When I first started reading books about teaching English to Very Young Learners, I came across an interesting idea. Why is it that one teacher can teach a very young learner 100 words in a year, and another 1,000 words?
I was very clear about what kind of teacher I wanted to be.
I wanted to be the teacher that could teach them 1,000 words in their first year.
With a little more experience under my belt, today, I’d say that this is no longer the case.
My priorities have shifted a lot.
These days, I see my first priority as protecting the emotional well-being of the children. I have (and would) leave anywhere that asked me to compromise that value.
My second priority is to impart (or evoke) a love of learning to the child.
I spend a lot of time thinking about how best I can do that, and it is very much a work in progress. Like my dentist, I really care about the quality of the service I provide, and I spend an enormous amount of time to deliver the best possible outcome for the child.
It seems to me that, when a child gets to the primary school age, they can learn more rapidly. In the course of one lesson, older children can pick up as much as eight or more vocabulary words, and sometimes a grammar structure. It is much easier for them to do this than it is for a four year-old. Creating stress by teaching them too much, too early, can lead to the children not enjoying learning or languages. Its quite possible they could hold this attitude to learning for their entire life.
My sense is that the reverse is possible, too. That one powerful positive learning experience provided by a school or teacher can affect a child for life. This has certainly been my personal experience.
After fanning a child’s inherent love of learning, my next priority would be to teach the children English.
Sadly, I’ve seen many children that have picked up a lot of language because they had a teacher that was technically gifted. However, the teacher managed the classroom in such a way that the children hated them, and did not enjoy learning, or being in the classroom. So, even if those children learned 1,000 words in a year, to me, that still counts as a failure.
