete the given task. Groups and pairs in such cases are also designed in a away that would address the proficiency levels of every member in the group. Corrective patterns like peer feedback and holistic elicitation and choral drill etc. are some structures through which collective knowledge- body is utilized to unlearn the old and faulty and learn the new and accurate bit of information. That is how feedback and examples are drawn from within the learners which make the lesson identifiable with very comfortably. This eases their learning process contributing immensely to their positive achievement.
The stark difference that an ESL class introduces is the activity based approach learning and teaching with real life associations. In any level, learning is fruitful when its real life implication is clearly realized. An ESL classroom is designed in a way that would incorporate real time contexts and learners are put to act based on such contexts which are mostly relevant to their lives outside classroom. This, in turn, aids their learning in a practical way culminating their retention and association with reality outside classroom context.
One of the most problematic elements in a language class is the way grammar is introduced and the impact that approach has on the learning of the students. Usually, grammar is the part that the students find most difficult and boring to study. And it often remains a challenge to introduce grammar in a lively and interesting way to the learners, so that they can feel up to pay active attention to it to understand it. This is where ESL training steps in with some credible solutions for the classrooms; a functional and inductive way of introducing and manipulating grammar. What makes grammar of any language insufferable to the students is the metalanguage and theoretical interpretations attached to its traditional materials and approach. An ESL trained teacher, rather than interpreting, puts the learner into realistic contexts and make them use the particular grammar category meaningfully to complete assigned tasks. This leads them beyond the ambiguity of terminology and its conceptual relevance which remains unclear ultimately without putting into realistic and relevant context and use. ESL trained teacher pays adequate heed to the mental process that works behind learning of a language and plans in such a way that the application of the grammar category is explored at first to practical length and conceptual extent. By the time learners finish the given task, they have understood the concept, its connection to reality, its functional implication beyond classroom, and, in the meantime, get much idea of what its significance might be in the language. After that understanding, when the definition is, in most cases, elicited, it evokes a sense of growth among the learners rather than awe or irritation. It is only obvious how much it contributes positively to the achievement of the learners.
It is not only the approach, content, material, aids, learner group from where learning difficulty emerges. Often, it is the arrangement of the class which creates inconsistency in learning rate and quality. An ESL trained teacher is trained to set the class starting from the seating arrangement to considering the availability of light and air in different positions of the class. Placement of materials during a class is also considered by such a teacher who ensures that the material is visible to all learners from across the class. He/ she also monitors that no such technique is applied during class activity which would exclude any of the learners present in the class at any point of time. He also makes sure that, when a student is giving his effort to study, no teaching technical or task related method should hinder the student- effort. All such consideration of the rudiments of class design and conduction is taken care of by the teacher which makes the life and learning of students easier and more productive.
The relationship between the practice of an ESL trained teacher and learners’ positive achievement is a parallel one where the more teacher maintains the ESL teaching practice the more learners get scope of developing their skill and competence in English. A transitional phase is going on in terms of teaching methodology all over the world and ESL training is one of such key forces that is empowering teachers with different and more effective strategies, techniques and methods. In turn, they are being able to contribute immensely to enhance the potential of each and every member of their class. The learners are getting aware of what precisely they are doing in the process of learning and this very fact giving rise to their conscious sense of confidence, gradually building capacity and spontaneously advancing drive of learning more and more. This and all the discussed factors above cumulatively contribute vastly to the positive achievements of learners in an ESL classroom.
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