One thing that I have realized about teaching English to lower level students is that less is more. It is wishful thinking to expect college age exchange students to learn and remember all the vocabulary and grammar structures in a short amount of time - living in the Bay Area with so much to explore, who has time to study?! Attention span is one thing, the right motivation is another. Rather than bombarding them with lists of vocabulary words to remember and too much homework where nothing seeps in, much like tossing them into a lion's den (figuratively speaking), it can empower students when they begin to remember/memorize the definitions of just a few words in real-life authentic contexts. Tailoring to the realistic expectations of your students, no matter how little it may seem, can boost your students' confidence and motivation levels to use what they are learning in useful contexts.
Sometimes less is more, especially in the language classroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment